The Half Way Point - a free worksheet to check in on your artist year

If you receive my twice monthly Artnotes, you’ll know about this; I decided to share it here too in case you don’t, as I’ve found it to be helpful.

At the end of each year I use one of my creative planners to look back over the year just gone, and think about what I’d like to create in the one to come.

{If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’ll find the various planners I’ve offered here – there are four, and they get progressively more detailed each year so you can choose the style that works best for you, and all are free so please help yourself.}

I’ve always resisted rigid planning {please don’t make me do SMART goals!}, but I’ve learned that even a cursory glance in both directions can be incredibly supportive and grounding, and is much more likely to get me where I want to go.

I always find I’ve done a lot more than I thought, and I really enjoy spending some time creating space for new ideas and laying out a rough map for the future. {Details are typically dealt with in the moment.}

And I don’t know about you, but around the midway mark I can find I’ve lost my way a bit with my original intentions.

Filling in The Half Way Point at sunset 🙂

This year that has been particularly true because the move and the renovation {here and here} have really thrown everything into disarray, and the many pieces are far from landed just yet.

I noticed that as soon as I looked back mentally over the past six months the first things that came up were judgements – haven’t done enough, haven’t worked hard enough, not focused enough, not making enough income.

The second thing was, yes but you’ve been renovating a house! {And you’ve had work in three exhibitions!?!}

I needed a kinder, more useful, more evidence based way to see this, so I made a worksheet I’m calling {rather imaginatively} The Half Way Point.

It’s just two pages, super simple. Here’s what they contain:

A calendar for the first six months of the year with space to note down any specific achievements, milestones or events to celebrate or remember
Some questions to ponder about what’s happened so far, where things might go for the rest of the year, and whether anything can be let go
A calendar for the second half of the year with space to map out any dreams or plans to work on
A space for notes

If you’d like to do a low pressure check in too, click the button below to download and print it out. I recommend a beverage and some sort of delicious snack while you do it.