Well, not formal schooling. This is another goal, although it won’t take a whole year to complete. At least I hope not. Well, what I’m currently working on won’t take that long. I will probably move on to something new after that. But I will probably be working on the classes I’ve chosen for the next few months.

The first is Chinese. I studied Chinese several years ago and then just kind of let that drop off. But I still really would like to learn Chinese. So, I have started another course. This one is offered through Udemy.

The Chinese class I picked had good reviews and the course syllabus seemed to have the requirements I was looking for, which are: symbols rather than pinyin, or in addition to. I want to learn to read Chinese as well. And then a lot of listening to hear and understand, which the other classes I’ve done have not had that as part of the course, or not a major part. Consequently I couldn’t understand what was being said without the characters.

The next course applies to one of my goals I listed previously. It is a marketing course. I began this course a while ago, but only got part way in and then never got it finished. I am determined to finish it this time. I actually have several marketing courses on Udemy, this one is a general course, and then I have a couple specific, one for Etsy and one for Pinterest. I will not worry about those currently.

The last course I have been working on somewhat regularly already, but just added it to my morning schedule so it would be more consistent, is a coding/website development course. I will probably be creating a whole different website so that I can change my branding and add additional arms to my business besides just the art. This current website (Stephanie Richey art) I will keep just for blogging, because I have found that I really enjoy doing that as well.

My goal is obviously to complete each course, but I broke it down into a few steps to help me be more successful.

• The first step for me was to get them all on the same platform (Udemy). That way I’m not getting distracted by going from platform to platform to get from one class to the next.

• Next, I am working on each class for a minimum of 30 minutes/most days. Friday’s and Sunday’s being the regular exception because I have things going on in the mornings those days. Saturday’s will be an exception occasionally because I teach classes and have church youth activities on those days as well sometimes. I have committed to mornings, as I know that my afternoons and evenings tend to be more busy with family.

• I have all my materials gathered and stacked in the same spot. I know that sounds like it shouldn’t be a step, but for me, if I have to go searching for my notebook or my laptop, I get distracted. So having everything all together helps me stay motivated.

• The last step is to do it right after I finish eating breakfast and reading my scriptures. This isn’t always the exact same time of day, but it happens every day, so it’s more automatic to just finish that and then go right into my studies.