Usually I bring in the New Year with a glass of champagne while dancing at a house party. It feels like the most appropriate way to celebrate another year gone by. You sweat out the challenges from the previous year and invite new opportunities to make dreams happen. You wake up the next morning hungover, grab some greasy food, and start what should be the best year of your life.

But this year was different.

I travelled a little bit more than usual this holiday season and ended up catching a cold. Not the cute sneeze here or there kinda cold. This was a hacking cough, runny nose, “will you make me chicken soup” kinda cold. So for the first year since high school, I stayed in on New Years Eve.

I had more than enough time to watch the ball drop, read 100 pages in my new favorite young adult fiction series,, AND start my annual planning session for 2016.

Now planning is perhaps the most important part of my life as a creative entrepreneur. I come up with 3-4 new business ideas every week and have my hands in quite a few different projects, so its incredibly important for me to map out a plan to make these visions into reality.

Ideas are meaningless without action.

I’ve developed a process that is surprisingly straight-forward. It’s also pretty practical. You set intentions and then plot out what it takes to make that intention a reality.

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2015 has been a whirlwind of a year—full of incredible opportunities, scary moments, and amazing growth. More than anything, I think this was a year of getting a little bit closer to my vision of creative entrepreneurship. Here’s a recap of the good, the bad, and the awesome:

1. In August, I ended goINVADE, my 5 year passion project. (single thug tear)

2. Wesley Verhoeve photographed me for his One of Many campaign along with a group of my favorite creatives in New Orleans.

3. I presented a workshop at The Blue House called “The Self Promotion Project” and helped a small group of creative entrepreneurs find confidence in telling their stories.

4. After a full year of planning and after raising $12,000 from Kickstarter, Kristy, Ciera, and I produced VenturePOP, the first ever creative entrepreneur conference in New Orleans. It was literally one of the most beautiful days of my life. We’ve already started planning for 2016 and tickets go on sale in January.

5. There was soooooo much client work through Creative Lab, including working with clients: Church Alley Bar, Cafe Hope, Lucid, Nola Baby and Family, Sankofa, Sculpture for New Orleans, Calliope Consulting, Columbia Film Festival, Knot and Wood, and American Friends Services.

I definitely need to update my portfolio.

6. My studio mate, Tippy and I opened and closed a physical shop. Then she reopened it as The Good Shop. It’s pretty awesome, you should stop by.

7. I attended Circles Conference in Dallas. It was literally amazing.

8. AIGA invited me to be the opening speaker for their national conference in New Orleans and it was one of the biggest crowds I’ve ever spoken to. I loved it.

9. I started drawing again and released my first series of greeting cards. (I’m planning to release another new series in 2016, but more on that in a future email.)

10. Loyola University hired me to teach Advertising and I freakin’ loved learning from my amazing students. I think I was made to teach.

11. I finally left the country for the first time! I attended an epic conference in Dublin called Web Summit and visited the college homie in London.

12. I published my first-ever ebook, “The Ultimate Guide to Branding Your Small Business.” Here’s a link to download it.

So yea… all that happened. I am humbled to have the opportunity to work for myself for the first full year and I am looking forward to reaching new heights in 2016.

TALK BACK: What are you most proud of accomplishing this year? Let me know in the super secret Facebook group.