I took a mini-break from the blog yesterday because I went and spent the morning/afternoon with my parents. We had a lovely time and I was so tired by the time I got back that I just didn’t want to put up a blog post. But I also know that if I don’t maintain my habit of blogging, I will likely stop posting and never post again. So I’m making this post before I head out to feed the horses their breakfast.
This year I’ve been trying the Powersheets Goal Planner to gain clarity, set goals, and try to really ramp up my art business. It was an expensive planner for me to get, but I made purchasing it work and I’ve been loving the entire thing so far. (This post is not sponsored and I’m not an affiliate, just someone who loves this planner so far and has been enjoying the features!) You do prep work at the beginning of the planner to get clear about what’s important to you and then set large goals for the year. Then each month you pick some goals to focus on, brainstorm action ideas, and set yourself monthly, weekly, and daily tasks on the Tending List. I use these pages to plan out my entire month, then use my Daily Task Manager pad to set a schedule and tasks for each day.
So, here are my goals for the month of February, in no particular order.
- Create 15 new pieces (Including some smaller pieces… I’m hoping watercolor!)
- Ride my horse 10 times – this has been harder than it should be because the weather has been a nightmare and we don’t have an indoor arena.
- Apply to 3 vendor events (have sent in an application for 1 so far)
- Create an income/expense spreadsheet (signed up for Wave Accounting instead and have been using it to track income and purchases for my art business)
- List new prints on shops (Have you checked out the LizStaley.com shop or Etsy lately? Lots of new stuff on both!)
- Find more blogs or magazines to write for to reach a wider audience
- Blog three times a week
- Release one new video on YouTube a week
- Post regularly on social media
- Research some charities to partner with. Giving back to the community is very important to me so I’d love to include more charitable donations in my business plan this year!
By the way, you can now get Birthstone Horses shirts on Amazon! I’ve actually had shirts available on Amazon for awhile, but the designs I had up weren’t selling, so I’ve decided to replace them with these (and hopefully get the other designs back up at some point). You can go directly to the shirts on Amazon by clicking the image below!
I will be adding more shirts to Amazon as I can, however the way that this program works is different from other t-shirt storefronts I have. With Amazon, you have only so many design “slots”, and as you sell more shirts you rank up and get more slots. I am currently on the lowest level and only have 10 design slots, so I can’t put up all the months until I open up more slots. This means I have to get more people to buy shirts on Amazon! So if you know someone who would love one of these designs, please share the link with them! I need to sell 7 more shirts before I can get to the next tier, so there’s still a ways to go but I know we can do it.