Aim High (or at least somewhere)
Measurable goals are important in a successful art career. It's all too easy as an artist to spend all our time in the studio working (or even just staring out of the window and thinking about working) without any real idea where we're heading. Today, I'm here to tell you to change that and set yourself some specific (very specific) goals. I'm not talking about a grandiose ambitions like, "win the Turner Prize" (though of course there's a place in every artists dreams for the really BIG ambitions too!) but rather smaller, measurable goals. Something solid you can aim at this week or even today. What's important (and exciting) about measurable goals is that you know when you've achieved them, and the trick is to work at them until you have. Instead of saying to yourself I will work at this specific project for x amount of hours, you say I will work at it until I've achieved my aim. This approach is a great motivator and a great way of focusing your mind on finding ways to achieve what you want.
A concrete example of what I'm talking about
Want a concrete example of what I'm talking about? Here's one from my own work. Earlier this month I launched a new free to download ebook. While I was making it, I had a vague idea that I wanted to get out in the world and seen by as many people as possible, but hadn't really thought beyond that, and had no real idea of what would feel like a "success" for the ebook. On launch day a friend asked me over breakfast what I'd like to achieve with the ebook. That put me on the spot. I had to really think about it, a wishy-washy answer like, "I want lots of people to download and read it," wasn't going to do for my friend. I needed to be specific. I took a deep breath and said, "I'd like 1,000 people to download in the first week." That felt very scary, suddenly I had a measure of success for my project (and the chance of failure too). "Okay," said my friend, "how are you going to do that?" Time for another deep breath, answering that I was planning to just put the ebook up on my blog and wait (and hope) for a 1000 people to come along just wasn't going to fly. I decided to be bold. "I'm going to contact people on Twitter and ask them if they would spread the word about the book until I've reached my 1,000 downloads." Wonderful, I had a goal, and a plan to reach it. My friend seemed pleased, I felt nervous and excited in equal measure. The upshot of this story is that I'd reached my 1,000 target by the end of the second day, and at the time of writing have had over 3,000 downloads of the book. If I hadn't taken some specific action to reach my specific goal then I strongly suspect I'd still be waiting to hit that first 1,000 downloads.
Goals that are both time and number specific
What's interesting about this way of setting goals is that goals are both time specific and numbers specific. Both are important. After you've set the goal it's important that you work at it, and be creative about how you work at it (if one idea doesn't work try something else), until you reach it. Here are some ideas for how you could make use of this way of setting goals in your art career:
- I will sell two paintings this month.
- I will attract 10 new subscribers to my blog this week (you do have a blog don't you?).
- I will arrange one solo show this year (whilst I think shorter time goals are better for focusing your mind and energy you do need to be realistic about how long some things will take).
- I will write a blog post in the next hour.
- I will get my work mentioned in one magazine/newspaper in the next three months.
- I will write a guest post on one influential blog in my field in the next two months.
- I will increase my income by $100 this month.
- I will find one commission in the next week.
- I will come up with a list of five time/number specific goals of my own in the 30 minutes!!
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Michael Nobbs is a full time artist, blogger and tea drinker. He publishesThe Beany, an illustrated journal of his life and writes, tweets and podcasts about drawing and trying to keep things simple.
