Part of knowing yourself is knowing your motivations and your strengths. I’m an “Achiever,” so “checking off the boxes” really motivates me. Enter coloring projects, where you color one piece of your picture for every time you make a small step toward your goal.
What Goals Coloring Works For
Coloring works for any goal that has anything measurable. You set the units for each time you get to color.
Examples
Money: $X of debt paid off or $X saved
Fitness/Weight Loss: One pound, one workout or physical activity, one trip to the gym, one mile run if you’re training for a 5k
Counting Time: Days or weeks until an event, days you did or didn’t do something (break those bad habits!)
Every day you studied, every chapter you read, every sale you made, every customer you signed on… the possibilities are endless.
Remember to Set SMART Goals
That is an acronym for “Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound.” When you have a specific goal in mind, it’s much easier to focus on that goal. Measurable goals allow you to see progress (like dollars paid off). If it’s not achievable or realistic, you are setting yourself up for failure. Relevant goals are ones that are worthwhile, well timed, and in tune with current needs or desires. Finally, you have to put a deadline on the goal, or it may never be accomplished.
Conquering with Colors
I’m very excited to share my new Etsy shop, Conquering with Colors! It features all sorts of trackers to help you conquer any goal with colors. I’m really passionate about helping people achieve their goals, so I’m hopeful that this new venture will provide a lot of support and encouragement for individuals. Feel free to head over and grab some ideas to make your own custom coloring sheets.
How to Create Your Own Fancy Coloring Sheet
I made one for a friend as a gift for the holidays. My friend has started tackling their debt, one dollar at a time. I really wanted to give her something that could help motivate her to conquer it since I know she’s been feeling overwhelmed by it all.
Step 1: Decide on what you are measuring, and on the unit.
I chose to measure debt paid down in $100 increments.
Step 2: Pick your overall shape/idea and your object to color.
You can do things like circles, squares, triangles, hearts, or any other pattern or shape. You can do cut outs with grids, lines, or rulers. It can be an abstract idea or an actual image. You could take a simple or complex shape and fill it with circles. You could simply draw bars across a shape or word and color up like an old mercury thermometer. The possibilities are endless.
I felt that a money tree would be appropriate for debt pay down, and my friend has a bohemian vibe, so a Google image search for “bohemian tree” left me with some good ideas for overall style.
Step 3: Figure out how many shapes you’ll need.
Take the total you want to achieve and divide it by the unit of measurement. That’s how many units you’ll need to draw.
I wanted to mix up my units (the shapes) with leaves and circles. I drew more than necessary for her to color, but she can leave some white at the end or color them all in if she wants to.
Step 4: Create it!
Tracing the leaves with a permanent marker.
It can be as simple or as fancy as you want it to be. You can generate it on the computer and print it out or draw it with a marker. It can be on canvas or on cardboard or on printer paper. Whatever works for you!
For my gift, did the following:
- Glued two pieces of cardboard together
- Wrapped them completely in wrapping paper
- Took printer paper and cut it up into squares
- Arranged it in a fun pattern to add texture (even though they are all white)
- Printed “leaf clip art black and white” a couple times
- Glued them on randomly
- Traced them with a permanent marker so that the weight of the lines would be the same throughout
- Printed out a “bohemian tree clip art” and used it as a stencil to draw on the tree
- Filled in the rest of the area with over 800 circles
Step 5: Color it in as you work toward your goal.
As you achieve each step toward your goal, color in one of your shapes. At the end, you’ll have a physical representation of your journey.