 Soon a new year is upon us and you got new goals, maybe you got some old goals, but the goals nonetheless. And after 20 years of animating, here are a few tips that have helped me along the way, but hopefully also could help you. And also to be honest, that could be life goals. So right off the bat, the two most important tips that I have for you are, take note of what you did well and double down on that. I'm expanding on that later. And the second tip is, take also note what you did not do well. There's a very specific way of how I would approach that. Well, let's get to the first tip first. First tip first, first tip first. So look at what you did well, double down on that. Mainly because when you have something that you animate and that you have fun with, that is going to help you to get more motivated to continue. Now, side tangents do not wait for motivation. That's a whole different tip, but you get your motivation as you do work. You have to find a way to just start to work. And that's why you got to do something that you like. So take an action that you did, a body mechanic, an acting shot, a lip sync, a funny walk cycle, whatever you have, right? Take that and start working on this because you like it already. Get better on that because it's important to take your strength and make them even better and then take your weaknesses and then work on that at the same time so that you're more balanced in your skill set. But as you work on something that you have fun with, you continue to get motivated because it is fun because you're good at it and you get more confident and you're going to keep doing this. You can't just wait and sit and wait for motivation. That's just not going to appear. Motivation comes through the works. Find a way, get into that mindset of starting the work first. And to me, that is easier when you do something that you like. Hands double down on the things that you like. And I wouldn't be just willy-nilly about it. Make notes. Write down, I'm good at this. I'm good at that. And you know, like everybody has imposter syndrome, like I feel like I'm not too good at this, but objectively maybe ask someone, make a list of what you're good at and tell yourself, I am good at this. And it's okay to tell yourself, I am good at this. Then take that list and keep working on that. And you can mix and match and keep doing those walk cycles and acting shots and mechanics and martial arts, whatever you do in whatever field and whatever medium. If you love it, double down on that and keep going. Now, what about the things you're not good at? Well, do the same thing. Make a list. Be critical. Again, maybe ask someone, but be critical with yourself and go, I'm really not good at this, this, this. And it's probably a longer list. Maybe, I don't know, for me, it's a longer list than the things that I'm good at. But take these, then practice those with shorter shots. The things that you're good at, you can do a five-second, seven-second, 10-second shot. Maybe even 20 can cut it up in separate shots and do a whole sequence because you're good at it. You're motivated. You're gonna double down and get to that. The stuff you're not good at, if you work on something that's longer, that you're struggling with, you're gonna get frustrated. You're gonna get demotivated. You lose your confidence in it. You're not gonna finish this. So make a list of what you're not good at and then cut these up into short little shots. Two seconds, three seconds max. Maybe even just one second. You can do head turns, gestures, a move, a mechanic, whatever it is, something that you struggle with, but keep it short. That way you can easily practice. You can also easily throw it away when you get frustrated and start something new. But it's important that you do something short so that you can attack it more easily. You get more confident. It's also easy in terms of time management, more on that later. Because when you're trying to work on something that you're not good at, you have to be smart about it. So don't waste time. Make sure that it's achievable and that those are goals that you can set to the side where maybe you can do this in the morning, maybe quick over lunch or in the evening, maybe a quick thing over the weekend. But important thing is that you don't neglect it. You face the things you're not good at, but then you attack them in small achievable chunks. And then same thing with the things you're good at. Make a list. Write down what you're not good at. This will help you clarify the things that you need to achieve. For both, the good and the bad, it makes it easier to track, track your results and look back of I did this, this and this. You can check it out. Whatever you process, right? Maybe you need Post-it notes. That's what I do. I have Post-it notes. So when I'm done with it, I can take it, scrunch it and throw it away. That's a task. I'm done. It's a physical thing of I'm done with this. Other people might do something on the board with writing it down and crossing it off or in a notebook or whatever you have. Whatever you need to be something physical, something on your phone with a list, but track it, make a list, compare where you started. But sometimes you might work on something that's really long. If you're like, I've been practicing this, am I really better at it? But when you track things and write things down, you have ways to compare. And you can see where you started, where you're at now. And trust me, if you do things every day, once a week, achievable, smaller chunks, you chip at it, you are getting better. Even if you feel like you're not. Now you might say that, well, for me, it's not just about shots. I want to get a job. This could be in any field. For this channel, it's in animation. So take that bigger goal and break it down into smaller pieces. So the bigger goal is get a job. How do you get a job? You got to get a demo reel for that. How do you get a demo reel? Well, you got to work on shots. Break down bigger goals into smaller, manageable tasks. Again, this is not just for animation. I do this in my daily life. Holy works. For me, at least try it out. Why? Because this will make it easier to stay motivated because you can chip away at something. Go like, I did this, checked off, I did it. Versus one big goal where you go like, I'm still not done with this. Man, I don't know if I can do this. So keep things small. You have multiple goals and wins. You gain confidence. Through that comes motivation. You keep going. And it also helps you see progress more quickly. It's something that will take months. You have something every day or every week or even once a month. That will show you more progress faster than a longer, bigger chunk that might get too frustrating and that you might abandon. Now it's easy to say all this and to think about, that's what I'm going to do. I wouldn't stop there. It's important to think about that, but it's really important to establish a plan of action, so to speak. So we talked about, or I talked about how to identify what you need. You might write it down, but like, I'm not good at this, but I'm good at this. That's fine. And think about time management. The proper tools. What kind of workflows? If you animate scripts, shortcuts. Like whatever you have, you can even set up habits and routines. This again, this is for animation. This is also for your life. Surround yourself with ways and tools and people that will help you get there. Because it's going to be easier with help. And the help again can be by taking notes, by having a certain routine throughout the day in terms of how you manage your time and your tasks. Whatever is there that will help you get to your goal. Don't get me wrong. Through all of this, you're going to make mistakes. But don't see a mistake as this is a failure. I didn't get to this. I should stop. For me, every time I make a mistake or there is a what you call a failure, it just identifies to me what I need to get better at. It just adds something to the list of, oh, okay. I didn't do it as well. Let me add this to the list. I'm going to work on this. So basically it's an opportunity for growth. This might be a bumper sticker way of saying it, but to me at least that's true. Every mistake or every failure is an opportunity for growth. So don't have those mistakes to hold you back. Use that as an opportunity to move forward and to improve. Just know that it's going to be more daunting and potentially intimidating at the beginning. Every time you start, you want to change your habits or do something or attack a new plan. It's going to be a lot at the beginning. And that's why you want to surround yourself with whatever you can in terms of help so that you continue because it's going to be that bigger hump. It wants to get in there. Once you get into that habit and that routine and you get the results and you see the results. That's why I need to have multiple smaller goals. So you start seeing the results and go, hey, I can actually do this. Then it's going to get easier. And then you can keep going and going and going. Just know at the beginning, it's going to be harder but push through that and it's going to get easier. Now, you might have a job. You might have a family. You might have multiple jobs. You might have so many other things. How do you manage all this? Or how would I go about this? Well, if you want to know how I break up my day, as best as I can, it's not always like that. Well, I try. Then you can watch this clip. Happy New Year and good luck.