Pulse in Paper

I once had a classmate who regularly chastised me for "trying to make my work perfect." It makes me chuckle to remember. What, I wonder, would have been an acceptable alternative? Pursuing mediocrity? In actuality, I wasn't trying to achieve the impossible. I had finally learned to really see, draw, and paint from the eye. When that switch clicks in your brain, when you stop drawing from your head and start drawing from your eye, you see the world differently and can translate it differently. But to those who can't see it yet, it seems kind of nonsensical.
I love art that makes me question my eyes. I know to draw or paint or create like that requires so much trust in your eye. You can't operate from what your brain tells you you are seeing because it lies. It's the same voice that says your face is round, the sky is blue, that line is straight. But if you really LOOK, you see and understand none of those things are entirely true, or at least rarely. It's at that point where you have to abandon that inner voice that states the obvious, brush past it and really take it all in and look. And then honor everything your eye tells you, even if you question it and it doesn't seem to make sense. Then, step back and poof.
Art like that SPEAKS, BREATHES, JUMPS off the canvas and you have to concentrate to remember it is just paint and not flesh and blood, a pulse within paper.
Happy New Year. It feels like I'm hanging just before the drop when in reality the year has already begun spinning before me. I don't feel the same overwhelming doom I was plagued with before, though. I feel like I'm still holding the cards, because I am. I didn't make resolutions because the past couple years I haven't. But I have made vision boards and really enjoyed both making them and seeing them throughout the year. Even if the things I set out to do never happened, it kept me more intentional of the thought behind those desires and recreating it in some new way.
I plan to make one this year. I have a lot of hopes and fears and big dreams and anticipated changes.
What about you? How do you set goals and remind yourself of them?