Ditch Resolutions. Set Habits.

The new year often brings hope and excitement. But it also brings one thing that many dread...

New Year's Resolutions.

What is it about these lofty goals for the coming year that has caused them to become such a parody of themselves? Any conversation about them is inevitably followed by some quip about how they'll all be broken by February. Goal setting is good, but the data suggests these resolutions rarely help us accomplish our goals.

The trouble with New Year's resolutions is they're too distant, too vague, too rigid, and too intractable. That's why I finally decided to not set any resolutions this year.

I know, I know. I'll give you a moment to peel yourself off the ceiling.

Instead of resolutions, I've chosen some daily habits to work on. They're actionable, meaning they're directly within my control to accomplish each day. They're specific so I know for sure whether or not I've accomplished them each day. They're flexible; if I decide I've mastered one habit or that a different one would serve me better, I can change it. And they're renewable. I know I'm not going to be perfect, but if I miss a day that doesn't mean I've failed. I can try again the very next day (instead of counting the entire year as a loss).

Each person's daily habits should reflect the change they'd most like to see in themselves. But if you're curious, I'm happy to share the five daily habits I've chosen to start the year with:

• Draw every day for at least ten minutes, but more when possible.

Write every day, again for at least ten minutes.

Organize or cleanup for ten minutes per day. That could mean my home, my office, or my digital life (email, etc.).

Limit added sugars to 24 grams or fewer per day. I have a serious sweet tooth, but I know I feel better when I eat better. (I will allow myself one free day per week though. Let's not get too crazy!)

Write in my journal every day and reflect on what went well, what wasn't so good, and what I'm grateful for.

There are dozens of other things I'd like to work on, but for now I'm sticking with just a few. As these habits become automatic, I'll swap them out for something else. Some of them may seem really small or easy, but that's by design. It means I have no excuse! And the funny thing about baby steps is once you take one step, it's easier to take another.

The important thing is that these small habits serve a much larger purpose, one of which is to deliver high quality content to my audience. I invite you to follow along with me and join the community where you can an exclusive, up close look at my own journey as well as the stories I produce along the way.

I'd encourage anyone to adopt a similar practice of picking a handful of daily habits they'd like to work on. Once you do, tell someone and track your progress. Don't stress if you don't do as well as you hope at first. You'll get better the more you keep at it!

Your buddy Lark believes in you!

Aww, Feathers! Under Construction

Hi there, you may have been redirected here by trying to visit awwfeathers.com. Don't panic! The site is currently being rebuilt. If you would like to be kept up to date on the new site's progress, please sign up for my newsletter by visiting news.awwfeathers.com. The webcomic will resume once the new website is up and running.

If you would like to read through the comics that have already been released, you can find them on the old website here. (Fair warning: as of this writing, I have no idea what Smack Jeeves is going to make it look like while they transition to their new model. But hopefully the entire archive should still be available in some form.)

(12/3) Smack Jeeves has officially made the transition to their new site design and... everything is terrible. 😖 Literally none of the comic pages are showing up and I can't even log in to try to fix it. On top of that, they are showing ads for other comics that are definitely not family-friendly, so I can no longer in good faith recommend it as a suitable mirror for the comic, even if the pages were visible. I'm working as quickly as I can to get the new home of Aww, Feathers! up and running. In the meantime, I can't stress enough the importance of signing up for my newsletter if you want to know how things are progressing. Again, you can do so at news.awwfeathers.com.

Thank you for your patience! We'll get through this! 😅

New home!

Welcome to Jay Lark Studios! I'm still getting this site all set up, but this will be the new home for news about projects I'm working on, as well as information regarding hiring me for programming or digital art consulting. If you'd like to contact me about anything, send me an email at josh@jaylarkstudios.com.

This site will also be taking the place of scalefledged.com and larpinglizards.com. Both sites will redirect you here. If you'd like to see any of the old news posts about projects I was working on in the past, you can see them at scalefledgedgames.blogspot.com. I've also redirected joshuadwhiting.com to here, whereas before it was simply a collection of updates across all the projects I'v been working on. If you want to access the original site, it's at joshuadwhiting.blogspot.com. As for whether I plan to return to work on any of my previous projects, I might. It's been a while since then, and I've made significant progress on other projects that are still in the works. But after finishing those, I may revisit older ones in the future.

And speaking of projects I'm currently working on, stay tuned! Watch this space for updates.