I found the Artist of Life workbook at the end of 2016, when Aileen Xu announced it on her YouTube channel, Lavendaire. I had been following Aileen for a few months and loved her airy, passionate, and artistic aesthetic and perspective. This workbook caught my attention because I was on a research mission for year-end reflection methods. I found a lot that were great, and so many that were the same thing over and over. I was drawn to the Artist of Life workbook because of the wide array of life that was covered, the goal formation and accountability, and of course, the emphasis on creating and pursuing life artistically.

So, after re-watching Aileen's video about how she created it and everything she included in it, I bought the workbook PDF. Still loving and experiencing benefits from that decision.

She included some awesome exercises—saying goodbye to the last year and hello to the previous, designing habits and self care routines, creating a bucket list for 2018, and others. There's also a very in depth goal-setting series, and an apparatus for planning & accomplishing those goals individually and on a monthly basis. It had a good mix of things I'd seen a million times before, elements I 'd seen before but she either simplified of specified them, and things I hadn't ever seen and was so excited to complete!

As soon as the download completed, I started perusing through it page by page, noticing how much I was already planning out what I wanted to write in each tidy little box. But I wanted more control over the layout...and I had just recently started exploring bullet journalling. So naturally, a fusion ensued. I decided that instead of printing it out and filling it in, or typing everything into the dynamic PDF—that felt way too removed from the process of reflection for which I was yearning.

I started by labeling in pencil how many pages I needed to mark out for each of the Artist of Life exercises. Then really just, went for it.

Positive Self-Evaluation

I rearranged the exercises to make a little more flow sense to my mind. After setting a theme/word for the new year, I decided to start the series with a couple of exercises from the Self Care section in the workbook.

Pondering My Major Strengths and Things that I Love about Myself at first seemed like a redundant practice, but I'm glad I took the time to think about the distinction. I showed the natural overlap by writing those things around the middle, although I definitely wrote "creativity" on both sides of the spread. I used words and phrases that captured my skills, inclinations, and characteristics. I tried to use mostly black with accents of color, but that went out the window right away—hence the phrase, "compulsive incorporation of colors".

Opening One and Closing Another

Something that seemed so natural and obvious, but I hadn't seen it put in such a way that really struck a chord with me, was the Goodbye 2016, Hello 2017. I loved the way Aileen broke down the year into important moments categorized into positive as well as constructive frames. I gave each salutation its own 2-page spread so I could fully explore the exercise.

I found the space in the so-long to 2016 to help me remember the year more positively than I had been, it was a rough year in a lot of ways. But I made it through and after completing the "goodbye" I felt empowered and exhilarated to say my "hello" to the new year. I enjoyed the simple components of the "hello" exercise because they made me focus my general goals that were more like broad-strokes at the point.

Designing Habits and Routines

I had seriously high hopes about this section, but when I starting following this particular section, it felt lacking for my specific method. Designing habits and routines is something I've struggled with for a significant portion of my life. I'm always trying to find a better way. This section in the workbook would be sufficient for many, I'm sure, but it fell short for me in space more than anything—I'm almost certain that was one of the deciding factors for completing the workbook in my bullet journal. The general approach is excellent though, simple and to the point, but thoughtful. This approach actually reminds me a little of the KonMarie method of decluttering. Basically, the task is to evaluate habits as either those you want to keep and those you want to release. I would add a section for habits you want to flourish or implement. For routines, Aileen discusses habit stacking to think of routines as a stack of habits, great tool. Still use it, check out my post about designing daily, weekly, and work-flow routines.

Setting Goals

This section was one of my favorites in the workbook. Aileen divided the Goals section up by areas in life—personal growth, career (which I changed to professional), creative, health, relationships, home, spirituality (which I changed to personal balance), money, adventure, and ultimate life goals. I also added a section for civic and community engagement because that is an important area in my life that I used to exercise much more and had lost touch with since graduating from college.

What I really enjoyed about this section was that each life area had specific questions to reflect and evaluate priorities and then set specific goals to meet or push those priorities to a new level. I tweaked an added some things here an there, but my favorite part of re-creating the Artist of Life workbook in my bullet journal was reflecting the need of the questions for each area with the format of the spread.

The Goal Book is at the end of the workbook and provides a space to basically house the list of action items needed to complete a goal, to indicate priority, and to set deadlines for each goal. This is one of those simple,yet tremendously useful features in the workbook. There are also Monthly Reviews to check-in with each goal. I added a number rating system to give me an immediate evaluation of how I've been progressing towards my goals.

Current Me—Future Me

OK, so Aileen calls this exercise "Current me vs. Future me". Now while I LOVE this exercise, I don't love the language. Personally, I think that using the "vs" form connotes a competitive perspective or approach, which can hinder a positive growth-centered approach to self-evaluation. I would just use a long-dash to show a point of comparison without ranking. Gloria Steinem once said, "we are all linked, not ranked," and I think that can be applied in self-reflection and evaluation.

In my 2-page spread for this exercise, after completing each side, I spent time looking at each item on each page and finding the links, the behavior transitions I will need to make in order to reach the goals and vision that I see for myself in some undetermined, open time-frame and place. I love coming back to this spread and seeing what's changed and how I have moved towards my Future Me.

Moving Forward

I love this system. It provides such a malleable but deeply reflective structure with which to create meaningful and focused goals, AND to keep a record of actions an accountability to envision and create a more meaningful, fulfilling, grateful, and artistic life. I will continue to carry these exercises with me through my bullet journals, blogging, creative, and entrepreneurial visions and ventures.

Let me know in the comments below which of these exercises you're most looking forward to completing, or enjoyed creating the most.

Note. The version of the Artist of Life Workbook that I bought and adopted was the 2017 edition, starting in January, ending in December. At the time of this blog post, she has not yet released the next version for 2018, but I'm sure she will have that later this year. Keep an eye on her site to stay updated.