Would you love to reconnect with your creativity in 2025? Good news: a whole new year ahead is just brimming with opportunities and possibilities for connection and creative self-expression!
This time of year serves as a fabulous reset button: a chance to pause, to reflect on what we’ve accomplished, to acknowledge what we want to let go of, and to dream up what we want to bring in for the year to come.
Amidst all of the holiday celebrations with our loved ones, I like to have a mini celebration with myself: some quiet, intentional time spent to savour all that the year brought, and to chart a course for the year ahead.
Read on as we ring in a creative New Year with reflection and direction!
Reflection
It’s satisfying to look over the last year and see how far you’ve come (and I’m sure you’ve come far, whether it’s immediately obvious or not)! I like to come at it with a gentle lens – the goal isn’t to be critical, but to acknowledge the hard things you overcame, and to celebrate your wins, big and small.
Want to join me in reflection? Here’s a roadmap for three areas to reflect upon: the hard stuff, milestones, and achievements!
The Hard Stuff
Of course, we can’t bypass the hard stuff. Some years are full of frustration, unmet goals, and difficult times, and we want to acknowledge those as best we can, whether that’s by…
- Patting ourselves on the back for having made it through to today;
- Evaluating the source of difficulty so that we can address it and move forward from it; or
- Maybe even just sitting with the feeling.
That’s why it’s important to reflect with a lens of compassion first – we can’t make space for joy and optimism without also making space for grief and disappointment. (And if that’s where you’re at – big warm hugs to you.)
While some things just need to be felt, others can be reframed. For example, where we find disappointment in our progress, we might discover that we’ve set very high expectations for ourselves. That’s okay! We can pivot by appreciating the smaller steps that contribute to a bigger goal, and if we’re into goal setting (more on that below), maybe we can break our goals into smaller steps going forward.
Sometimes the hard stuff can serve as a roadmap for what we want to change. “Out with the old,” as they say! It can also inform what we want in. Was your year punctuated with burnout? Then what we want to release is the contributing factors (such as a habit of always saying “yes”, or maybe even the job itself), and what we want to bring in is something to counteract the burnout (such as prioritizing your creative time or engaging in another stress-reducing activity).
Milestones
I’m talking about those little markers of progress along your path. This is especially fun if you’ve kept a journal throughout the year! I like to flip through and pinpoint the big events that happened, enjoy the memory, and muse on what it meant to me.
If you don’t keep a journal, try flipping through your photos for the year like a visual diary. Maybe there are even a few you’d like to print out for yourself!
Going through your milestone memories is a wonderful opportunity for gratitude and appreciation. They’re also helpful to get us in the mindset of growth and celebration as we start to look forward to next year.
Want some milestone prompts? How about:
- Anniversaries (Was it your 2nd year doing a beloved hobby? Your 10th year at your current job? Your 30th year of friendship?)
- Quantities (Did you celebrate your 100th workout this year? How about your 10th crochet project? Maybe you read your 5th book from your “to read” list!)
- Firsts (Did you take a first step toward a dream this year, like starting to research a big trip, or enrolling in a course?)
Achievements
What’d you get done this year? I’m a planner, so I usually have a 5-year plan and a 1-year goal list on the go, and this is a perfect time to check in with what last-year-me was hoping to achieve this year, and how much of that I actually got done. I’m usually pleasantly surprised!
What if you didn’t feel like you achieved much?
Not to worry – there’s no need to think too “big”. Incremental progress is still progress, after all! It’s okay to be realistic about how much time you really have to dedicate to your goals. It helps to think about the what all of those incremental steps will eventually sum to, thanks to your efforts this past year. Celebrate any wins, big or small!
Just in case you need some prompts:
- Did you start something?
- Did you try something new?
- Did you develop a new creative habit?
- Did you finish a creative project?
- Did you get better at something?
- Did you learn something new?
Any wins there? Congratulations!
Direction
Hopefully your reflections have left you feeling optimistic and empowered. Now we can start looking forward, and find ourselves some direction as we head into the New Year!
Here are four things I like to do to plan for the year ahead:
Setting Goals
Goal-setting is a bit of an art, but a relatively simple approach is to start very broad and high-level, then narrow it down into practical pieces that can be carried out during the year:
- First, take some time to dream! I love to start with some uncensored “wildest dream” journaling to get into a mindset that is open to possibilities, in-tune with my core values and aware of my most sincere hopes and dreams. What would an amazing year look like? What would you accomplish? What habits might you get into?
