Visual Goal Setting and Manifesting
I think I may be the odd one out, but I love New Year’s Resolutions. I enjoy taking stock of the goals I’ve met, and starting with a blank slate of new milestones I want to reach. BUT, I don’t limit myself to this exercise only once a year!
Every season, I create a list of goals with note cards and headers right on my bedroom wall! Small Goals/Local Activities, Big Goals/Travel, and Personal Goals. The goals on my wall range from tasks and adventures for the whole family, as well as personal accomplishments I’m working toward. Seeing those goals every day helps keeps me on task!
One of my big BIG goals for this year is to finally get my illustrating career in motion. I have managed to create art no matter what my job has been, but I haven’t prioritized my personal projects or dreams. I’ve painted windows, created photo props, marketing materials, branding, and program supplies during my five years as a librarian. But the most valuable experience in that position was constant exposure to children’s books! In my current position as a book buyer for an award-winning toy store, I am constantly immersed in the world of children’s books. I have never been more motivated to write, illustrate, and publish my own book!
So, for this goal, I created a visual goal-tracker: a skill tree!
Illustrator Skill Tree
As a visual person, I can imagine climbing the branches of this tree as I accomplish each goal. I like that I get to break one big goal into less-intimidating manageable pieces. I opted to use post-its so I can rearrange as needed and even change out goals altogether as they are accomplished. I realize that I don’t know what I don’t know, so I wanted to leave space for tasks I didn’t consider or know about when I started.
Other visuals I use for goal setting veer into manifesting, and let me tell you, I do love to get a bit witchy.
For the past three years, I’ve created a mood-board of my goals as a background photo for my phone. I distill my biggest goals down into somewhere around eight images that I look at daily throughout the year. This keeps my goals top-of-mind, and it’s also beautiful, which counts for a lot in my book. This may also sound a little silly, but each year, I fill my Christmas tree with ornaments that correspond with goals for the year to come.
I will also periodically write my goals and manifestations down during the full moon using my own personal rituals.
I also love sketching out visual to do lists when I have a lot of creative projects brewing!
It helps me to both have a catalog of ideas, it helps me to track and prioritize! This one was from the holidays a couple years ago, and I actually did accomplish most of these projects!
Finally creating this website, with major help from my friend, Jill, is a big step towards getting me where I want to be! Thank you for being here and following along as I try to get vulnerable and make this dream happen! I’m trying to “do it scared” as they say, and realize I’ll never feel ready. But by setting goals and creating visuals, I can get a whole lot closer to being ready for the right opportunity!