Happy New Year, Shoreline, daily painting by Everglaes artist Jo-Ann Sanborn

Shoreline, 2012, Jo-Ann Sanborn

acrylic on canvas, 8"x10"

Happy New Year!

Health, Abundance and Joy are my wishes for you this year

Last year I created a long list of goals and plans, and worked hard to complete them.  This year I’m taking a different approach.  While I'll still have goals in mind, I want to g simplfy and get down to basics .  Here goes!

With thanks to Chris Brogan for the idea, choosing three words to focus on for the year really worked for me and helped me in a variety of situations.  My words for 2011 were love, focus and growth.  They worked so well that I almost kept them for another year.  Since they’ve become a part of me now, and in the spirit of “growth” I decided to move on and choose new ones.  This year my words will be courage, patience, and discipline.   

Courage, to help face new challenges in my personal life, in my artwork, and in our rapidly changing world, Patience, to give all things the time they need in my art, and especially in dealing with others, and Discipline of body and mind, to keep me on the path to doing the hard work that means success, and to remind me to do what’s right even when it’s hard.   

These words will be guideposts to help me grow both as a person and as an artist, and I’ll put them on my bulletin board at home and at the studio, and drag them into mind when I’m uncertain or waffling. 

How do you start fresh each year? Do you find positive ways to celebrate what you’ve achieved and move forward?  Do you use symbolism or take action to refresh and renew?  Do you think ahead, to what you can do better or make plans and resolutions for the coming year?