Happy New Year! The past 24 hours have been filled with lots of laughter, fun, and an amazing group of new and old friends, which has me ready to jump right into 2014. I accomplished some huge goals through my resolutions last year, so I'm excited to see what this year has in store. I couldn't narrow down my resolutions to just a few, so I have divvied them up into a couple categories. Here are my 2014 resolutions, or 2014 bucket list if you will...
Design
Finish What I Start I frequently convince myself to not complete projects because I don't have the required skill level, or the time to finish. This year I'd like to make it a goal to complete all the design projects I start, including several things I've promised I'd do for Eric's band, things I've talked about doing for work, or any of the three Skillshare classes I paid for but have been sitting idle for the last 2-9 months.
Be More Open A big takeaway from the design conferences I attended last year was that everyone makes mistakes or struggles with doing something in their work. I'm often too afraid to share my work or my process because I feel like it's not good enough or my mistakes are just novice mistakes. In reality, sharing my work or experiences would not only help me out, it would probably help out another designer. In addition to writing and talking about my work, I want to get my work out there more. Dribbble has proven to be an amazing inspirational resource for me and a great way for me to connect with other designers, but I hardly use it enough to share my own work. I'd like to start posting to Dribbble once a week, and leave a helpful or encouraging comment to another user once a week as well (it's crazy that I don't already do this considering the amount of time I spend on this site!).
Sketch Once A Day This is my most terrifying resolution. If you read this post, you know I dread putting a pencil to paper. However, I know my work could be so much better if I could kick my old drawing skills back into gear. So I'm making this my own version of the 365 project and sketching everyday, even if it's just for 5 minutes. And perhaps since I'm being more open now, I'll post them up somewhere!
Personal
Worry Less About The Future This is going to be another tough resolution for me. Looking back at the last couple years...er my entire life, some of my lowest moments were when I was stressed out about the possibility of something happening or not happening in the future. I'm pretty bad about worrying over issues that are not even on my horizon. While I know worrying a little about the future can be a good thing, I'd like to go through 2014 without having a meltdown or argument over something that isn't affecting me in the present. If anyone has any tips for this, let me know!
Watch Less TV Does this look familiar? Haha. I love TV, I really do. I love winding down at night to watch my favorite shows with Eric, I love talking about it with friends, and I love just having it on as background noise while I'm on my computer. But, did I really need to watch every episode of East Los High or The Real World last year? There's just too much to do and I'm spending too much time binge watching TV. With that, I'm planning on only watching TV on the weekends this year (with the exception of the upcoming season of the Bachelor, because that would just ruin a roommate ritual!)
Learn To Sew Another resolution deja vu. My sewing equipment is taking up too much space and too much money out of my bank account. You heard it here, if I don't learn this year, I am getting rid of everything!
Keep Up With Running As you know, I'm already in deep with running. Just to make sure I keep up with it this year I'd like to make it a goal to run in at least five new places and run in two races–neither of which will be a marathon :)
Improve My Photography Skills I got a great new mirrorless camera last year that has allowed me to experiment with photography more than I ever could with my old point and shoots. I'd love to eventually get a DSLR as well, but not unless I'm absolutely positive I'd take the time to learn how to use it and actually use it. Eric got me a new lens for Christmas, so this year I'd like to take the time to challenge my photography skills a bit more and possibly create a few more videos like I did here.
Blog
Yep, the blog is getting it's own set of resolutions this time!
Blog Once A Week Perfectly attainable, hoping it'll be easier with all my no-tv time!
Write What I'm Passionate About Over the last two years I tried out a lot of different types of posts. I tried out a lot of posts that were similar to other blogs I'd read, I tried doing weekend photo posts, design gallery type posts, weekly column-type posts, none of which ended up being a good fit. In the end, the easiest posts for me to write and that I think were the best received were about things I truly cared about, be it something I designed, or running, or even a trip I went on. This year I'm going to try and not mimic other blogs and just post about things I want to share.