Showing posts with label positive thinking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label positive thinking. Show all posts

Positive thought: pay attention to the good things in life





______________________________________________________________________________ 

About Me: I work full time, I am also studying for a therapist qualification in Advanced Herbalism, subsequent to completing a Diploma inHerbalism, I have a small craft 'business', I am co-admin of an auction page on facebook to help other small hobby businesses, i maintain my own 'store' facebook page, I blog at least once a week and I maintain a facebook page created to support small home businesses and hobby sellers 
............................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................... Please visit me on etsy! www.etsy.com/shop/empressbat handcrafted gothic goodies at bargain prices. see me on etsy! www.etsy.com/shop/empressbat ...Please visit me on etsy! www.etsy.com/shop/empressbat handcrafted gothic goodies at bargain prices. see me on etsy! www.etsy.com/shop/empressbat

Goals Check in: half way through the year am I on track?

At the start of the year, i made some goals for myself, you can see them here , and in summary they are

  1. Actively blog
  2. Be organised
  3. Keep designing and making things to sell
  4. Stay positive, promote happiness and support others
Goals need to be monitored, assessed, revised, to ensure you actually keep reaching your targets. To that end, I did a goal check in April, which you can see in this post, here.

So we are half way through the year, how am I tracking with my goals?

Actively blogging: 
I initially aimed to blog at least once a week, I have two different blogs, and this aim although something I still feel is what I need to aim for, has to be flexible, as I do not always have the time after working all day to sit and blog when i finally get home in the afternoon. So although I may not always get to blog once a week, I do maintain a regular blogging schedule and every month so far this year has at least two posts in this blog, and there is a post every month in my other blog, Apothecary Greens.

Be Organised:
I want to be so super organised that I can fit in a day everything I want to achieve and still have time for..well sleep... I am still working on the ultimate schedule, but I am improving my organisation skills, and the Filofax is helping with that! 

Keep Designing and making things to sell:
My creative Muse left me for a bit over May and June, so I took a short break from my online shops to recoup my creative thoughts. This has resulted in a whole new design theme in the jewellery I am making and selling! I have been creating Steampunk-Goth inspired pieces and I love them!

Stay positive and Support Others:
This has been hard, life throws mud at me (as I am sure it does at all of you), at times, and I fall... into a muddy self pitying heap for a bit. Then i manage to crawl myself upright, wash myself off and start again!

My Support Cottage Industry Facebook page still promotes small hobby businesses and charities in my effort to support the small hobbyists, and I have recently instigated Project Fun Mail as a random act of kindness to bring fun and joy to others. I am really happy to see relatives and friends taking to this project too! 

I recently received a lovely Project Fun Mail from my Aunty Verna, as well as one from a talented lady, Sarah, who I met on Facebook, she runs the Rainbow Gecko Gallery Facebook Page.

So although my goals aren't being reached 100% all the time, I have not lost sight of them, and am still working towards them.
How are you going with your goals?

Fun Mail from my Aunty Verna
______________________________________________________________________________ 

About Me: I work full time, I am also studying for a therapist qualification in Naturopathy specialising in Herbalism, I have a small craft 'business', I am co-admin of an auction page on facebook to help other small hobby businesses, i maintain my own 'store' facebook page, I blog at least once a week and I maintain a facebook page created to support small home businesses and hobby sellers 
............................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................... Please visit me on etsy! www.etsy.com/shop/empressbat handcrafted gothic goodies at bargain prices. see me on etsy! www.etsy.com/shop/empressbat ...Please visit me on etsy! www.etsy.com/shop/empressbat handcrafted gothic goodies at bargain prices. see me on etsy! www.etsy.com/shop/empressbat

GOALS check in: My goals for the year, am I on track?

There is no point in making goals if you have no intention to aim for them; or resolutions you know you will break in a month. So if you have made resolutions in the new year, or at any time and want to maintain your resoluions or make progress to your goals, a review every few months is needed. This way you can see how you are going with your resolutions, look at what you need to work on, and congratulate yourself for the targets you have met, are meeting, have kept to.

How am I going with my goals? Time to check in and find out!

Background

If you have read my blog posts before, you may recall my January post outlining my goals for the year, my Goals page where I wrote them to keep myself honest, and my February post where I was monitoring my progress.

We are now in April 2014, the fourth month of the year, time for me to reflect on my progress towards my goals, and to see where I need some motivation, or a kick, to get myself back on track!

My goals this year  in summary are:

  1. blog at least once a week
  2. schedule/organise my time efficiently so I can fit in designing, making, blogging, writing, housework; with my day job!
  3. keep new designs ready to sell in my Facebook store page as well as my etsy store
  4. stay positive, keep positive energy and help others to do the same

How am I tracking?

Blogging: I am blogging at least once a week and sometimes more, I have also started a new blog about alternative medicine and green living, called Apothecary Greens  which I regularly post to.

