THE ARTLIFE BLOGS: a journey of 1,000 miles that's gonna end in 2018

I read an article at the New York Times yesterday* about how ineffective willpower and effort are, for implementing New Year’s resolutions.

Apparently numerous studies show that what does work, really well - instead of gritting one’s teeth and getting all stressed out - is practicing gratitude and compassion, plus genuinely taking pride in our accomplishments.

As an independent teacher and psychotherapist, this new understanding is going to change the logistics part of my worklife, the part I’ve typically enjoyed less than actually working with people - which I can never get enough of!

I call dealing with logistics deskworld. As for many of us, this can take way... more time than I want it to. So I’m going to experiment with changing deskworld into another form of play, each time I set out into it.

But how to have a new way truly become something more than just another great idea at the approach of another new year? How to make this really stick for the long haul?

Hm… sounds like yet another opportunity for practicing Artlife, art-making that leads directly into more wholly alive living.

So without procrastinating and then potentially losing the impulse, I went and bought a big new notebook last night. It said Sketchbook on the front. This morning I’ve altered that into a declaration of how I'm going to radically shape-shift the deskworld part of my worklife.

And have just written some initial ideas for daily/weekly gratitude/compassion/pride experiments into the front of the book. Doing all this brings being temporarily inspired by a cool article to the next level, as an active ongoing exploration.

Now I want it to be January 2nd already so I can start testing this out!

Wishing you all a not only Happy, but also genuinely and even wildly Creative New Year,

Ruby