My goals for 2020
Let me tell you my goals for 2020. But let’s start at the beginning.
2020 commenced with a bang, don’t you think? I mean, it’s only February (ONLY February? What am I saying?? It’s ALREADY February! Gah!) and it feels like we’ve lived through another year already. SO MUCH HAS HAPPENED. It’s not fair that we should be tired at the start of the year, is it?? But that seems to be how it is – at least for me.
I have to admit, I didn’t welcome the New Year with open arms. It was more like fear and trepidation. Because, to be honest, last year was a tough one. And then the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 kind of just blurred together in a raucous mess of school holidays and 6 kids to look after and keeping them occupied and managing the struggle of no school routine (that’s my struggle I’m referring to there!) and people visiting and cooking food constantly… And then we had the pleasure of adding into that the stress of family issues and health issues and financial pressures.
So when you can’t see an end to something, it’s hard to get excited about another year of it, you know?
My church has an annual fast at the beginning of the year which I have found to be immensely helpful in preparing myself for the year ahead. And as much as I DO NOT LIKE (is hate too strong a word?) fasting (I don’t care if it’s medical or spiritual – fasting is the pits – and if you ask my husband he’ll tell you exactly how much I don’t like fasting haha!) I do find it SO helpful to quiet the noise around me, gather myself for the year ahead and know where me and my family are heading.
I also set time aside late last year to do a business plan for Wife-made and think about my goals for 2020. I used this one by Fiona Killackey of My Daily Business Coach. I found the approach used by Fiona in this workbook to be enormously beneficial and *thankfully* lacking the fluff and awkwardness that makes me cringe in a lot of the planning approaches I’ve come across. In fact, I probably need to read over it every month to make sure I’m staying on track with my goals. Suffice to say, I HIGHLY recommend this planner. If you’re needing direction, invest in this one. I’ll be going back to it next year as well.
So what are my goals for 2020 and where am I heading this year? Well, I can tell you a bit about where Wife-made is heading, that’s for sure!
Wife-made Goals for 2020
Paper patterns
If you follow me on Instagram you may have seen me post about my new pattern layout that I contracted Bec from We Have Colour to design for me. Here’s a couple pics from my Strudel pattern if you don’t know what I’m talking about…
One of my goals for 2020 is to get all my patterns reformatted for paper printing so that I can start stocking them in brick and mortar stores around the world. Imagine! Little ol’ me sending patterns in quilting shops all over the world! How good would that be?!
Unfortunately I also need to rework some of my older patterns because I’ve learned A LOT about pattern writing since releasing my first pattern and I want to make sure I’m 100% happy with all of my patterns before committing them to paper. So it will take time and in amongst releasing new patterns and making samples, time is something I sorely lack. Never mind, there’s no point in getting worked up about things I can’t control. First and foremost I’m a stay-at-home Mum to four beautiful kids who need me more than ever now and I’m learning to accept what each day holds, or probably more accurately, accept what it DOESN’T hold.
Foster creativity
Another goal is to start proactively fostering my creativity. The last couple of weekends I have set time aside to do something other than pattern writing and quilting. It has been wonderful for my creative brain and I feel like I’ve made some exciting leaps that I have yearned for for so long. There’s definitely something to be said for creative inertia. When it gets it’s claws into you it can be hard to break. My only advice is, do the thing that you don’t want to do. You won’t regret it. But I also know how hard it is to do it, especially when you’re sleep deprived and looking after a family. So, no pressure. Do it when you can 😉
In just a couple of hours one Saturday afternoon I made this wool blanket collage that is now hanging on the wall in Rosie’s room. I’d been thinking about it for a while, and I finally had an afternoon free and absolutely no excuses, so I got out my scraps, some glue and a piece of watercolour paper and I started cutting.