Organise my time: this is at times hit and miss, my time may be organised, but I have trouble countering fatigue, so instead of doing the activity I should be doing with the allotted time, I may be too tired to do anything, and will instead go to bed early! As I work full time this is probably the right thing to do as I need to have energy for work!  I will need to keep monitoring my organising of time goal until I have it working right for me and getting the results I want.

New designs to sell: I have been making things to: donate to different charities, give away in competitions; stock my Facebook store, my etsy store, and to be sold at auctions. I have not made as much as I would like for all these things, but I am managing to keep up with it all, which is important.

Stay Positive: I admit I am struggling with this goal, but I will not give up. I have experienced the good, happy, strong feeling that thinking positively gives me, so I will keep working on this. I notice I struggle a lot with low self esteem, and any small set back can make me revert to old learned behaviours of self hatred, so by recognising this challenge to staying positive I can work on ways to overcome it.

this printable can be downloaded from my Positive Energy section in this blog

Summary
According to an article in Forbes, only 8% of people keep their resolutions. I am still keeping/working towards mine so I think I am doing okay. In fact just writing this post allows me to see that I do have reasons to be positive as I really am doing okay here at keeping my resolutions.

I think one way to keep your resolutions is to keep doing a goal check in. I am doing that and so far so good! How are your resolutions/goals tracking for you? Let me know in the comments!

______________________________________________________________________________ 

About Me: I work full time, I am also studying for a therapist qualification in Naturopathy specialising in Herbalism, I have a small craft 'business', I am co-admin of an auction page on facebook to help other small hobby businesses, i maintain my own 'store' facebook page, I blog at least once a week and I maintain a facebook page created to support small home businesses and hobby sellers 
............................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................... Please visit me on etsy! www.etsy.com/shop/empressbat handcrafted gothic goodies at bargain prices. see me on etsy! www.etsy.com/shop/empressbat ...Please visit me on etsy! www.etsy.com/shop/empressbat handcrafted gothic goodies at bargain prices. see me on etsy! www.etsy.com/shop/empressbat

The Documented Life Project: Have you joined in?

I have just found an amazing website about an artistic, creative project called the "Documented Life ". Each week you are provided with a journalling prompt challenge. On January First 2014, which was challenge one, you had to photograph, sketch, paint or incorporate your front door.

I have only just started, and although you can start from whatever week you first found out about the project I want the full year !! So i think I can catch up if I do two pages a week at least.

The creators of the project are using a Moleskine planner/diary, but I am using my limited edition blank paged Minnie Mouse journal as I wanted to use it for something to keep and this seems just the project!

They have a facebook group, if you are interested in the project why not join it?

Information about the group of artists who started this project is at this link.

I think this would be a great addition to my goal to be positive this year!  So I have joined their facebook group and have started the challenges!

(I have so many to catch up on considering it is already the end of March!)


These are the weekly challenges they have listed so far:


  1. January 1, 2014 - Week One - Photograph, sketch, paint or incorporate your front door.
  2. January 5, 2014 - Week Two - Selfie
  3. January 12, 2014 - Week Three - Add an envelope from your mailbox.
  4. January 18, 2014 - Week Four - Write a secret message then paint over all but one key word.
  5. January 25, 2014 - Week Five - Add a doodle border.
  6. February 1, 2014 - Week Six - Open your Pinterest board and be inspired.
  7. February 8, 2014 - Week Seven - Draw one shape - repeat - add color.
  8. February 15, 2014 - Week Eight - Add a flap to your flap.
  9. February 22, 2014 - Challenge (Week Nine) - Collage something you recycled.
  10. March 1, 2014 - Challenge (Week Ten) - Make a list of the things that make you YOU.
  11. March 8, 2014 - Challenge - Week Eleven - Draw, photograph or collage a bird onto your page.
  12. March 15, 2014 - Challenge - Week Twelve - Cut up a magazine..add!
  13. March 22, 2014 - Challenge - Ask someone else to draw on your page - finish it

I will post images form my journal to this blog, and if you are doing the challenge to, I'd love to see links to your journals! (just put the info in the comments section!)


I will post images from my art journal for the DOcumented Life on a page in my blog.

______________________________________________________________________________ 

About Me: I work full time, I am also studying for a therapist qualification in Naturopathy specialising in Herbalism, I have a small craft 'business', I am co-admin of an auction page on facebook to help other small hobby businesses, i maintain my own 'store' facebook page, I blog at least once a week and I maintain a facebook page created to support small home businesses and hobby sellers 
............................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................... Please visit me on etsy! www.etsy.com/shop/empressbat handcrafted gothic goodies at bargain prices. see me on etsy! www.etsy.com/shop/empressbat ...Please visit me on etsy! www.etsy.com/shop/empressbat handcrafted gothic goodies at bargain prices. see me on etsy! www.etsy.com/shop/empressbat