On Improving

(Typed on a typewriter onto muslin)

When I decided to take time off of school this year, I had a few goals in mind.
1. Find a new dream, a new passion, a new career.
2. Find myself (I know, really cliche, but needed.)
3. Re-discover who I am as an artist (very similar to #2 but I want to exist outside my art self as well.) I need to re-define who I am and what my art is. Art School ruined that.
4. Improve my blog (content, quality, inspiration-able (yes it’s a word!) and followers.)

Well it’s been about 3 months since I moved from Boston to Pennsylvania and I feel like I’m severely lacking in improvements. At first I was very excited to start something new, to try selling new things on etsy, to blog all the time (for a while I was doing daily + posts!). But I burnt out. While I’m physically in a better place, my mental place hasn’t improved yet. I feel it wearing me down and the longer it’s taking me to start actively improving, the worse my mentality gets.

Nothing is going to change if I don’t actively change it. This week Amy from Just a Titch wrote a blog post about her perfect life and how she thought things would change on their own. Until one day she realized that that will never happen. Life only changes if we make it change.

I think I’ve know this all along but I haven’t been ready to change. Or maybe I just don’t know how to change. I don’t know how to improve. It’s a complicated process.

So I bought The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron (as well as the 2 sequel books) I’m still on Week 1 and it’s a pretty interesting book so far. It feels a bit like a book your therapist would give you, like a personal workbook, but I don’t think that’s bad necessarily. Some people might not like it and, like I said I’m still pretty early on in the book so I might change my mind still! (Cameron also mentions God a lot but in the introduction talks about how she uses the word but that doesn’t mean you as the reader has to. You can replace it with the idea of a different Creator or Higher Power or anything that makes sense to you.) I’ll keep you updated on my process (if you like).

I also signed up for Elsie from A Beautiful Mess E-Course “Blog Love” I read through the whole thing today. I’m still processing some of it and will need to go back and re-read it (maybe more than once!) but it was helpful and made me realize, yet again that I’m not improving or moving forward as I hoped to be.

So now what?

I don’t know.
I’m trying, I’m reading and improving.
My goals this week were a step in the right direction. I think I’ll continue to blog my weekly goals.

I’m not confident, but I think that’s okay. Because I want to improve and change where my life is going (nowhere, very slowly right now). I want so many things for my life and for myself that I think I’m determined enough to change and improve even without being 100% confident in myself right now. I’m working on that too.

Are you working on something about yourself? What are you trying to improve upon?
♥
(I’m going to make some hot chocolate and relax now. Night all!)