Is It Time to Refocus Your Creative Business?

Goal setting feels good. But goals are not the right framework for creative professionals like us. I talked about that in the Repeat Report, here 👉 Why Your Pattern Design Goals Don't Stick.

See, the thing is, a goal is an end point. And it's fine and all to know where your work is leading, but it's so much harder to get to that end if you don't have a plan for the steps you have to take between where you start and where you want to end. 

For most of us, we set a goal and after a few weeks.... things start to slide. And that's a part of goal setting that doesn't feel good.

There are several times a year when we naturally want to check-in and refocus. For me, it's at the end of the calendar year and when my kids go back to school. But I can't expect things to move along smoothly between January and August without additional check-ins or my business would go off the rails.

In that blog post I linked to above, I talked about breaking up your year into four 90-day sets. Corporate-types call those quarters and you might see them talking about setting goals for Q1 or Q4 reports. It hurts my head thinking about it that way. So we're going to stick with 90-days.

Once you're 90-days in to your first set of steps. You've got to check-in and assess. A lot of us need some accountability. So that's what I'm doing for you today. I'm asking you the questions you need to give serious thought to.

Your First 90-Day Check-in 

I gave you three planning models to try — the Project-Based Model, the 4-Season Pattern Business Model, and the Skill Stack Model. I asked you to pick one, build it in January, protect it in February, and keep it running through March.

How'd that go?

1. Which system did you pick 90-day ago?

If your answer is "I couldn't decide" or "honestly I didn't pick any" — that's useful information. Dig into that now that you're 90-days more experienced. Can you pick a system now?

2. Did you actually try to work within the system you picked? For how long?

Two weeks? A month? Is it still going?

3. What did you actually finish in the last 90-days?

Did you upload new patterns to Instagram? Did you complete a collection? Did you pitch an art director?

4. What's still sitting on that list?

If it's there, ask yourself, do you still actually need to do it? Was it a time issue? A skills issue? A confidence issue? Sometimes the stuff that doesn't get done is stuff we didn't need to do in the first place. Be ruthless here.

5. What do the next 90-days look like?

Make sure your plans are specific. Concrete steps move you forward. Bite-sized plans won't overwhelm.

So Let's Talk Gut Check

Here's something I've learned working with and around creative people: the gap between meaning to and actually doing is not a character flaw. It's usually a system design flaw. When a system doesn't stick, it's almost always because it wasn't built for you. Do not build a plan on some idealized, kid-free, fully-caffeinated version of your schedule. (Well, you can keep the fully-caffeinated part.)

We can be our own toughest critics. Try not to beat yourself up. That will make you stall out faster than anything. But if you want to turn this into a successful business, you're going to need to figure out what works for you.

One of the best pieces of business advice I ever followed was fail fast. Failure is going to happen. That's just part of life. The silver lining in this is that you're a small business owner and you're creative. The small in small business owner means you're not tangled in slow-moving corporate red tape. You can pivot quickly. The creative part means you're good at ideas.

So what didn't work for you? What can you do differently? 

Accountability and Encouragement 

No one works well in a vacuum. Not even the most introverted of artists. And finding accountability and encouragement can be hard. If you feel like you keep coming up against a wall in your business, a wall you can't seem to find your way around, coaching can probably help.

There is something about talking to a real human being, a professional with experience in your industry, that makes a huge difference in momentum.

I opened my coaching up in April 2026 with some changes. I switched up my availability and the way I schedule calls. (See my comments above about pivoting quickly.)

Face-to-face. One-on-one. That's how we work best. One coaching call with me can make all the difference between continuing to hit that wall and moving beyond it into success. 

Are you ready to not be like that guy? 💪🏼 Coaching with Mandy.

If you're not sure about coaching, you can get a taste for what I have to offer in my free email course. Especially if you're trying to figure out what your business actually is, who it's for, and what makes your work worth buying. Check out my Pattern Collection Playbook. 

If you want this kind of thinking landing in your inbox every week — patterns, business strategy, the occasional tech tip — the 3, 2, 1… Let's Design! Eduletter shows up every Tuesday. Free.