Setting Goals to Overcome Career Blocks

The Island, SuttonBeresCuller, 2005

The Island, SuttonBeresCuller, 2005


Artists are by definition visionary. This ability to envision the future doesn’t necessarily apply to our careers. It’s impossible to navigate to a destination you don’t know you’re going. Goal-setting gives you the agency to direct your own path to creative fulfillment. Take stock of your current situation. What are your wildest dreams? How do you get those career-defining commissions, win the most prestigious fellowship or get that fully funded international residency?
You’ll find some tips to get you started below. To develop an in-depth plan, sign up for Susan Koblin Schear’s upcoming Creative Capital webinar, Values-Based Goal Setting. The webinar explores how your values and guiding principles impact your art practice and provides a framework for establishing attainable goals that reflect these principles. 

  1. Write everything down. Start with short term goals like finding a more affordable studio and work your way up to your biggest goals, like landing a major museum retrospective. Keep your written goals in a place where you can look back at them regularly.
  2. Put your goals on a calendar and be firm with them. Achievable goals come with reasonable deadlines. Don’t let your doubts build an emergency exit into your dreams.
  3. Make sustainability a priority. Break out your goals into smaller steps that you can do on a regular basis. This is especially important if you have a day job or are struggling to build your practice around family life. If you’re writing a novel, setting aside time to write a few pages each evening rather than indulging in sporadic all-nighters.
  4. Avoid planning too much too soon. Be ambitious, but If you haven’t started the script for your first movie don’t plan on winning the Oscar next year.
  5. Make time to reflect. Is what you’re doing right now contributing to what you ultimately want? What isn’t? How can you adjust your goals accordingly?

Everyone wants to be successful in what they do, but when is the last time you meditated on what success means to you? Chasing someone’s else concept of success leads to a sense of discontentment and eventual burnout. Join us for Values-Based Goal Setting on Monday April 11, 7:00-8:30pm to discuss how misalignment of our values, actions and goals can impede artistic practice and career progress.
Register Now


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