Self-portrait by Holly Danger

Since Jan 1st, I’ve made a conscious effort to turn my daily routines upside down and hit the ground running.

Every year I’ve made it a habit of designating a mantra to help propel my year forward and to motivate my choices. Some might call this a kind of “new years resolution”, but I’ve personally had more luck thinking in more yogic terms and setting an “intention”.

This year I’ve taken on an abstract concept and decided to focus on the word transformation. While this sounds almost too abstract to hold on to for a year, I’ve broken the word down to mean a few specific things for me. Over the last few years I’ve been trying to work health & wellness into my busy schedule which always slips by in favor of work. I’m a determined work-aholic who has always sat in front of her computer for 8-20 hours at a time just to achieve the kind of perfection that I have conjured in my mind. I’ve even said to myself in the past that I would sacrifice my personal wellness to reach over and beyond my creative heights. It sounds a little obsessive but sometimes you feel like you have to dedicate yourself 150% to put out work that you can be proud of. Or at least that’s what I told myself, until now.

I’m currently letting my art & performance work breathe for a minute as I’ve started shifting directions. That doesn’t mean that I’m stopping work, I’m just shifting priorities. I realize that my mathematics were wrong all along. Obsessive endless work should never replace your own wellness. That can only last so long before you exhaust yourself and burn out both physically and creatively.

Here are a few things that I’m working on to re-vitalize my creative life: Beer, Food,  Balance & Deadlines

Now, this may seem crazy, but I have temporarily given up beer. Well, at least 6 days out of the week. This first step has really helped me re-focus my goals and put them in working order towards success. I love to drink, but this has been something that inevitably gets me into trouble and I usually sacrifice my health goals when I drink too much. I started with a pact to uphold “Dry January”, which was no alcohol for a month, period. I surprised myself that I actually really enjoyed doing this. And with all the extra time, planned out what I wanted to do moving forward.

I set up deadlines. Every month I want to put an event on the calendar that locks me into getting closer to my goals. January, was to reach my food goals. I set out to uphold my personal promise of not drinking and to go back on the Slow Carb “Four Hour Body” diet. I signed up to try Dietbet.com which is a social dieting game to lose 4% of your bodyweight in 1 month. Everyone bets money and then you get a piece of the pot if you achieve your goal. The pot in my Slow Carb game is up to $12,500, and I’ll find out this Thursday if I can take home a piece of that pie! But more than the winnings, it has motivated me and helped me stick to my goal.

February has been about physical goals which meant to get back into yoga, zumba and running, my holy trinity of fitness. To keep me on track I signed up for a yoga workshop on March 1st. I signed up to run the Bay to Breakers 12K on May 19th in San Francisco, and bought some new shoes to kickstart a new regimen with Zumba. I’ve plastered one wall at home with schedules at multiple studios so I know what I could be doing on any given day and try to do something 5-6 days out of the week.

March is about learning new skills. I’ve signed up to try my hands at learning Cinema 4D animation through 3rd Ward’s classes in Brooklyn. I’ve also decided to expand my network and invest into this blog!  I signed up to board a flight to Portland, OR (One of my all time favorite cities) at the end of the month, to join the fabulous ladies of the Blogcademy. The prospect of this trip has inspired the bright colored sparkly layer of myself which has been suppressed in a beige environment of corporate work for awhile.

After a month and a half of all this new direction I can say that I’m feeling great and excited to see where it all goes. All of the above is reaching towards new art and ideas for the year, as well as a more transformed version of myself, for having followed my own path of necessary creative wellness.