Ah, it’s that time of year again. Time to look at the fresh new year with rejuvenated eyes and optimistic goals. As I’ve written before, goals are great to make but you need to make them specific and actionable in order to make your goal a reality.

Why are goals important? Because they establish something concrete for you to work toward. Otherwise, you aimlessly go through the year with only a vague idea of what you want.

Why do goals fail? Because often they aren’t tied to a specific plan of action and capitalizing on a relevant and pressing desire.

Now, I’m sharing some ways below on how I can help….but before we get there, I want to share my photo book goal.

It’s a goal that I’ve been eager to start for months but wanted to clear some current goals off my plate to make room for this one because it will take work, organization, thoughtful planning and some practice.

In 2018, I want to make a Family Cookbook.

It’s important to say right off that bat, I’m not a cook. I don’t regularly cook our family meals. My role up to this point has been primarily in charge of bread and breakfast. Which I admit, this isn’t nothing. However, it’s definitely fair to say I have my work cut out of me to cook all of the meals I want to go in our family cookbook.

And I’m not a food photographer. Probably because I don’t cook, I rarely photograph food. However, I’m photographing my kids less and less; so I’m looking for another subject matter to photograph. Similar to cooking, it will take learning and practice but I’m totally enthused by the idea.

As I set out to embark on this new photo book goal, I’ve noticed that there are four key reasons that will make this goal my focus throughout the year.

|1| Connect with your Passion.

Right now, I’m really excited about planning, preparing, attempting and photographing meals. I can’t fully explain where this is coming from. All I know, is that I’m energized by the thought of sorting through recipes, trying them out, and photographing them. But at this point, it doesn’t matter why. I’m embracing this desire and making sure it translates into a photography and photo book project.

|2| Fill in a gap.

For this point, it means that your photo book goal should fulfill something that is missing in your life that you really want or need. It could be an annual photo book from a previous year that you have yet to finish. Or a special vaction, to Disney perhaps, that will make a perfect photo book. For my particular goal this year, I’m looking to design a book to combine our favorite recipes from cookbooks and family recipes that I want to collect in one easy location. I also want to create a cookbook that works for our family; something that lays out our go-to recipes to help us save time.

Plus, after years of getting Living and Bon Appetit magazines, I’ve collected recipes in this box that I’m saving to try later. However, it’s to easy to forget which recipes I’ve placed here and when they would be appropriate. By taking on this project, I want to go through the recipes I’ve collected, try the ones that could really work for us and if it’s good, take photos and place it in our book. Then I can purge all of these magazine (and internet) clippings.

|3| Come up with a creative design.

My theory is if you are excited about the design possibilities, the more likely you are to want to work on your photo book. And cookbooks have a wide variety of options when it comes to including creative design elements. With cookbooks, there are ways to develop creative responses for the table of contents, the organization, the section pages, the text for the recipe, the photography, the page numbers, and any graphics. The design possibilities excite me. For your photo book goal, find a way, no matter how small, to inject a design element that will make you eager to see the final product.

|4| Create a family heirloom.

In the end, what really matters is that you are energized by creating a family heirloom. When you recognize the larger goal or purpose, this maintains the priority and focus of the goal. For my cookbook, I know that working on this cookbook at this time, will memorialize the recipes that mean a lot to our family and will be something interesting for our kids to have when they are older. This provides added motivation to keep me working on this photo book throughout the year.

Now that you know my goal, it’s time to define your goal. And I wanted to share 6 ways I’m here to help you achieve your goals this year.

FREE

If you’ve failed at sticking to your photo book goals in the past, you need this workshop to get started on the right foot and meet your goals.

UNDER $50

Every month you’ll receive a downloadable PDF Lesson (appr 20 pages) helping and inspiring you to complete an annual photo book this year.

ABOVE $50

Never find time to complete your family photo book? Let me design it for you! All you have to do is upload your photos and I’ll handle the rest.