And below is what came of it! I can’t wait to explore this more. I have some ideas that I’m hoping to play around with this week – maybe even this afternoon if I can get this post finished and my email newsletter done…
The Saturday just gone was a very rainy day and not one for leaving the house, so we felt completely at ease with letting the kids watch TV for hours and spend the day doing whatever we wanted. Sometimes you just need that, don’t you think?
Another creative pursuit I’ve been wanting to foster is painting, so I used the opportunity to get out my gouache paints and start playing. At the end of the day, in amongst putting load after load of washing in the dryer, feeding hungry humans etc I managed to finish it!
This is the first painting I’ve completed that I really love. I feel like I have actually managed to express my personal creative style through the medium of painting for the first time ever in this piece. It’s a hard feeling to explain and I don’t think there’s anything else I can say to describe it, other than feeling like I’ve reached the summit of a little mountain in a mountain range I’ve been climbing for ages. It’s not the big peak in the mountain range, but it’s a peak nonetheless and should be celebrated as such, if you ask me!
Be consistent
I think all my goals for 2020 come under the banner of being more consistent overall. To show up more and be more consistent with everything I’m doing. That means consistent blogging, consistent monthly email newsletters, consistent social media posts, consistent work, consistent creative practice, consistent consistent consistent!
The thing about having small children is that consistency is very difficult to achieve. When you are at the beck and call of a RUTHLESS and COMPLETELY UNREASONABLE newborn or toddler (because, let’s be real, that’s what they are! Have you ever tried to reason with a one year old? Yes. Did you win? No.) you have very little control over what you can do with your time. And the reality is… consistency is unreality. There is nothing consistent about little babies. Well, not mine anyway!
Thankfully it is starting to ease for me now with my youngest being 2.5 (so for those of you out there in the throes of little kid life, have hope! It does end!) and I am actually able to start to put in place ways of being more consistent, while still accommodating the inconsistencies of life (I realise how contradictory that sentence sounds.).
What are your goals for 2020? Are you a ‘word of the year’ type? Or a staunch follower of plans and lists and ticking boxes? How do you manage your year? So much has changed for me in how I get things done over the last ten years. Having kids tends to do that, wouldn’t you say? 😉
Hi Xanthe,
I too felt that 2019 was full of emotionally exhausting challenges and was/am slow taking stock and getting started this year.
Afterall, we are so much more than women. It is easy to lose track of the roles and identities we juggle on a daily basis. In saying that, I kind of love it too. It is totally empowering, when we think of all we do, that’s a pretty incredible reminder of how amazing we are.
Something we never tell ourselves often enough…or that we are human…with our limits, which is a good thing too.
Consistency is always on my list too. I am slow and steady and tend to do things in spurts and bursts. It’s kind of strange that it takes a lifetime to figure ME out, how I tick, my momentum but I really love the process. Making lists, and setting goals and intentions helps me visualise and keep myself accountable.
It’s great reading and chatting with others about how they do what they do. 😊
Hi Tina! I definitely agree that we don’t give ourselves enough credit for everything we do in a day! I’m finding more and more than my day gets chewed up with small chores (that usually involve a lot of driving!) and I feel like I’m constantly on the run. So it is good to look back at the day and think, even though perhaps I didn’t get to everything on my list, that it was a good day and to not be disappointed by it. On the consistency, my creative personality is of the ilk that likes shiny new things and it is a big thing for me to commit to something through the difficult seasons. It’s not a trait I like about myself because I know it’s when we push through the difficult times is when we really start to see things happen! BUT I am encouraged that I am changed, which is all we can do! Persevering and patiently waiting for change 🙂
Love this blog post Xanthe. Dipping my toes into more creative pursuits is definitely one of my goals, one that started in 2019 and I hope to continue throughout 2020. I love your art works you created, and finding time between four children! Don’t know how you do it!? Rockstar 🤘 I have just signed up for your newsletter, look forward to reading more 🙂
Thanks Kara – thanks for commenting! It’s so good to have a creative outlet and I’m finding it so beneficial to broaden myself creatively as well. There’s so much to be said for exploration!