Lavendaire’s Artist of Life Workbook: My Love-Hate Relationship After 5 Years
Left: Digital copy of 2025 Artist of Life workbook - Right: Physical copy of 2025 Artist of Life workbook - both in the color SAND
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2024 is about to come to a close and I’m no stranger to Lavendaire’s Artist of Life workbook. I’ve been utilizing her productivity journal/goal setting tool since 2020, and it’s become a staple in my yearly planner lineup!
Over the last few years though, I’ve come to absolutely LOVE and adore a few key things about Lavendaire’s workbook, but I also have things about it I absolutely HATE and dread!! This isn’t meant to bash Lavendaire or her product, it’s about being honest and giving others a different view into things! There is no “perfect” or “planner peace.”
The only other planning method I keep up with is a Passion Planner, and I have things about it that I also love and hate. Nothing that we use, as humans, that we love, do we love without fault fully. We just choose to accept it. So, let’s just get into it shall we?
Just a heads-up: None of my blog posts are not sponsored! Every post is honest and straight from the heart, sharing information and value that I believe could genuinely benefit you. This post does include affiliate links, which means I might earn a small commission if you make a purchase (at no extra cost to you!). Want to know more about the brands I’m affiliated with? Click here to learn more! 😊What I LOVE about the Artist of Life workbook
Left: 2024 Sage Green Artist of Life workbook - Right: 2025 Sand Artist of Life workbook
Most of which I absolutely adore in Lavendaire’s Artist of Life workbook you can ONLY find in the 2024 & 2025 versions! Lavendaire updates her workbooks every so often, and I absolutely adored these few new changes!
If you’re a returning workbook user, you may spot the differences, but if this is your first time contemplating on buying the workbook, I think you’re getting your hands on the BEST workbook at its current form!
While there are many aspects I love about the workbook, these are my top two favorite things about it!
💖 Psst... I also run a small art shop! If you love cute, useful things like stickers, journals, or creative tools—check out what’s new in my store.
1. My Best Year
In the previous 2 versions of the Artist of Life workbooks, specifically 2022 & 2023, the page after “My Dream Life” was “____ Goals” with the ____ being the year it was currently in. The prompted question was:
What are my main goals for ____? For each goal, include your “why” & how it aligns with your dream life vision. After writing down your goals, “star” the most important goal that you want to achieve this year.
This isn’t a bad prompt, but it was too open ended in comparison to 2024’s version, My Best Year. This is now also in the 2025 Artist of Life workbook, and I love it DEARLY! Best newest addition! Thinking about your goals and what you want to accomplish this way is so much better and clearer than it was before. Especially with the subtext being:
Imagine all the ideal experiences, achievements, and changes that would make this an incredible year.
Each year I use the Artist of Life workbook, my dream life becomes not only more attainable but more clearer. And with the help of these new pages, it feels that much more precise! The best way you can think about this page is: Before this year ends, what’s the best that could happen?
NOTE: I hid what I wrote due to its personal nature. Some of which I’m okay with being seen, others, it’s very personal and private!
I made sure to copy what I wrote in the workbook into other areas, like my Notion home page, so I can be reminded every day of the best possible outcome!
I don’t check social media at all, and I get out of bed without the use of it. I don’t even have the apps on my phone. So it’s become so much easier to believe in my best possible outcome and my worth. What’s funny is, all the “impossible” things I’ve achieved over the years, I was never on social media to achieve them. Nor did I ever use or utilize social media like the average human. All my success comes from going where others aren’t.
2. Quarterly Self-Reflection Wheel
This has been in the Artist of Life workbook for a few years now and it’s a staple, a must! It wasn’t around in the 2020 version, but when I picked up the workbook in 2022 it was there. It was my favorite then and it’s still my favorite till this day!
You can also get it as a freebie from her website if you want to use it on its own in your current planning system or just in general!
It’s based on Level 10 Life by Hal Elrod, but many bullet journalists have taken it and reinvisioned it in a different way.
I LOVE the concept of the wheel, though. It reminds me of the Wheel of Fortune card in tarot decks, which represents life cycles, turning points, and luck. Therefore seeing the “levels” of each aspect of my life in a visual sense is really nice! I thrive off of analytics and patterns. I can see, in a gamified sense, where things have been amazing and where things may have been lacking the last while. It only strengthens my relationship with myself, but also helps me figure out how I can do better, if I need to in those aspects.
