I don’t know about you but January 1 is not typically the day I start my New Year’s resolutions, in fact I rarely set them. I feel like resolutions are for other people who have time to work on themselves. The first days of January are when the kids are still home, the husband is lingering about and I am usually doing some sort of mental gymnastics trying to maintain the charade of normalcy post holiday hoopla (aka spending).

However, 2025 is going to bring so many changes to our family- relocation is one of them- kiddos are moving out (plural, we have twins) and we want something smaller. There could be a potential new job on my husband’s horizon but at the very least he will be restructuring his current one so that he will have more work life balance. More than ever, this is the year I need to set goals and milestones otherwise the overwhelm of downsizing 18+ years of household goods, souvenirs and the abundance of ‘stuff’ will utterly and truly overwhelm me… but there is more…just weeks before the end of the year I turned 50.

There is a richness in turning 50, and I want to explore that more in future musings but the short story is that I have been mulling over this transition a lot during the past year (Don’t get me started on Peri/Menopause). With 50 looming I started to take stock of what I had achieved over the first 5 decades of my life. Like so many others, I carry scars and haunts with me, achievements and accomplishments that have defined who I am. Have I been happy? Yes. In love? Yes. Have I made mistakes? Hell Yes. Would I change some things? Yes. Are there things I still want to change? Absolutely.

“I am not less for making mistakes. I am more because I learn from them.”

I want more out of this year. I want to grow the creative career that I put on hold to raise children and to support my husband as he realized his potential. In addition to the very practical goals of decluttering, readying my house for sale and prepping our young adults for their big moves, I am setting goals and intentions for myself. I am an artist and all I want to do is use my creative passions to build a sustainable career using that skill set (phew- I said it).

For me at this time in my life that looks like building my illustration and freelance portfolio, taking on more clients and building a passive income stream with my main focus being Pattern Surface Design. I want licensing contracts and collaborations! I will be launching my shop Megan H Carroll Studio- (or copy & paste www.meganhcarrollstudio.com) early in the spring 2025 that celebrates and empowers through colour, play and pattern. (I already have a placeholder there if you want to get a feel of how it is evolving.)

Back to goal and intention setting- I have decided to tackle my goals in bite sized pieces. Look for shorter sweeter achievable habits, such as doing yoga or having a consistent drawing practice. But looking at a whole year, month or even week can be daunting. Because I am an artist, I created a mini tracker in the form of an eight page zine to celebrate momentum. It isn’t set up as a calendar month, one can start and stop it at any time- I can start the 1st, 7th day or even the 23rd day of the month. Miss day? There won’t be long gaps of blank pages. 6 of the pages have check boxes and only a small area for notes. This is not a journal, it is a place to celebrate wins. As one zine gets filled, I’ll print another one and so on. Maybe just maybe this time next year I will have an accumulation of all the little things that I have done this year to move the needle closer to having my own niche in the world.

I would love for you to follow along with this journey- my hope is that you may even be able to see some of your life in mine and that we can learn from one another.

Want your own Habit Tracker zine? Sign up for my newsletter (below) for the template and instructions on how to fold. I have also included a blank template of an 8 page zine that you can use in procreate, other drawing apps or by hand with any drawing implement of your choice. Once you make one zine you will not be able to stop! I once made one for a friend for his 50th Birthday by highlighting interesting events that happened in his birth year!

Hello, World!

I hope you have an amazing new year and I would love to know what you have planned and if you use the tracker how?

Musings

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