1. Read Irish Arts magazine.
Not just buy it, mind you. Read it cover to cover. Loads of lovely lavish colour spreads, info on all the arty happenings around the country, plenty of inspiration to be had there!

2. Try new things. Just because I think I would like to.
3. Look for the connections in everything.
4. Celebrate the seasons. Appreciate each one, do seasonal activities, eat seasonal food.
5. Go to places where water sparkles – rolling amber over white boulders up in the Wicklow mountains, frothy white and tingling on breakers, soft and mottled under trees, silver and gold along the Grand Canal. Sit and watch and let myself be entranced. Bring a notebook and try to describe what I see, how I feel.
6. Clear space. In my head by giving myself permission to sit and dream. By cutting out un-necessary time fillers. Consider getting rid of the TV. Take my phone off the hook one evening a week.
7. Clear space. In my house physically. Have tables and desks clear. Kitchen countertops gleaming. Canvas and paper available. Set up my easel. Have space to move around.
8. Be frugal. Stop squandering money. Use it thoughtfully. Save for things in a contented way. Look at things I already have, and use them in different ways.
9. Learn from other people. Read biographies of people I am interested in.
10. Listen to music. All sorts. Try new kinds. Be aware of my mood and suit my selection to how I feel. Throw out/give away old CDs and things that no longer reflect my taste. Make room for who I am right now.
11. Get in touch with nature. Make time to walk in the mountains, paddle in the sea, feel the rain on my bare skin, listen to birds in the morning, have wind in my hair.
12. Learn to play like a child again. Mess with paper, roll marbles, mix poster paints, stick glitter on everything, buy soap making sets, and candle sets, and grow crystals in water. Make things with pipecleaners, and lollypop sticks and wool.
13. As much as possible, vary my commute to and from work. Leave at different times, take different routes, listen to different radio stations, stop off along the way for different things, park in a different spot, sit in the car and read, play my college tapes as I drive etc.
14. Find inspirational places, and visit them deliberately..
15. Abandon the end result. The aim is to do, not to have done. To do something well, I must first be prepared to do it badly. Give myself permission to do things badly. Accept that skills must be learned, and practised.
16. Be open to being spontaneous.
17. Hang things on the walls of my house. Photos of places I have visited, paintings, prints that inspire me, things that make me think. Change them around regularily. Enjoy them. Write quotes on the walls of my (to be created) study, a la Michael de Montaigne.
18. Practise my art. To ‘be’ it, it is necessary to ‘do’ it.
19. Create a garden that suits my personality and lifestyle.
20. Visit the sea.