Introducing Ambition Month
What it means to take this seriously.
February was a month full of quiet wins for me, lots of small actions that have added up to feeling more confident about my work than ever. It would be so easy for those little wins to go unnoticed but writing my monthly Studio Notes is such a part of my process now that it allows me (and my community) to track our progress and truly see how far we’ve come each month.
This month I want to build on those wins and talk to you about ambition. I’ve always identified as an ambitious person, I’ve always known that my path wouldn’t be a traditional one, but over the last year I’ve lacked that ruthless sense of ambition that I've clung to in the past.
I used to have a single minded sense of determination, once I set my eyes on a goal there was no stopping me making that a reality. In hindsight I think I was just scared of what might happen if I got things wrong so I held myself to crazy standards to try and avoid that.
But life happened anyway. Things didn’t work out the way I’d hoped they would, I didn’t love the job I trained for like I thought I might, being an artist is really bloody hard. So this month I want to explore ambition from a different angle
What if ambition just meant taking my dreams seriously again? Not crazy hard work and hours of hustle. Not an all consuming obsession but a quiet purposeful grounding in working towards what I want, even when that’s hard to do.
Today Tilly is poorly. My main focus is on keeping her as comfortable as possible until we can go to the vets this afternoon. But my ambition keeps me showing up here, doing the little bits of work that matter most in this moment.
Over the course of this month I’m thinking about taking a little bit of time to dream, plan and actually quantify what my goals for the year mean in practical steps. I also want to grow my Studio Notes and change how I’m showing up here. I want to truly finish my website project. I want to try to increase my visibility and take making an income from my art seriously. I also want to push myself creatively, create artwork that has ambition, to take risks with my colour choices that I’d otherwise normally shy away from.
To me ambition means finding a balance between giving myself a break, allowing myself to rest whilst still doing the work and making tangible progress.
So I’m going to try something new. This month all my writing will hang off of the theme of ambition. Free subscribers will get a weekly Sunday post around the monthly theme whilst paid subscribers will get access to the deeper audit in my Studio Notes post. I love contextualising my work here, I love giving a voice to a process that can feel so intangible and intuitive. I’m hoping the theme of ambition will help me to ground myself in this new version of ambition, to rediscover dreams I had forgotten about and to really get the metaphorical ball rolling.
I want this writing practice to become a meaningful part of how I support myself and my Studio Notes are how I plan to do that.
Studio Notes is my monthly creative board meeting - just now it’ll also have a theme!
At the end of each month, I sit down and take stock properly; What went well? What didn’t? Where did I earn money and what just drained me? Is there anything to adjust? Where am I at with my goals? What did this months theme change for me?
Paid subscribers get access to the full audit, alongside structured journal prompts so we can reflect together rather than allowing our goals to remain intangible.
If you want to take your creative ambitions seriously too, Studio Notes is where the deeper work happens.
P.S. If you know someone quietly building something of their own and is craving some accountability, feel free to pass this on.