- Next, what’s one thing you could do this year to take a step towards those big, lofty dreams? (Setting yourself up to appreciate all of your incremental process again next year!) If you have a big, lofty dream of being a published author one day, is this the year you outline the first draft of your book? Maybe this year you start a habit of writing thirty minutes per day, five days per week?
- Now that we’ve got some goals down that get us steps closer to our big, lofty dreams, let’s figure out how to make them happen. Do you need a habit tracker or a revised Google Calendar? Let’s refer back to our reflections on what we want to bring into the New Year, and the things we want to let go of, with an aim to make time and space for our greatest goals.
Choosing an Intention Word
An intention word is my preferred alternative to the traditional “New Year’s Resolution” because it serves as a guide for decision-making, which means you can integrate it into your daily life in many ways. In contrast, resolutions tend to focus on a result and they can foster a “pass-fail” mentality. The more I feel like I’m “failing”, the more likely I am to give up altogether.
My 2024 intention word was Authenticity. This was something I thought (and wrote) about a lot. I also brought authenticity into various aspects of my life – in workplace, in my social life, and in my creative projects in many ways.
Intention versus resolution
I like to use exercise to demonstrate the difference between an intention and a resolution. If I resolve to exercise say 3 days per week, it’s reasonable that I miss a day or two here or there. Of course, now I’ve not really kept to my resolution, and I may be less inclined to keep at my 3 day-per-week exercise regime since I’ve already fallen off it. What was the intention of that resolution, anyways? Probably to improve my physical health.
Health, as an intention word, moves me to exercise; it may not always be three times per week, but with the intention of “health” guiding me on a day-to-day basis, there is no perceived failure (at least, for me). If I missed a work out today, that’s okay – tomorrow is a new day, and the intention to embrace health is still alive and well.
The intention of “health” spills into the rest of my day-to-day life as well (how’s that for “gains”?). Formal workout aside, I might decide to walk up the stairs rather than taking the elevator, or do some squats while I’m watching a show. I might choose a healthier meal on a given day. I might also start thinking about my mental health and things I could do to support it. I might be more keenly aware of my emotional state and work self-care in when I need it.
It might seem more complicated because “health” touches so many more things, but for a busy mind, it’s actually much simpler. When you need to make a decision about your time, your nutrition, your state of mind, you have one guiding principle in the back of your mind: Health. What’s the healthier option?
How to choose your intention word
Want to give it a shot? How do you decide on your intention word? Consider:
- Going back to your reflections: Was there a common theme among those things you wanted less of and the things you wanted more of this year? In my burnout example, a great intention word might be “balance”.
- If you did the goal-setting exercise, is there a general guiding principle that would help you move toward those big, lofty dreams (or the small steps on the way)? Maybe a lot of it is outside your comfort zone; in that case, “courage” might be fitting.
- Otherwise, choose anything that calls to you! You might journal about your values, things you struggle with, things you’d like to improve upon, current or upcoming circumstances, or just listen to your intuition, and let that guide you.
It’s now nearly the end of my Authenticity year, and for the coming year I went through the process of reflection, considered what I hope to achieve this coming year, and listed out 6 words that captured what I wanted to bring into 2025. I picked what I thought would be the most unifying, supportive, and impactful!
(Read more about how my intention words have shaped my creative journey, and my pick for 2025!)
Making a Vision Board
This one is so fun to do, especially if you’re crafty and love visuals! There’s a wealth of vision board inspiration out there, and they can be done in any way that speaks to you. The vision board is essentially a collage that captures your goals, hopes and dreams. It’s meant to be inspiring and motivational, and looking at it every day can help you align with your deepest wishes for your future.
Steps to create an effective vision board:
- Decide on a format. The most effective vision board is one you’ll see every day! Some vision boards are huge and go on the wall of a bedroom or closet. Others are desktop-sized and can be placed in a home office space, kitchen, or bedside table. Last year I tried making a digital vision board and used it as a background for my phone, and that worked for me!
- Decide on a theme or a focal idea if you feel you need one. You could go for breadth by creating a board that speaks to many aspects of life, from short-term goals and the seemingly mundane details of living, to your bigger dreams and long-term goals. You could also make a vision board that is more specific, such as one all about an important project or a career aspiration.