Lavendaire’s workbook notes, “A circular shape denotes balance. An angular shape denotes imbalance.” That’s kind of where I want to cut things off. I don’t believe in balance… fully.
Let me explain!
Trying to live a balanced life is HARD. It can burn you out, and I get deeper into this in the next section.
Whenever I had a more “balanced” wheel, I didn’t feel fulfilled. I felt blah! Mundane. And bored.
One size doesn’t fit all, and while we should strive to better some part of our lives whether month to month or year to year, that’s not all we should do. I don’t know anyone who has it all figured out, or has a balanced life, and guess what, IT’S OKAY! We’re not meant to, and if you do, cool beans. It doesn’t mean you’re perfect or above anyone, it’s just what you’re capable of in your life whatever it is YOU’RE doing for YOU. But the point is, we ALL have different wants, needs, dreams, and priorities!
So while I do love the self-reflection wheel, it is meant to be used as an educational tool and not something to take too seriously and try to live a “balanced life.” What will be balanced for you, won’t be for the next person.
You get to decide how you want your days to look, and that’s your balance.
You can decide how you want your month’s to look, and that’s your balance.
You can decide what portion of your life gets how much focus, and that is your balance.
If the Level 10 Life doesn’t suit you, think of it more like a pie chart. How much focus do you want to give to each aspect of your life?
EXAMPLE: This is purely an example taken from Canva! All I changed were what each pizza piece symbolized & the colors. Not an actual portrayal of my ideal focus. This is purely an example for this blog post’s purpose.
What I HATE about the Artist of Life workbook
Again, this isn’t meant to bash Lavendaire or her creation at all, since I do utilize the workbook. I think a lot of people may just be skeptical of the value the Artist of Life workbook could bring them at the current price tag. I even had a friend question, loudly, me spending $50 on a Passion Planner when she spends $5 on one at Target. While I do agree, it’s a large price tag, I do believe these tools have value and quality that you CAN’T get at a Target, Amazon, etc. But let’s just get further into it before I give you my utmost humble opinion!
1. The workbook can get redundant.
Sometimes, things don’t change every single year. Even if your theme or word for the year changes, that doesn’t mean you’re working on something entirely new every single year!
Sometimes you’re working on things you already started in previous years, you’re just continuing the momentum or it’s just life being life. Life doesn’t need to dramatically shift under your feet from year to year! You should find 1-3 aspects that WILL change or HAVE changed, but other than that, the rest won’t change.
Therefore, writing everything out year after year CAN get redundant. And 2024, just happened to be the year that I, unfortunately, didn’t use the workbook entirely! It sucks but it also has given me a much needed break to come back in with the 2025 Artist of Life workbook. Now I know which pages I WILL be utilizing in the upcoming year ahead. But it won’t be all of them. But again, planning is personal. It’s supposed to make sense to YOU and not to anyone else.
I, do, film my flip throughs, but I may not be filming a full length one from 2024 because of how empty it is. It may just be a YouTube short. That’s just how different life was this past year. I needed and utilized something different. I did more, but utilized planning systems much differently, more intentionally, therefore, most of the Artist of Life workbook was obsolete to me.
To note, the pages I didn’t write anything in, this past year, were:
Self-Love
Health
Relationships
Career
Personal Growth
Money
Home
Creativity & Play
Spirituality
My Ideal World
Staying Committed
On Fear
Gratitude Journal
Trackers
& Monthly Highlights
The monthly review questions are also very similar to Passion Planner’s AND any other planning system out there. Therefore, to really make use of the Artist of Life workbook you kind of have to either modify it to your needs, which can be hard if you’re much busier (like I was this past year) or use it entirely on its own as a planning method. But it’s not created that way, therefore, it falls short!
2. There aren't 4 weeks in a month.
The perfect month IS 4 weeks, but if you look at any calendar NO month is actually 4 weeks. We get 1 month a year, maybe that is the perfect 4 weeks!
Instead, we always have the first and last week of every month sharing time with the previous or next month. I just personally don’t like grouping these dates with the previous month or next month, so it’s been really hard to break down months into 4 weeks. I did it, but it doesn’t correspond very well with my dated planners and calendars.
Steal the Breakdown
Week 1: 1st through the 8th
Week 2: 9th through the 15th
Week 3: 16th through the 22nd
Week 4: 23rd through the 30th/31st
I generally feel and understand the Artist of Life workbook was never meant to be a planner, but a guide and a workbook, but these “weekly breakdowns” really throw me off! I find the entire monthly setup of the workbook to be not well-made and just thrown together year after year without figuring out how to make it better.
How I would change the workbook, if I could…
I have a lot of changes I would make, but then it wouldn’t be Lavendaire’s Artist of Life workbook. I can’t modify something completely and still call it someone else’s work. Because it’s not, at the end of the day it’s mine, but the ideas came from what didn’t and doesn’t work for me in many planning and organization tools COMBINED. Ultimately, I’ve been utilizing a bullet journal method more often on the side for the ideas I have and the things I need for me.
If I could suggest a few edits though, to Lavendaire and her team:
No one needs the directions for each aspect every single month. Keep the directions on one page towards the beginning of the workbook.
Change the title “weekly breakdown” or create a different exercise here.
If “weekly breakdown” is still wanted, add more boxes by making them smaller, but slightly wider. Or remove “mini goals” from the first page to have more room for 2 more boxes.
I’m sure there are other ways of being able to properly utilize this space without modifying the essence of the workbook entirely. But here are some examples I’ve done in the past:
Life breakdown (ie. personal, physical, school, career, side hustle, etc.)
Goal breakdown, one box for each goal
Mini weekly check-ins
Mini weekly journaling sections
My Humble & Honest Opinion
2025 Artist of Life workbook in the color SAND by Lavendaire. Use code DREAMLIKEDIANA10 for 10% off your order! Click here to claim yours before they sell out!
The economy has been unkind to many of us these last few years. All the prices have gone up, while the quantity has either stayed the same or diminished. While I still believe the 2024 & 2025 Artist of Life workbooks are the BEST Lavendaire has put out yet, I will be highly honest with you, just buy the physical version. It comes with the digital version. Unless she drastically changes the workbook next year or in a few years, I don’t think you need to get a new workbook every year unless you have the budget for it. You can just keep reusing the digital version or even utilize the goal portion of the workbook to outline the next 2-3 years of your life. Like I said above, our over arching goals don’t change year to year!
I know many of you are international, students, middle or low class, and can’t afford it year after year. I’m nowhere near rich myself! I have to budget and prioritize just like everyone else, and at 32, I’m still living with my parents while I’m working up to save up to move out. It sucks! So I totally get it!
With the digital, you can use it digitally in any PDF reader of your choice, but you can also print it off on your home printer and utilize a hole punch & a binder to put it together. OR you can also probably take it to a store like OfficeMax or Staples and have them print it and bind it for you for like $10. I say probably because I’ve never tried it before, but they may do it and they may not! But you’re taking that risk if you just buy the digital, and even if you have full intention of using it digitally, you may not be a digital planner girly at all! I sure was not! I TRIED, but digital planning is not for me. I use the digital planner in addition to the physical. The digital is more travel friendly for me compared to the physical workbook itself, but the digital is not as engaging as the physical workbook. I love keeping the actual physical Artist of Life workbook at home, as it’s more personal!
All in all, whatever you’re deciding to do, Lavendaire gifted my audience a 10% off code to use! No matter what you purchase from her shop, if you use the code DREAMLIKEDIANA10 you’ll get 10% off your purchase! Just click here to claim it!
It IS a limited edition item and will not be restocked. It has sold out, in the past, by February of the new year so if you’re looking to get one get it soon!
All in all,
In the end, the Lavendaire Artist of Life Workbook has been a meaningful part of my planning journey for the past five years, helping me reflect, dream, and set intentions. While it’s not perfect—and let’s face it, no planner ever is—it has carved out a special place in my yearly lineup. The love-hate relationship I have with this workbook isn’t a negative; it’s a testament to its value and the personal growth it has inspired. Every tool we use comes with its quirks, but what matters is how it fits into our lives and supports our goals. If you’ve been considering the Artist of Life Workbook or have had your eye on it, I hope this deep dive gave you a fresh perspective to decide if it’s the right fit for your journey. Here’s to planning with purpose, embracing imperfections, and creating a life you truly love!
Till next time~
Diana!
