Happy Monday folks! I hope you all had a fabulous weekend... mine was full of food, relaxation and fun. This morning I woke up still in weekend mode- definitely not ready to return to my day job but looking forward to attending another
CRAVE event tonight!
As I was browsing through my Google reader this morning, I came across
a lovely post on BluLabel Bungalow about perseverance. Erika fabulously put into words the necessity to just keep moving toward your goals, despite what others around you are doing or saying, and regardless of your personal fears.
After reading her post I thought it was a perfect time for me to
revisit my goals for 2010, since it's been a couple months. Here are the goals I set for myself back in December:
- Volunteer more,
- Get out and network
- Develop a social life in Atlanta
- Reach 1000 subscribers on this blog
- Be credit card debt free
- Get a Wacom Tablet
- Produce commissioned artwork
- Complete a room design.
I'm so proud to say that by forcing myself to get out I've made some great new friends here in Atlanta and I've started spending more time with people I knew before I moved here. I look forward to the weekends now, and I actually have to budget for all the events I've been attending lately. It's been great, and definitely makes Atlanta feel more like home.
I've been using my Wacom tablet to do the WIW sketches and all the work I do in Photoshop, so I definitely feel that it was a worthwhile investment. However, I'm not using it to the fullest....
I did do one commissioned piece earlier this year, but I've been kind of slacking in my art for the last month or so.
As for the other 4 items.... I have yet to volunteer in any capacity this year and for that, I have NO excuse. TODAY, I'm going to sign up to volunteer somewhere. I've been putting this off for too long!
SingleBubblePop continues to grow more and more and I know this is due to my networking efforts. We're very close to 200 subscribers, which is more than DOUBLE where we were in Decemeber so I can't complain about that progress at all.
My credit card debt is getting smaller and smaller by the month and even though it's VERY tough to keep up with my payment plan, I'm sticking with it. I even passed up on moving into my dream apartment this month so that I could continue paying down my debt aggressively. I also made the smart step to move the remainder of my balance from a
very high interest card to a 0% interest card so that I can pay off the rest of the principal faster. The sacrifice will be worth it!
I have yet to complete a room design in real life, but I continue to practice by creating room designs for this blog, like the one I posted on
Friday!
This goal is my hardest goal and I realize I have not been putting forth enough effort towards making this happen. Being an Interior Designer is what I want to do for a living. I believe that I WILL be doing Interior Design full time in the near future, and yet
I don't spend even part-time hours on making this happen. That's a hard thing to admit, but it is the truth. Working full-time in a pointless position for a completely unrelated field really drains my motivation, but that's no excuse.
I need to give myself some homework to keep myself focused. Here are some
new goals that I think will help me get to where I want to be, and stop dragging my feet.
- Become an ASID Allied Member. In school, I really didn't see the benefit of being an ASID member, but now as an aspiring Interior Designer I realize the importance of having a professional alliance to vouch for my education and credibility. Until I develop my own body of work, I need some way to establish myself as a valid design professional.
- Obtain my business license. I've been dragging my feet on this for several reasons. Mainly, fear or failure and as silly as it may be, the inability to come up with a name I love! I'm giving myself till the end of May to get it together and get my license.
- Invest in the rest of the tools I need. You may be surprised to know that I've been doing all the work that I do for my blog and such from a $300 netbook I bought last fall. This makes it very difficult to do what I do, but I make do! If I want to make my work my profession, then I need professional tools. A real computer and software are investments I need to make very soon.
- Finish my website redesign. This really ties into having the tools that I need, as well. I have been working on redesigning my website for over a month now. And because I can never settle on a design and keep changing the content, I haven't finished. Now, if I wasn't creating graphics in Photoshop Elements and then writing the code by hand in Notepad, it would be a lot quicker for me to edit and test my website. BUT, I'm making due with what I have and I'm very close to finishing.
- Actively solicit work as an Interior Designer. I haven't made any steps to promote myself as an Interior Designer to potential clients. Although I've spent energy networking, and I'm sure this will lead to some word of mouth referrals, but that's not enough! I want to be so busy that I can quit my "day job" by next year. I have a few ideas of how to make this happen, I just need to put them into action.
I'm going to make a commitment to make some of my TV time into "homework time" to actively work toward my new & old goals for this year. What can you do to work
smarter towards you goals?
So, if you read through all of that, BLESS YOU! The only reason why I get so details about my goals here is to inspire others to do the same. As an aspiring
entrepreneuress it's a constant battle to stay focused and motivated so I hope that by me being so transparent about my progress, I can inspire someone else to do the same.
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