Thursday, March 27, 2008

The winner is...


Binky!
(Click here to view Binky's art on her website.)

What lovely, thoughtful responses to my art card challenge! Thank you for sharing your visions. May you all find abundance with your respective goals.

Writing down your ideas can be so helpful in actually making things happen. In graduate school, I had to create my own syllabus for each term. I had to write down my learning objectives, my reading list, and my assignments. I'm so glad that this self-directed learning was part of my creative writing program! Even after grad school, I created syllabi for my writing life, including things I wanted to learn, books I wanted to read, poems I wanted to write. Each syllabus became a guide or map for me once I left the structure (and accountability) of school. Imagine writing your own syllabus for some aspect of our life. Do you think this would work for you? Your syllabus need not be dry and crusty either; you can make it juicy and full of color and life. If the word "syllabus" makes you feel stiff all of the sudden, you can replace that word with "my treasure map" or "my fairy godmother scroll" or "my funkalicious goals."


Try this:


Choose one area of your life for which you'd like more structure, attention, and guidance. Think of all the ways you'd like to engage with this area of your life and create a syllabus. Write your objectives/goals, your list of juicy activities (with specific information related to due dates, times, frequency, etc.), your resources (books, movies, concerts, presentations), and your desired outcomes. Be sure to make this document fit you (this is all about you; no one is grading you on anything!). If you want color-crayon flower borders, go for it! See if creating a guide like this gives you a bit more structure to follow through with your goals. Let me know how it goes!


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow..what beautiful art. I am very encouraged on how you presented your goals too (note to Binky). Courtney..you are a true inspiration. Thank you for sharing.

Pandora said...

Love this writing idea of making a syllabus. And love your blog as well. What a great title. And the art is beautiful.

I will be linking to your blog soon---

(I write at One Year of Writing and Healing)

Diane