2015 was kind of a roller coaster for me. I graduated college in January with a plan of finding a job in my degree field, but failed. I graduated my health coaching program in May with new hopes of starting that up, but kind of failed.
Some good things happened too. Although the stress of planning a wedding was rough, we managed to get married without too many hitches and I was able to enjoy the day without too many meltdowns. My husband and I moved to Vermont and found farming jobs that we love. I learned so much more than I thought I would through this job, it was such a blessing.
Emotionally, 2015 was more rough than smooth unfortunately. I struggled with feeling like a constant failure and months of contemplating suicide. And even though the job was a success, I found it difficult to open up and let my guard down. I wrote a whole post about the job and my feelings here. Once the season was over I became my hermit-like self again, becoming more and more withdrawn and anxious. Although my eating wasn't affected, thoughts of suicide returned and I fell back into a state of depression.
A lot of things contributed to this lapse. While working all day, I really didn't have time to pity myself or think about how miserable my life was. I had to pull it together every day for work, but when I stopped working, I had all day to sit and think myself into bad moods and to contemplate my sad existence. Also, I felt bad that I hadn't done anything with my degrees and continued to feel like a failure for not being able to do anything in life.
Feeling like I haven't done anything with my life is kind of the basis or this reflection, because this is what I hope will be different in 2016. I need to stay committed to my dream of making my life mean something and doing what I love.
This has always been something I've struggled with because I have so many different directions I want to go in. On one hand I have the health coaching idea, then I have my art that I want to be able to sell, and I have my personal training stuff I wish I could figure out, and then my newest dream is to have a farm! Oh and I can't forget about that memoir I'm trying to write!
Phew, so many things.
My problem isn't that I can't find a passion, it's that I don't know which way to go, which path to take. I need to pick one passion and put all my focus and strength into that.
Right now something is pulling me in the direction of my artwork because all my other passions have faded to some degree, but my art has always been there. It's always been something I go to and it is one of the only things I do where I completely forget about the clock and the world.
I really want to be able to sell my artwork and be able to make some kind of living off of it. Where I usually get caught up is that this kind of dream takes time and a lot of hard work, which sometimes I forget and tend to want everything to happen overnight. But don't we all.
Dreams take work. And maybe I'm ready to put in the work now. I just have to keep reminding myself that things take time, nothing happens instantly.
Goal for 2016: Make more art and sell it.
Now I'm off to make an excel chart of the steps I need to take to make this goal happen.
What are your goals for this new year? How will you achieve them?