Hey Reader,

I hope your New Year is off to a peaceful start.

The pause these last few weeks has given me the space to reflect and make some changes behind the scenes, including the start of a website refresh and update and migrating to a new email service provider.

I’ve also decided to resume sending my weekly emails at a new time: every Thursday at 4:00 CST.

It is important to change things up as priorities shift in your life and embrace being in the process, instead of obsessing about how to get it right before you are willing to take a risk and try something new.

Creativity is all about embracing the unknown and trusting what you need will show up at the right time.

And with that being said, I want to talk about a new way of thinking about goal setting since we are at the beginning of the year, and it is usually a hot topic.

Redefining success as a daily act of self-love

Did you set new goals for the new year? Did you create them from a place of excitement, curiosity, attraction, and wander?

Or did you create these goals from a place of obligation, fear, and, feeling bad about yourself?

Creating goals based on a feeling of lack generally doesn’t work, because it just increases your feelings of anxiety, overwhelm, and frustration.

This can easily lead to burnout and abandoning your goals altogether.

This of course just leads to more bad feelings and self-judgement.

And, there is a better way to think about goal setting; a way that honors yourself in the process.

Let me break it down.

Use your creativity to create the change you desire

Instead of thinking about your goals as a destination you must arrive at in order to be successful and/or feel good about yourself, I want you to think about success as a process where you get to feel good from the beginning.

How do you do that?

By thinking about change and goal-setting from a right brain perspective, a creative perspective.

A perspective that is grounded in the present moment, rather than some future moment in time.

A simple way to do this is to think about your goal in terms of how you want to feel, and began to notice what you associate with these feelings, and bring more of that into your everyday life.

Here is an exercise to help shift into this mindset.

Seeing your goals as an expression of self-love

Think about something you truly desire.

Maybe you want to start a new career, write a book, lose weight, make more money, or develop a healthier relationship with yourself or others.

Whatever it is, I want you to close your eyes and see yourself as having it now.

• How would you feel?
• Think about that good feeling as a television network you own.
• What would your network be called?
• What kind of shows would you see on your network?
• What are some of the activities and experiences you associate with this feeling?

And finally, how can you bring more of these experiences into your everyday life?

When you set goals based on how you want to feel, and you understand what you associate with those feelings, it becomes very easy to generate feelings of well-being now.

You realize you don’t have to wait to arrive at your destination before you can feel good.

You can feel good now.

And feeling good from the beginning is how you start creating more of what you want.

The creative perspective is self-loving and self-honoring, because it comes from a place a being worthy, valuable, and enough right now.

Instead of focusing on what you lack and using fear to set goals, the creative perspective is about expressing, celebrating, and honoring all that good and right about you as you are right now.

It is easier to create change and sustainable habits to support your goals when it comes from a place of self-love rather than self-loathing.

Think about your goals as an opportunity to express more of the love you already have for yourself, rather than a desire to prove your value or worth by achieving some external goal to feel good about yourself.

The goal is to be more of who you really are, unapologetically.

What can you express through your goals and desires that is you becoming more of the real you?

​

P.S. If you would like to discover how to connect and express more of the real you, check out my in-person workshop series, Trust Your Wisdom. It is designed to nurture your mental, emotional, and creative well-being. It starts January 17 @ 6:00 p.m

​

Reserve Your Spot Now

---