Out of all the years I’ve lived, (31 to be exact as of me writing this) I’ve never really made any New Year’s Resolutions with the full intent on keeping them or achieving them. But there’s something different this time around. Something about this year seems a bit different and for the first time I’m going into a new year with the perfect mindset to pursue my goals and the motivation to achieve them.

A few days ago I decided that I would finally try utilizing a planner to keep track of and manage my days / weeks / year as well as projects and goals. I found a fairly simple digital planner template that works with GoodNotes 5 and it seems to be exactly what I need. In the past I’ve tried and failed at the whole planner thing, but I’ve never tried a digital one before. So with my newly found motivation for my work, I decided to try it out and stick with it as long as possible.

One of the pages in the planner had a page for Goal Setting. At first I started thinking about goals that related to my work and content plans. And the further I got along to thinking of more, it became more of a resolution list that I felt compelled to think of 12 of them and then post them here so I can have some sort of public accountability.

Below is a list of the 12 new year’s resolutions I came up with.

1. Grow audience on Patreon
2. Grow following on Instagram
3. Earn a minimum of $5k per month with digital products
4. Get featured in more design bundles
5. Get my work featured in more places / do more interviews about myself and my work
6. Grow audience on YouTube + TikTok
7. Launch super secret long term project
8. Write / Record / Release new music
9. Use my cameras more often to post at least 1 photo per day / 1 video per week
10. Write at least once per day
11. Document my day more often
12. Read at least 1 book per month

As you can see, a lot of it is based on my content and upcoming plans for myself and the things I enjoy doing. Some of it may seem fairly simple and mundane, but in the digital social world we live in, one must evolve and adapt to the way things are. No matter how annoying I think it is that it isn’t as easy to grow an audience and make your work seen by millions like it once was, there are ways to play the game and luckily it only involves me putting in more work and effort and having clearly defined goals.

Some of these goals can’t really be quantified with an end date but more of an ongoing parameter in which I will be able to tell if the amount of work I’m putting in is actually paying off. If numbers seem to be growing consistently than my usual rate of growth, then I’ll know I’m on the right track and can continue doing what I’m doing or adapt a new strategy that utilizes the wider audience of people that are interested in my work.

The main theme of the list of resolutions seems to be overall growth in the area that dominates my life, which is design. Like I mentioned in a previous post, the amount of time I’ve spent doing what I do and posting it online, one would think my work would be more widely known and I’d be much more well off. But the fact that I’ve operated for so long without clearly defined plans or long-term goals made me realize that it all falls on me whether or not I can live the kind of life I want to live.

Nobody is going to push me harder than I need to push myself. Nobody is going to make my work and projects come to life for me. It all falls on me. The sooner I realize it and act on it and stay the course and push through the hard times, the sooner I’ll be able to reach these goals I’ve written.

This post was mostly written as a form of public accountability with the hope that one day, maybe a year from now I’d look back on this list and say I achieved every single point on this list.