How to Be Driven: Introduction to the Artist of Life Workbook by Lavendaire

Hello my beautiful royals and welcome to JGC Blog!

We are already at the end of February. How do you feel? Are you still full of motivation and determined to accomplish your resolutions for 2018 or is the fresh new year’s hype already fading into the background of your busy life?

It’s OK if it is. What people tend to forget is that it’s not enough to be motivated to do something. Motivation is a feeling, it has ups and downs; it comes and goes. It’s inconstant and after a while, being unmotivated is completely normal.

If you truly want to make a significant and permanent change in your life, a feeling is not enough. Motivation is not enough. What you need is a mindset. What you need is to be driven. 

I’m going to share my own experience and thought process in hope that it will perhaps help people who really want to make changes and improve their lives but have no idea how to do it and more importantly stick with it.

First of all, if you have already made the conscious decision to improve your life and change whatever is wrong or unfulfilling about it, I can only applaud you. It’s a very brave thing to do and you should be proud of yourself.

It’s a lot easier to simply ignore what’s wrong or settle for less than what you want. Whether it is laziness or fear stopping you for making the first step towards the life of your dreams, the fact that you are willing to grow and evolve is empowering not only for yourself but for others. Don’t forget that.

There are different ways for people to transform their motivation into a driven mindset. For me, I would say that the best way to do so is setting a routine.

That word itself tends to bring negative connotations but I strongly disagree with them. A routine does not automatically means a bad habit. A positive routine, whether it’s a health or work related one, when done properly and when tracked assiduously always lead to a discipline.

A discipline that is well-thought-out to fit your personality and desires and constantly done without constraint or rancor becomes a way of life. 

The power behind it is incredible and I truly believe that it is the key to not only change your life but win it.

Of course, you cannot achieve whatever routine you set out for yourself if you are not organized. People have thousand ways of organizing their lives and it’s truly a case of “whatever works for you” but what works for me is journaling.

I tend to do it the digital way more than writing on a hard copy but that is just what suits me best. Those past 6 months, I used the app Wunderlist to log my every writing ideas, creative thoughts and life plans. I’ve made lists, sub-lists, files and sub-files and managed to catalog and organized the craziest and most eluding stuffs that flies into my mind on a regular basis. I cannot express how much doing this transformed my productivity and stimulated my creative drive, not only for my blog but for my many aspects of my life.

• Why not just use a bullet-journal?

I tried to keep up with my bullet-journal but while I adore the concept, I soon discovered that it wasn’t a system that truly fit my working process. I needed something more… vast. I needed a way of thinking and planning my self-improvement routine in a larger approach, not just tracking it day by day in my bullet journal.

I also wanted a way to document my progress in a more ergonomic time-frame and I was desperately looking for a creative type of journaling, one that included a strong self-help and dynamic structure to track my progress and establish the prefect routine designed to help me become my best self.

What’s wonderful about bullet-journals is that you have to create everything from scratch. You set everything up yourself, the drawing, the designs, the aesthetics, the theme of each pages, each months and the goals you want to track down.

But I didn’t have time to do all of that. I needed a base, a starting point to flourish, something to guide me.

That’s when I discovered the Artist of Life Workbook created by Aileen Xu, AKA Lavendaire.

I have talked about Aileen (AKA Lavendaire) before on my blog. She was featured as my “Blog of the Month” last October. 

Lavendaire is a lifestyle blogger as well as a Youtuber. She creates content that focus on motivation, inspiration, creativity and mindfulness. She makes videos, write posts on her blog, and record her podcasts.

She is such a great example for what I aspire to create with my own blog and she is also an endless source of positivism for me.

Her tips and tricks to achieve self-growth and self-improvement in life are vast and diverse, and last year she worked really hard on the 2018 Artist of Life Workbook.

• What is an Artist of Life Workbook?

It’s a journal designed to guide you through self-discovery and self-growth during the entire year.

It’s divided in two parts. Much like a bullet journal, there is an entire part of the workbook dedicated to the organization, planning, recording and tracking of your every goal and the progresses you’ve made during the year.

It’s a monthly then quarterly tracking system. At the beginning of each month and each quarter, you have a space to sum-up your every projects and goals and the end of them; you have a page where you can review your progresses and accomplishments.

However, what make the Artist of Life Workbook so unique and fantastic for me, is really the first part of the book: a hundred pages of soul-searching questions and self-improvement exercises.

To quote Lavendaire:

“These questions and exercises are designed to guide you through self-discovery, exploration and fulfillment. This workbook will help you create your dream life from clarifying your vision to following through on execution.” ¹

The first part of the Artist of Life Workbook is divided in sections that really helped me understand, plan and organized my every aspect of my life for the year to come. Lavendaire never missed the mark and did not dismiss any important steps when she created that book. My favorite parts are “Goodbye 2017″, “Hello 2018” and “2018 Goals AF”

The “Self-Love” “Current Me VS Future Me” and “Vision Board” are my favorite’s self-discovery and empowering exercises. Doing them brought me a great boost of self-confidence and determination for the year to come.

There is also the awesome parts called “Bucket List”, “Ideal World”, “Goal Book”, “Habit Tracker”, “Next Action Steps” and “Journaling Prompts”… everything is there to help you achieve your goals, stimulate your energy and becoming your best-self.

If you want to see what the Artist of Life Workbook looks like and hear from the creator itself what is the inspiration and story behind it, watch the introduction video:

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• Conclusion: How does the Artist of Life Workbook help me be driven?

As I explained earlier, to be driven, you need to upgrade your motivation into a mindset.

To keep that mindset strong and focused, I talked about the importance of being organized in order to create the routine that will change your life.

That routine, if genially applied with joy and positivism will lead to a discipline that will become a way of life.

For me (and I hope that it’s a method that will work for a lot of people) my organization and my routine comes in one package: journaling.

And the best way to journal my life and my progress is with the Artist of life Workbook. 

Today’s blog is the first one of my Artist of Life Workbook series. I’ll post more on the subject and the exercises as I work on them during the year.

I wanted to share this because it’s a great way to check my own accountability and actually do the work as well as track down my progress.

I also really hope to help others find their own method for self-improvement.

If you are also journaling or have another way to stay organized or your own routine to self-improve your life, please comment below! I’d love to know more about it.

🙂

Cheers & thank you for reading,

*** Coming next:  The Vision Board effect***

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¹ Source quote from Lavendaire. Find original post here: [X]
² Source quote from Lavendaire. Find original post here: [X]

• Featured Image Header: 2018 Artist of Life Workbook Flatlay – Credits and Copyrights: @Lavendaire