Another Year Gone By

Well life certainly gets interesting.

I'll spare you the details of the last 6 months or so but I do apologize for the lengthy lapse in posting. I wanted to devote this post, mostly, to a declaration of resolutions/intentions/goals/whatever-word-you-choose for the year.

Last year's resolution to draw something every day was a bit ambitious; but I'm proud of my progress! I drew something every single day in the months of January, February, March, April, May, June, and October. That's 7 months! Pretty good! The remaining months didn't go un-drawn—I just didn't stick to it daily. Overall, fairly successful—and I would say that I even have a few nice pieces to show for it.

This year, I think I'm going to be a little broader, a little more vague, and a little more all-inclusive.

I tend to think of these goals in categories.

In the "Art" Category:
My goal is to illustrate one book this year. One day, I'd love to write my own book and illustrate that, but in the interest of scope, I'm going to leave the writing to someone else this time. My first thought was The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. However, I read the short story and learned that the original isn't very interesting in comparison to all of the other media that has been made about it after the fact. So instead, I will be illustrating The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This novella is super interesting and the musical is my favorite! So, I have a great deal of excitement about it already.

In the "Work" Category:
Now that my work life has settled, I'm really quite happy. I'll work on little things this year like being more productive or working through moments of lesser motivation. Mostly, I just want to learn a LOT about this design field and attempt to develop some sort of mastery in it. I don't want to take this job for granted because it's the best I've ever had so I will really want to make the most out of it this year.

In the "Personal" Category:
I feel as though I have a lot of work to do here. I'm just struggling. I let things stress me out more than I should. I take things for granted more than I should. I'm motivated when I can't do anything about it. I'm unmotivated when I have the time. I'm restless. I'm tired. I'm stressed. There are a lot of things to work on. Once more in the interest of scope (can you tell that I've been working for a consulting agency for 7 months now?) I'm going to try to pick a few to work on. I've given it a little thought and I believe that these 3 will be the focus:

1. Taking Things One Step at a Time—Instead of obsessing about everything at once and collapsing under the pressure, I am going to try to focus on one thing at a time. When I finish that thing, I will work on another thing.
2. Re-Defining Myself—I've spent a very long time making decisions about who I am and what I want based on the presence of others—family, friends, and most notably—boyfriends. I need to figure out who I am and what I want before I try to share my life with someone else on any sort of permanent level. When things are broken in my relationship, I feel like a broken person myself. That isn't healthy.
3. Running More Consistently—When things stress me out or when I feel the need to physically run away from a situation, I always find solace in jogging through the neighborhood with some music that I enjoy and unwinding. I've begun the "Couch to 5k" program so that I don't hurt myself (my problem with running is that my endurance tends to outlive my legs so I push too hard too soon and get injured). Maybe I'll enter a race. Maybe I won't. But it'll be something good for me to do for myself.

Mostly, I want to work on being happier and feeling more fulfilled. Who doesn't? These are the ways in which I'm going to try to chip away at that utopia for 2014.

Rock on.