🔮 Welcome! Here you will find some prompts, questions, things to explore etc. There is no wrong way to go about reflection, the act of reflecting is the important part.

🦋 The thing that can be really toxic about New Years Resolutions is that they are often born of an intention to burn down what existed before in order to make space for this new version of ourselves that might not actually be what we really want or how we want it. The best way that I have found to avoid this is to take into account who I am, my actual life circumstances and put any branches of growth that I am interested in within those contexts. So it's no longer a burning down of a tree in order to plant a new one but a growth of a new branch on the same trusty tree.

🧡 MAYBE IT'S BECAUSE I AM A NEW YEARS BABY, but I love making space for self reflection and growth. This doesn't mean we suddenly become a new person, but instead we take what we have experienced this year as information to help shape where we want to go in the next.

🖼️ THIS IS MY GIFT TO YOU! I hope you take this and run with it. Find ways to use this to check in with yourself more regularly if you can.

🍋 There are no resolutions here, no new years goals, instead this is just a space to explore what has been in order to better understand and dream about what can be.

STEP 1: BOOKMARK THIS PAGE! That way you can access this whenever you want!

WAYS TO TACKLE THIS:

• Grab a journal or a scrap piece of paper and just get into it!
• make your own notion page or google doc and record your responses however feels good to you
• use a sketchbook or other paper and illustrate your answers
• make lists, mind maps, brain dumps

VALUES

One of the things that started clarifying what choices I made was getting clear on what my most important values are and why. There are so many exercises out there to sort this out, I got clear on it through writing and rewriting my artist statements. But for you the best way to do this is to just think about what is important. What is at the center of everything you do?

I like to narrow my list down to 5 and here are some examples for me- your list might look different or have a different focus:

• Family- caring for and considering their needs. They are at the center of most things I do or do not do- working for myself as a creative started as a dream because I wanted to always have a flexible schedule to support my family. This also means I make financial choices that will make supporting them easier!
• Creative Practice- having a sustainable and full practice, feeling fufilled by my practice, leaving space for my practice to grow
• Community- How I engage with my physical neighborhood community, using my practice as a means to engage with the arts community. I ask myself questions like- how can I employ other artists? support initiatives I find exciting? staying active in community building
• Environment- Being active within it by hiking, swimming, gardening and camping, protecting it by planting drought tolerant perennials, planting bee and butterfly attracting flowers and supporting organizations that care for it
• Psychology- centering myself and my practice in an endless exploration of our human existence is really important to me. This centers growth, self examination, feelings within my choices.

🧡 HOW CAN THIS INFORM YOU? When I got clear about what my central values were it became much easier for me to center my choices. Not only does it help me to say yes to certain things, it can also help me understand why I might say yes even if it goes against other values. For example if I say yes to a project that pays well but will distract me from my personal painting practice for a solid period of time. I am putting my family and financial health first in that decision.

There are so many different types of values, and I cannot tell you what yours are or how to go about finding them. Maybe you do the freewrites below and they start to crystalize, maybe you already know them! The other thing to know is that just like anything else, they will shift and grow and might even change over time. The only way to know if this happens is to spend time trying to name them in the first place.

FREEWRITE PROMPTS:

You can do one or all of these, just use the questions as a starting point

GENERAL

• What things stand out and give you feelings of satisfaction about 2022? Any projects, memories, moments of rest?
• What about these things brought satisfaction or good feelings?
• What choices in your control led to these opportunities? What was out of your control? Be specific.
• On the opposite end, what moments, memories, projects, relationships didn't end up meeting your expectations?
• Be specific, why didn't they live up? What were you expecting, what happened? How did you respond?
• What are you most proud of from this past year?
• What things surprised you about 2022? Did you encounter some unexpected things?
• What hurdles did you encounter in this past year? How did you handle them? How do you feel about how you handled them?
• What new things did you do in 2022?
• What new things do you want to do in 2023?

CREATIVE PRACTICE

• How did you show up for your creativity this year? Was it sustainable? How did it make you feel?
• Are there ways to ease back into a creative practice? What would it feel like?
• How have you reconnected with your practice in the past? What would you do different?
• Think about where you want to be in your practice 6 months from now, what does it look like? How does it feel? Get specific, describe how you see it fitting into your life.
• Where can you go or what can you watch or do to get excited to make work again? (visit studios of friends? see a show? watch art docs?)
• Are there ways that you might be falling into patterns of resistance with your practice?
• Where do you think that resistance is coming from if so? Does it tell you something about where your head is?
• What values have been at the center of your creative work in 2021? Look at the work you have done and make a list of what the values have been based on that work.
• What values are you not seeing that you would like to?

Now What?

I find it is even more helpful to take this a little further by being clear about what my focus was over the last year (or month or whatever time period you are using this for) so I can be clear about what my focus will be moving forward.

Make a list.

What things are standing out to you?

Some things can be out of our control.

Did you spend a lot of the last year moving and nesting in your new space? Maybe you had a sick family member so you spent a good amount of time caretaking?