Many people believe that artists are dreamers, but sometimes to their detriment. It isn’t that being a dreamer is a bad thing, it’s that the artists who have a thriving practice are also really able to take action to make those dreams come true. Taking practical and small steps can ground your art practice and eventually lead you to your dream-job-as-an-artist scenario.
Setting short-term goals for yourself can help keep you on track and motivated throughout the year - and it's important not to let those slip off your radar because they add up.
If you're tired of waiting for that perfect time when your life will magically be in order enough for you to accomplish something big, then I have one question for you: When are you going to stop waiting and start?
If you want to take your art practice to the next level by formally sharing it in exhibitions or maybe even starting to sell art, setting short-term goals is a great approach to start thinking about and harnessing small goals to get momentum and start seeing progress toward your bigger goals.
The Value of Small Wins
When you don’t have a lot of time or energy to dedicate to your work, go for an easy win and something that is most achievable first. If your goal is to get better at painting landscapes, then maybe a good short-term goal would be “try out five new paint brushes this week” rather than “finish my portfolio piece by next weekend."
Having a consistent goal is the most important thing you can do to stay on track. With that in mind, it's helpful to break down your goals into smaller wins.
For example, if your goal is to create a collection of ten portraits in three months, but you're not sure where to start or what paintings should be included, it might help if you break this big goal into smaller pieces:
Figure out how many weeks are in those three months. In this example, there are 12 weeks.
Create one new portrait per week so there will be 12 total before your deadline.
Choose 10 of those 12 portraits for the collection.
You can continue breaking up larger tasks as needed until each task feels manageable and doable without losing sight of the whole picture. In this example, that might mean you break down the creation of each portrait into the smaller steps and what you’ll want to do for each day of the week:
Monday: select a reference image, gesso, base layer, and sketch
Tuesday: work on mapping out and filling in the values in the image
Wednesday: keep filling in the lights and darks of the painting, select, and start incorporating more color.
Thursday: add those details that refine the painting along with final light reflections.
Friday: make any final adjustments, sign it, then give it the final varnish coat and sit back and enjoy it.
Every artist’s process is different so you’d tailor this to your specific process. And yes, this example is oversimplified for sure but you can see how breaking things down even further can help make the goals feel more manageable.
This same approach can also really help the non-art-making side of your studio practice so you can get your works shown and sold much faster.
Set Goals You Can (And Should) Accomplish This Month
As the deadline of a new month approaches, it can be easy to get overwhelmed by your big goals. You may find yourself thinking "Well, it's only four weeks long and I have so much work to do." Or "I'll just keep working on this one thing until I finish it, then I'll turn my attention to something else."
While it's important to take care of your current projects first and foremost (and no one is suggesting you should neglect them), you also need to be sure that you're setting some time aside each day or week for planning out what needs doing next week, next month, or further down the road than that.
Instead of considering how hard each goal is going to be or how long it will take before you reach them (or whether they're even worth pursuing), consider this: What would happen if you achieved all these goals? If all went according to an ideal plan with minimal setbacks along the way, what would that feel like? And what would then be possible for you once you reached those goals?
Set The Bar As High As Your Arm Can Reach
It may sound cliché, but it's true: the sky is the limit in terms of setting and reaching your goals. If you're not sure how to get started, let me tell you a story about an artist who wanted to be in a museum someday.
Her one goal was to have her work shown in a well-known museum that was located not far from her. Nothing else was more important than that. This may seem like a crazy goal because she didn’t know how to get into a museum or how they selected artists to exhibit. But since her goal was so specific and so ambitious, it gave her something concrete to work towards. She knew exactly where she wanted to be in a few years and every day she dedicated her time and effort to make that dream come true. She did get into that museum and even had a book published featuring a retrospective of her work.
I know you want to do big things, too, and make a lot of money with your art, but getting started and making progress is as important as achieving an ambitious goal. If your goal is to market and sell your art, instead of planning the entire month at one time and getting overwhelmed, start with one social media post that’s easy - a shot of your desk or something that you have in front of you right now to share your behind-the-scenes sneak peeks or work process.
Set smaller goals so they're easier to achieve and celebrate when you achieve them, then set new ones. When you break down a large goal into smaller steps, it's much easier to keep going even when times get tough and the path ahead seems long.
Do It Now!
Every once in a while, you'll hear someone say that they are waiting for the right time to do something. Maybe it's going on a road trip or making a Reel for Instagram. The idea is that if you wait for the perfect time, if everything is just right, then you'll have all the time in the world to enjoy doing this thing and nothing will get in your way of making progress towards it.
But here's what happens when we wait for that perfect moment: we live our whole lives without ever doing anything new or different because we don't want to mess up our current situation.
Go look at your calendar and write down every goal or project you've ever had (or wanted) since childhood. Then see how many were accomplished by waiting until things were "just right" before starting them.
The best way to become proficient at anything is through practice, so don't worry about making mistakes along the way.
Remember, there are no rules with art (except maybe “don't eat paint”). If you want to try out a different medium or technique because it looks interesting, then go for it - and don't let anyone else tell you otherwise. If you wait for the perfect time to work on your goals, you'll be waiting forever.
What Are Your Short-Term Goals?
Goal setting is not about planning out every single detail of what you want to achieve, but rather keeping things simple and breaking them down into smaller steps. Having a plan will help keep you focused on your end goal and prevent procrastination from getting in the way of achieving success.
By setting realistic short-term goals (and long term), we can take action now and make progress toward our long-term goals without feeling overwhelmed by all the work ahead of us
If we want to achieve success, we must break down each task into smaller chunks so that they are achievable within a reasonable, set timeframe. Remember, there are no rules. If a small project works for you, great. If a larger one is more your speed, go for it. The important thing is that you’re doing something to get yourself closer to your big goals. Your art practice will only improve if you challenge yourself, so I encourage you to try new things and don’t be afraid to fail.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed with setting short-term goals, let me guide you through the process of writing a business plan. It will help to show you what’s possible for you and your art practice without feeling overwhelmed.