7 Tips for Creatives Going into the New Year
Hello everybody! Happy 2020 to you all. I’m very very excited about this year! Things are unfolding naturally.
My goals for this year include:
Growing my portfolio. Focusing on a few more passion projects. I want to tell more documentary stories of people. My focus has been music videos but I’d like to venture into that world. Another goal is creating more resources for creatives out there on how to make filmmaking a full-time job, managing your finances, and make more money. which means growing this youtube channel. You guys sharing this channel, liking, and commenting helps a ton. Love hearing your feedback, and love hearing how this channel has helped you. The more people that watch, the more this grows, the more topics I can cover and the more guests I can bring on. Other goals… oh I wanna travel to two new countries! I wanna experience different cultures and try different foods, and just see new things!
Here are my 7 tips for setting up your year:
Reflect and be grateful. Take sometime this year to reflect about your past year before you jump head on into this year. Something that Graham Cochrane said in one of his podcast, business coach and entrepreneur, is to take one night, grab a glass of wine or tea and just write down what worked and what didn’t. Do this in two areas of your life, personal and business. This will help you discover what ideas worked for you and what didn’t. So last year, I tried to start my own wedding film business but I had a challenging time getting off the ground. I felt like I was taking the right steps such as reaching out to wedding planners, venues, posting on social media, having a solid website but it was challenging booking weddings, and that’s maybe due to timing being wrong and not knowing much about my market here in Nashville. Something that did work was continuing to create a few passion projects through out the year that would help me continue to show people that my work is growing and that I’m trying to step it up. Another thing that worked for me was creating a passive income opportunity by renting out my gear.(I will link the episode down below) Being grateful and recognizing my blessings helps me have better perspective.
Link to Graham’s podcast: https://youtu.be/vSBlRGFBxnA
Dream bigger. If you are watching right now, you are called to make an impact on humanity. You are called to create. You are called to bring change to the world. Have you been talked of dreaming? Was there someone at some point in your life that shut those dreams down and stuffed “reality” in to you? It’s time to dream again guys! So what do you dream of happening this year? If what you’re dreaming can only accomplished through you and your work, then your dream isn’t big enough. Dream even bigger. Speak this over yourself, “I am world changer. My life makes a difference”.
Flesh out your goals for this year. Create goals based on how they align with your dreams. I want focus on having more creative freedom, and more work-life balance. I have to ask myself, “How can I design and plan my year to where I can meet that?”Here’s a SMART acronym that’ll be helpful. Create goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-based. This makes goals realistic.
Learn, learn, learn, and learn all you can. Learning is a constant state of mind. Listen to podcasts, learn about your craft, business, take courses, the go out and do it. Learn, create, repeat. Learning also comes from spending time with a mentor. one of my goals this year is to find a mentor for myself. Mentors find you by seeing your potential, hustle, work.
Be a master of your own mind. Be aware of the thoughts that you think. I still have negative and fearful thoughts all the time, but it takes self-awareness and conscious decision making to constantly shift those thoughts to positive thinking. Do you ever notice how one negative thought starts spiraling into a deeper rabbit hole? We create these narratives in our heads that overtime can hold us back and the more we let those dwell, the more we hold ourselves back from creating and giving back to the world. If you’re making decisions out of worry and fear, then you’re going to have a different outcome in your life.
Execute. Nothing happens without execution. Have agency and initiate the work that you want to do. There’s no point in just dreaming, creating your goals, and doing nothing about it. You have to take action. Break them down. Put deadlines on them. It goes from having an idea or thought to taking action to getting results. Get the things done that you want to this year. Even when you’re tired, work for your dreams. You can do it if you put your mind to it!
Stay focused. Focus on your goals and don’t get distracted. Don’t try to do 15 different things at the same time. Often I’ve found myself changing my goals every couple of weeks like, “Oh I wanna start this business” or “that channel” or “work towards other things” because I’m not giving myself enough time to learn in the current phase that I’m in. Focus, get the work done and be patient. My focus for the next few months is personal work, Youtube, digital products(coming soon!), and Fillmsupply.
WELL, those are my tips for today. I hope that they’ve been helpful to you. But I would also love to hear some tips from you. What tips have been helpful to you that’s help you set your year up? Comment below! Also thank you for taking time and reading this article. Please like and subscribe to my Youtube channel. I’ll see you guys soon.