Wise Words for 2014: Don't Wait

Back in December, this Wise Words post was practically written in my head. My mantra was going to be something along the lines of the saying about working smarter not harder. I planned to dedicate 2014 to putting systems in place, fine tuning my processes and investing in technology that would make my design business run more efficiently. I'd be working the same amount of time, but faster and more focused. And then, God smiled and threw a wrench in the plans that I had made for 2014.

All in a matter of a few weeks I found out I'd be the regular senior writer/contributor for the blog of an online paper company, I'd be contributing some DIY/party posts for another blog and I'd be producing commercial shoots again for a substantial client that could potentially be twice as much work as it was in 2013. Whew. I am incredibly excited about all these possibilities. However, I quickly have realized, there's no way around it: I will most definitely be working harder (and hopefully smarter) in 2014.

All this forced me to rethink my goals for 2014. I put off this post until I was scrolling through my Bloglovin feed the other day and saw a few Swiss Miss posts that caught my eye. Navigating Stuckness and Don't Wait are peppered with some words of wisdom that got me thinking. So, my revised goal for 2014 is summed up by this quote from Jonathan Harris:

"In life, you will become known for doing what you do. That sounds obvious, but it’s profound. If you want to be known as someone who does a particular thing, then you must start doing that thing immediately."

With the work I have lined up already, I want to make sure that I'm not losing my own creative pursuits. My goal for 2014 is to continue creating for myself through this blog and doing client work that I'm proud to put in my portfolio. I'm focusing on creating my own design destiny of sorts. I hope that by producing my own work here, people will then seek me out for the very work I enjoy doing most. I want to do more work for independent makers, small businesses and clients that appreciate and get what good design can do.

What exactly does that mean? It means fewer, but more well-thought out and well-crafted posts. It means making every post I do a design, illustration or photography exercise that is challenging to me and scrapping planned posts that aren't. It means refreshing my branding and narrowing my portfolio to best express the type of work I hope to do. This also means more content creation here through DIYs, photoshoots and also introducing a business-related column.

It's a goal that's both incredibly intimidating and intriguing to me. Does anyone else have a goal for 2014 that both scares and delights them?