I opened my first business when I was in my late teens/early twenties. I loved it and it gave me the taste of entrepreneurship from a young age. Fast forward to today and I have navigated the corporate world for quite a few years, owned and operated several businesses, and was on the board and president of a radio station. In each of these roles and businesses, it taught me to review.  

Goals are great to have both personally and professionally but we need to know where we have come from, where we are now and what worked and didn't work. 

Toward the end of December of 2023, I sat down and wrote a list to wrap up my year. It wasn't until I started checking my diary, checking my notes and really drilling down to see what I had achieved over the last twelve months. 

We can get so caught up in the day to day over our business, craft or lives that we forget what we did often without thinking about it and sometimes in adversary. Putting pen to paper and really thinking through achievements, processes and highlights can be quite eye-opening.   
I for one, was pleasantly surprised at my achievements through 2023. Once I had a gauge on 2023, I was ready to put my plan together for 2024.

Do you review and reset or do you leave it to chance? Leave your comments below.    

You may recall previously I have written a post as to why I enter art shows. You can read about it here 
A few months ago I entered an art show which had a theme and some criteria.  I had agonised over whether to enter the competition as it was out of my genre and not the usual type of show I would enter, I decided in the end to enter it as it would stretch me to think about the theme and my artwork.
I never gave it much thought after I hit the send button, in fact if I be upfront, I had forgotten about the entry, that is until I opened an email from the organisers on the weekend.  

As I opened the email and scanned for the words "accepted" I quickly saw "unsuccessful".  Normally I would think, well, that is the decision and at least I gave it a go. I continued to scroll down the page, and I came to a list of why my artwork wasn't accepted, to say the least it was brutal. I read, reread, and read it repeatedly letting the words sink in.

For the entire weekend, the words continued to cross my mind as I digested what was said.  After a while, all the self-doubt crept in and I started to question myself, am I a fraud, am I supposed to be an artist, what was I thinking, and imposter syndrome settled into a nice comfortable spot in the front of my mind. 

So often we let other people's opinions and points of view take away our joy and our confidence. Joy and confidence vampires lurk in unsuspecting areas of our lives.  This was a valuable lesson for me to learn. My art doesn't hurt anyone, it brings me joy and obviously brings others joy as I sell my work.

The lesson really came home to roost when I opened up a social media post and saw the finalists for the exhibition I had entered.  My artwork was nothing at all like the finalists work, they weren't looking for my type of artwork, in fact more likely completely opposite.  The list of brutal feedback in the email was based on what they were looking for, what they had in mind and was not about my artwork nor me.
  
The moral of the story for me is continue to do what gives you joy and let others have their opinions, it's none of my business what they think.
Go create in joy.