— I find it valuable at the start of each year not just to look ahead at what I might wish to accomplish next but also to look back over the year now passed so as to take a little time to actually feel proud of all I’ve done.

Because it’s easy to forget. In the rush and tumble of weeks and months, so much blurs together, and you can easily lose sight of everything you actually packed in there.

You may want to sit down and write out a simple list of all your achievements of the past year, however big or small. If you’re at all like me, you’ll probably be surprised when you see it all written down.

Going forward — as the new year starts to take shape around you — it helps to remember that you have it in you to make this year even better than the last.

You do that partly through intention. (What do you want to do with this year? Do you know?)

But you mostly do it through action.

It’s up to you to make things happen.

And as an artist, I’m reminded of this wonderful quotation from Ray Bradbury:

“Action is hope. At the end of each day, when you’ve done your work, you lie there and think, ‘Well, I’ll be damned, I did this today.’ It doesn’t matter how good it is, or how bad — you did it. At the end of the week you’ll have a certain amount of accumulation. At the end of a year, you look back and say, ‘I’ll be damned, it’s been a good year.’”

And it starts with each day.

You take up the creative journey afresh each day and you put in the work to move forward along your path. You stack up the work.

On any given day it might not seem like much.

But over the course of a year?

You can achieve what others would think impossible.

~ Sebastian

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The image featured atop this post is by our beloved artist Billa Bozem. She was an inspiring example to us all of what can be achieved when you embrace a prolific creative life. She will be missed terribly.