What are your goals for 2013?

My work is about helping people use the arts for personal, organisational and community development. I'm keen to encourage more people to engage with their own creative potential as I think this can help us build more inclusive, creative and sustainable communities. I'd like to share some of my thoughts about this process here - and to hear your ideas too!

Starting a new year reminds me of just how central to any programme of creative development is the process of working out what you want to do. The clearer you are about your goals and objectives the more likely you are to achieve them.

This doubly important for the strategic approaches to creative development that I concentrate on, partly because there is more to consider and but also because these approaches focus on achieving creative potential by supporting the creative development of others.

Personally, I put a lot of thought into developing my programme. I feel a need for it to be as rigorous as possible. I need to know that I've put together a plan without any gaps. I've spent a lot of time this week revising my own strategic creative development plan.

I want to be particularly rigorous about it as I plan to use what I learn to help others adopt similar approaches. However, a plan can be much simpler than that and what matters most is that you have a sense of working forward towards a goal. You need a to be clear about this for yourself and you also need to be able to communicate it to others.

So here are two quick suggestions at the start of the year.
1) Make a quick note of where you want to be at the end of the year, I'll set myself three targets that I will know if I've achieved.
2) Write one line about what it is you are trying to achieve and one about how people can help.

Here are my lines:

My personal goal is to understand what I’ve learned and to use that learning in the most effective way I can to support and inspire others.

To achieve my goal I’m looking for people who’d like help to achieve their goals.