Getting Crafty

Today is the final day of the 4th Ready Set Craft! - The Get Crafty Challenge and the challenge was Crafter’s Choice - you were encouraged to make whatever you wished. I decide to delve into the world of paint and it was fun. I felt a little silly because I decided to paint whatever came to mind. There was no goal or idea in mind, just to paint.

Unfortunately, a post-painting rest period turned into sleep, and I was unable to grab a picture of my creation this morning before work. I won’t be home until much later today so I will be squeezing in my creation just two hours before midnigh!

If you’d like to see what Sherry made, please visit her site and read her entry. She always gives me such great food for thought. If you recall, in my last entry, she asked me a question that I thought I’d have time to answer over the weekend but I never did get around to answering. I will answer the question What have I learned through challenging myself? over the next couple of days.

Lesson 1: Accountability
When Sherry first suggested the challenge to me, I was excited because of the timeliness of it. I would finally be using all those supplies I had collected and kept buying, day after day. I would get to try out techniques I had read about or seen online, and perhaps tools that I hadn’t yet had a chance to use, or hadn’t used lately (paintbrushes!). It was a challenge, one that I had accepted, and I couldn’t let my partner in crime down.

My life is full of many examples of procrastination. I know I am not alone in this but I have a pretty severe case of procrastination. However, through this challenge, I procrastinated less. For the first challenge, even though I did most of the work during the latter half of the week, I was thinking about what I’d do and brain storming through the week and I found that to be true for the following challenges too. The shortness of the timelines also served to give me little time to procrastinate: I had to put something up within seven days, I couldn’t just let it drag on.

What I learned is that a firm deadline and being accountable to someone other than myself are essential for me to be successful. Some people are very good at motivating themselves to accomplish their goals: they simply write it down and voila! Goal accomplished. In my case, if it’s “only me” that will be disappointed if I don’t accomplish the goal, I’m ok with that. I don’t feel bad. It shouldn’t be this way, of course. I should be the most important person in my life that I want to please. Perhaps one day that will be the case.

As you can imagine, this idea of accountability can be used in other areas of life besides art. I have been trying to lose weight for more than half of my life, and one consistency (other than my failure to accomplish this goal) is my determination to do it on my own. All my fit friends who have offered to be my work out buddy have been able to drag me to the gym with them once or twice, before I make up excuses and tell them that I will do it on my own. It never lasts. Maybe now I will be more open to the idea of having somebody that I’m accountable to, who is depending on me to go to the gym when I say I will, or eat 5 veggies a day.

Accountability, I’ve discovered, is a great motivator to accomplishing my goals.