- Source your images. If you’re artistically inclined, you can be the source and make your own eye-catching images and text to use on the board! You can also use cut-outs from old magazines or other image-rich materials that you have on-hand, or can find digitally (Google, Canva, Unsplash. etc.).
- Collect images and words/phrases, and place them on your board! Again, it’s most impactful if you can arrange the items on your board in a way that is aesthetically pleasing to you. Hopefully the images that you select really speak to you and evoke a feeling, whether it’s joy, determination, or excitement. You may have a very specific image in mind that perfectly conveys a concept you want to include in your board, or you could simply browse your source until something grips you.
- Place your board where you’ll see it every day. Since the board contains some of your greatest wishes, it can feel quite personal so you may want to choose to place it in a location (or format) where it won’t be on display for others. Alternatively, maybe you’d like it in a shared space to keep you feeling motivated and accountable.
If you need some ideas as to what to focus your vision board on, you could try:
- Making a very specific board about one project or aspiration. If you dream of becoming an author, you could fill your vision board with quotes, affirmations, and images that relate to the dream – perhaps a copy of your (yet to be) published book, maybe images of the authors that most inspire you (and whom you’d love to meet), your ideal novel-writing workspace, and so on!
- Making a very broad board (which is what I like to do) that covers various areas of life. Which areas of life, exactly? If you have trouble coming up with them yourself, you may consider Hal Elrod’s Level 10 Life which suggests 10 areas of life that are important to reflect on. You might check out this blog post by Cute Little Paper about the Level 10 Life concept.
Checking the Calendar
Phew, that was a lot of dreaming and forward-thinking! There’s one last thing I like to do, and that’s to materialize some of the things from my goals, intention and vision board onto my calendar. We can do this by answering questions such as:
- What is one step I could take toward my lofty dreams? What day/month could I reasonably accomplish that?
- What is one habit I could develop to get me in alignment with my intention, and how can I integrate that into each week?
- How can I adjust my current routine to make time and space for something I really care about?
What this looks like to you depends on how you currently organize your life! Personally, I use a bullet journal and a Google Calendar (more on this to come in 2025).
I’ll use painting as an example since it’s near and dear to my heart.
Long-term planning
In my calendar, I might want to block in some dates and times in which I’d like to register for, and then attend, a painting course. I might also include “paint 100 paintings!” as a goal for a year from now.
Let’s say July through September would be an ideal time to take a course. If I know I’d have to register by the end of May, I’ll make sure to set that up as a task for myself in that month. I’ll also note to get any supplies I might need, and make other necessary arrangements (eg. my spouse can do something fun with the kids while I’m away).
Short-term planning
Let’s say I’m going to start painting now, working toward those 100 paintings in a year. I’ll probably need some time to do that in, so I’ll see what my weeks look like and block of some time each week to paint. Say, one evening and a few hours on the weekend. Those become appointments in my calendar.
While I’m here, I can take a step back, look a my current schedule, evaluate what’s working and what’s not, and then make adjustments as necessary, using my goals and intention to guide the items I’m adding in (or taking away). Maybe my intention is “Health”, but I’m noticing I am sitting and watching a lot of TV in the week. In my calendar, I can reduce TV time to four evenings per week, and swap those out with a workout, or even more of that coveted painting time.
Incremental change
One tip to making habits and changing up your routine: Unless I’m really motivated, I don’t love doing a complete overhaul of my daily life (although I suppose if you’re going to do one, January might be a good time to try it).
I like making incremental changes to my daily routines, with the big-picture in mind. Maybe I’ll try waking up earlier for three weeks, and once I’ve become comfortable with that, I’ll add in an extra work out per week and swap one TV show for creative time, for example. This way I’m not overwhelmed with change; rather, change feels very manageable.
Parting Words
I originally posted this entry a year ago (in December, 2023).
I’m so glad that I finally started writing the blog. It’s brought me so much calm and clarity, and there’s something magical about being able to contribute a little piece of yourself to the world.
Going back and editing something I published a year ago has been really exciting as well, speaking of incremental change. I’ve spent so much of the year thinking about the blog – oh my gosh, I have so much to learn, so much to improve upon – but I can see now that I’ve also developed quite a bit!
This year I’m looking forward to continuing to write on the blog, watching all of the ideas unfold. I also want to create some time and space to make more art! I can’t wait to see the view from December of next year.
So, what are you doing for New Year’s, creative soul?
Warmest wishes to you for this coming year!
