Sunday, January 8, 2017

My Twist on New Year's Resolutions...The Stop Doing List


I know most people make lists of things they're going to start doing and I've done that too, but this year I'm taking a different approach in making a list of things I want to stop doing. Many of these are blog specific but they're applicable in my life too. So in 2017, here are some things that I have promised myself I will stop doing. 

  • Stop seeking perfection. Whether it's because it's just my nature, or I am a quintessential Virgo personality, I have a tendency to not do / try something because I know it won't be perfect. True confession time: whether it's a recipe or a craft or whatever, if I don't think I can do it "right" I often won't do it at all. That has to stop.  Which leads to the next one which is the other side of the same coin...

  • Stop being afraid to fail. A lot of things have come naturally to me. In life, in crafting / making etc. I don't mean that to sound arrogant because the truth is that I gravitate towards the things that come easily to me and avoid the things that don't because I'm afraid to fail. Really and truly afraid to fail. I need to let this go because in failures there are opportunities. Many of us makers refer to them as "happy accidents" and true, I've had a few of them but I need to have some more. I also need to post the things that don't go quite as planned. Heck Heather Mann wrote a whole book on Craft Fails. I want to stop being afraid to fail enough to make Heather's next book ! 

  • Stop comparing myself to others. Especially when it comes to my blog and its "success". I started my blog around the same time as some others that have taken off and grown wildly. I am thrilled for those bloggers so this isn't about jealousy of them, but about me feeling like I failed because I didn't grow as big or as fast. Now, what I will forget to tell myself is that I started this whole thing at a time when I thought my day job was busy but stable,  then about a year or two into blogging that started to change radically and hasn't calmed down since. I also forget to tell myself that for many of those other bloggers, this was their day job. So I need to stop thinking I'm superwoman and remember that I work 65+ hours a week at a crazy job and I can't do that and grow my blog at the same pace as someone who has more time to devote to making things and cultivating their site.

  • Stop playing it safe. Again, a lot of these blend into each other but what I mean by this finding a balance between things I'm comfortable with and things I wouldn't normally do. I gravitate to black and white and neutrals and don't use a lot of colors. That will probably always be a large part of my work but I need to stop avoiding using some colors that don't come naturally to me and push some boundaries. 

  • Stop not using "special" materials. Anyone else buy really cool stuff that you never use because it's so special you want the perfect project to come to you and/or you're afraid you'll mess it up so you hang on to it and don't use it because all of the bullets that precede this one apply? Anyone? Just me? The end result is you have things that are special that never see the light of day. Stop that!  

There may be other things I need to stop doing but these are the main ones for now. How about you? Are there things you want to stop doing in 2017? If so would love if you shared in the comments! 

4 comments:

Michelle L. said...

Carol!!! What an inspiring and wonderful list! Brilliant spin on the boring old resolution, I really love it. I AM the last one, and I never seem to get myself to change. I'm so happy I'm not the only one. This is going to be on my radar now - yes, i am going to make necklaces from my dad's antique amber beads to start with. And I'm going to use those rough ruby-in-zoecite beads, too dammit! And I'm going to figure out how to spell zoecite zoesite? zoescite? too.

Thank you, Carol, you amaze me often and speak to me always.

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