The Future Of The Golden Letter – Planning For Success [TheBBar Linkup]

The lovely ladies of TheBBar posed two great questions for their May linkup that I will be answering here today!

• What are you doing to prepare for your future?
• What should you start doing to create a better future for yourself?

Make sure you read until the end, where I’ll link all of the amazing ladies that also answered these questions!

Success is a funny thing (not funny “haha” but funny…well…you know what I mean), it means so many things and it varies from person to person. Its definition can even change over time, but what’s important is to celebrate all of the little successes and savor them, let them fuel you.

A little back story

I’ve always been a pretty ambitious person, but I was going down the wrong path, dreaming the wrong dream for myself and wondered why I wasn’t getting ahead (you can read more about that here) and it wasn’t until last year that I snapped out of denial and admitted to myself that my dreams had changed and I wanted to do something else.

At first I was like “oh snap, what now?” (I mean, the thought of a drastic career change is terrifying), then I noticed something change in me. It’s amazing what being true to yourself does to you. You start to look forward to waking up early to get down to business, you eat, drink and dream of new ideas, you enjoy every fun or boring or tedious task because you are moving closer to your dreams. It’s magical!
This year I started a blog that I’m passionate about and I wholeheartedly believe in (the one your eyeballs are on right meow), opened an Etsy shop and started actually developing a step-by-step plan of action to reach these goals I set for myself. I’m going slow and taking my time so as to 1. enjoy the process and 2. make sure I do things correctly and learn everything I need to learn to reach my milestones and ultimately my goals.

There are several things I’m working on and goals I’ve set to prepare for my future and the future of TGL. Here are some of them:

List of goals I’ve set for myself + TGL

1. Do a little blog facelift to match the vision I have for this site [UPDATE: Done!]
2. Start branding TGL – create a logo
3. Add more of my original artwork to my little Etsy shop [UPDATE: …and Society6!]
4. Learn how to use Adobe Illustrator [UPDATE: Done!]- I wrote about it recently in this post – so that I can…
5. …Refine my art + bring my ideas to life (I’m leaving some mystery on this point because I want it to be a surprise!)
6. Start building a portfolio
7. Hone in on my niche, now that I feel more settled into my little online home. [UPDATE: success!]
8. Create a TGL community of positive thinkers, creative-types that want to go from dreamers to doers and create a life they love. [If this sounds like you, you should subscribe for monthly goodies and be a part of this totally awesome growing community of go-getters]  [UPDATE: in progress]

Yep, my plate is full but I intend to eat it all! I was also more of a dreamer, but now that I’m believing in myself and being more proactive (a doer) I’m accomplishing things! Reaching milestones! Seeing results!

Here are the goals I’m already working on

1. Start branding – I’m developing a logo and a color palette
2. Creating original artwork to add to my Etsy shop
3. Learning Illustrator – my brain may be melting in the process, but I WILL LEARN THE DANG THING!
4. Sketching, drawing and painting – eventually will be doing the whole ‘bringing to life’ part
5. Redefining my blog (honing in on my niche) to create resources for creative dreamers to use on their journey to creating their dream blog/business/life.

Here are the goals that I will start working on soon

1. Blog facelift – I’ve got the theme picked out, I’m just super scared to do it myself and have my blog implode (or something). [Update: You are seeing the new face now! I’m happy to report that no implosion happened!]
2. Adding artwork and other useful printable and digital downloads to my Etsy shop [UPDATE: Done + more to come!]
3. The whole ‘bringing my ideas to life’ part
4. Start building my portfolio
5. Creating a community of positive thinkers, creative-types that want to go from dreamers to doers. [This one is the most important one to me. I have some pretty good ideas for this one and I’m excited to start planning!]

A few tips and takeaways you can apply yourself

1. Believe in yourself. I know, I know, it sounds super cliché but it is what makes a world of difference. If you believe in yourself and your work (whether it be a product or service or blog or website or anything) it will show!
2. Write down everything you want to do for your business or your life, figure out the steps you need to take to reach those goals and write them down.
3. Just start Start small, remember that list of steps you need to take to reach your goals? Find the steps you can take every day to get closer to them. For example: I know that in order to reach many of my goals on my list, I need to learn how to use Illustrator. I take Skillshare classes or watch YouTube videos, read articles/blogs with helpful info and I practice with the program every day. Which brings me to my next point
4. Live + breathe your goal In your spare time, take a class, learn a new skill that’ll be helpful to you, subscribe to blogs that inspire you, read books or articles to expand your knowledge and “do something every day that will get you closer to your dreams” Cheesy? Maybe. Good advice? Absolutely.
5. Celebrate your small successes I do a little happy dance every time I get a new subscriber or someone comments on my blog posts or someone favorites or buys one of my products in my shop or even when I finally understand something on Illustrator (the takeaway here is that I do a lot of happy dancing). I celebrate every little thing because it keeps me motivated and super pumped for the future of TGL. It helps fuel me and it reinforces the fact that I am doing what I’m meant to do, I’m right where I need to be and I will succeed.

Now I want to hear from you! What is one thing you’re doing now to reach your goals and prepare for your future? What area do you need the most help in (time management, organization, learning a new skill)?

With love,

PS: If you want more inspiration, check out the lovely ladies’ links below that also wrote about how they’re planning for their future: