Before starting an arts project it’s useful to plan out what you want to achieve and how you might do this.

Activities to help you self-reflect 

These activities are useful to do before starting a project to help get you in the mindset for self-reflection, as well as at the end of a project to help you reflect on your learnings. 

Goal setting

Identifying a tangible goal can help drive your personal and professional development. Identifying your goals, developing plans and being aware of any challenges you may face can help you be reflective of your own learning. 

When setting your own goals try to be as specific as possible. Consider: 

• How important is the goal to you?

• Specific goals, such as putting on a show in your local library or running a workshop online. 

• Be realistic. It’s great to dream big. But what can you achieve right now with the resources and skills you have? What is your timeline and budget?

• Make a plan. What are the steps you need to take to achieve it?

• What are the challenges you’re likely to face and how might you overcome these?

Pick an item that reflects you

This is a fun awareness activity to start a project with. Choose an item from your room that reflects how you are as a learner. Share it with your group. What attracted you to those items? What qualities does it mirror about the way you might run your project?

Write a letter to your future and past self

Writing a letter can help set your awareness on reflection. Write a letter to your future self about what you want to achieve from your art project, be it audience or art related. At the end of your project, write a letter to your past self about your experiences. You could even write about all the things you were afraid of before the project and how it went. 

You might also like to make a vlog or audio recording of your past or future self. 

Give yourself a score

Score your knowledge or art skills before and after your project. This doesn’t have to be the standard 1 - 10 score for bad to good, it could be a diagram or even a drawing of a real scale. As long as your picture can identify any shift or change in how you feel then it will be a good reflective tool.

This isn’t an exhaustive list of resources, but hopefully, it’s a good starting point for you to plan your arts project. Why not let us know how it went by sharing your plans on Voice.