How to Make Progress Towards Your Creative Goals

Posted in how to be more creative, teacher tools

We’re almost two months into the new year. Are you making progress toward your goals?

“Fear of failure is highest when you’re looking at the ultimate destination. To reduce fear, close the gap. Focus on the smallest action that moves you forward.” Farnum Street

Pizza Project #52

My husband and I created a joint goal this year to have 52 new people over to our home for dinner. He’s the cook in the relationship; I’m the communicator and organizer. Over the last year, we’ve done a few pop-up events; they were fun but also hard, as we had to pack food, pizza ovens, tables, chairs, and dishes in our car for each event. We decided to take everything we loved from those events, iterate, and leave behind the stuff we didn’t love so much.

We didn’t love hauling everything, so we decided, what if we have people to our house? After setting 52 as a goal, we wondered, do we know 52 people? It turns out we do, and by the end of this month, we’ll already have hosted 30 people that we’ve never had to our house before.

Why is this project working so well?

  1. Accountability
  2. Small manageable tasks
  3. Clear tracking systems and progress check-ins

My husband and I are doing it together, holding each other accountable. We told family and posted on social media that this was something that we were committed to. (You’re 65% more likely to reach your goals if you tell other people what you’re pursuing.) We didn’t try to out 52 invites at a time. Instead we invite two people, then two more, then two more. And I created a system that makes tracking and sending out invites easy. The goal pushes us slightly out of our comfort zone but not too far, where the magic happens.

What are your goals?

When working towards a goal, whether it’s one that you set for yourself or that someone set for you like trying to complete a work project or school assignment, if you’re pushed too far outside of your comfort zone, you enter into the fear zone. In contrast if you understand how to go slightly outside of your comfort zone, you enter the zone of curiosity, which, my friend, is the most beautiful place to be. Curiosity is the catalyst for creativity and consistency.

I’ve been talking a lot about goal setting and planning lately, which might seem odd if you came to know me through my textile design work, illustration and book publishing work, or commitment to visual arts education.

I’m passionate about goal setting because it’s the foundation of so many things; I approach it through the lens of creativity. You MUST be Curious if you want to be creative, which means that you must find the magic spot between comfort and fear, and it’s much easier to do that if you learn how to plan and break things down. Most of the time, projects push us into fear because they’re too big. Instead, if you make the steps towards that big project small enough, you land right back in the magic spot of curiosity.

​The Breakdown: Creative Planning School​

I’ve named my newest course creative planning because too often we’re taught that to be creative, you need to have no plan, you need to sit and wait for inspiration to come, you need to float around and wait, but if you take that approach to creativity you’re going to miss so many opportunities.

Creative Planning School is now open, and is 50% off because it’s in BETA.

​Find out more and receive a special invitation to the course.