How can a college student who wants to be a visual/performing artist with some training and zero experience best plan out their life?

Quit Facebook NOW, Experience new things, Work on your strengths and on your weaknesses, Socialize yourself, Give some of your time, knowledge, money, and even smile to those who need it, Make plan B before plan A.

1. Determine your core values. 2. Know where you are now in relation to where you want to be. 3. Chunk down the steps necessary to get there. 4. Create a written plan. 5. Take the first step. Work the gap. A step at a time until you get there. 6. Every quarter, reassess your trajectory to make sure you're on track. 7. Enjoy the journey. Reduce the emotional reactions to life's inevitable ups and downs and just get on with it.

Pretty simple, no need to overthink this,  we all go out as we came in, naked and screaming.  All you need do is look around yourself.  You will see people doing things, establishing relationships, children, work, paying taxes, aging, retirement and eventually death.  Sometimes when you can have a quiet time, you will wonder just what all those people are doing.  Death and taxes are the only times where you have little option.  The simple path is to look backward from death.  How comfortable will you want to be before you die?  Study, work, pay taxes and invest (taking advantage of compounding, see other posts for the secrets of doing that) and you can be comfortable.  Maybe have some kids to leave your excess money and to enjoy along the way as they grow up.  Relationships also optional, but it can be pretty lonely without someone with whom to share your thoughts. Just pick wisely and know that it is easier to die when you know that someone will miss you.   Be sure to always remember, few people ever say upon their deathbed that they wish they had worked more.  Carpe diem!!

I don't mean to be reductionist about this and I'm not a sales person, but get Tony Robbins' Ultimate Edge program. He does this life planning/goal setting stuff for a living and I've found that it works very well and worth every penny.

Become a writer, that way if you never get around to accomplishing all that stuff, at least you can write about it. If you want to be a visual artist and are currently attending university, take classes in basic drawing, figure drawing and painting. Build a portfolio containing your best work. If you have a true passion for this then you should be producing works of visual art now. Is something stopping you?

Dear friend, You can plan, whatever you want to plan. You are entitled to all your planning. Go ahead and plan. But do have the eyes to see what ‘planning’ is all about. Go ahead, but realize what planning is. What is planning? Figure it out. Where do plans come from? What can plans give you? What happens when you live a planned life? Realize all that and then plan. In your realization whatever you do, it would be wonderful. With your eyes open, do plan and then that planning would be wonderful. But do we understand planning? Do we understand where do plans come from? When you are very joyful, ecstatic, are you planning at that time? In your moments of love, are you planning for the next hour? You are a very dangerous man if even in the moment of love you are planning. ‘What to do next?’ You have a baby in your hand, and the baby is staring at your face. Can you plan? Can you plan at that moment? If you do that, then you are a very dangerous man. I repeat. There is a beautiful garden here, in your locality, right at the entrance. You go and sit there. There are two kinds of people you would see there. There are one who go there, sit there and just get lost. There is you, the grass, the plant and the flowers.  There are another ones, who sit there and start planning. You want to reach somewhere at a particular time, so you plan that you should leave your home at that time. But don’t plan for the six months ahead. Don’t plan for six years ahead. Realize where does planning come from. What kind of a mind is always engaged in planning? It is a cunning mind. The mind which is very afraid. The mind that does not know any joy. It is shivering in fear. It is afraid of the future. So, I can’t ask you to stop planning. Till the time you are afraid, you will plan. Planning is the product of fear. You will keep planning till you are afraid. I am saying that understand what planning is. Then if you want to plan, go ahead. If you must plan, at least don’t plan for the things that are too far ahead. At least do not plan for all that. For better clarity related to questions of life, visit my blog - Words into Silence. AS

Goal setting is a powerful process for thinking about your ideal  future, and for motivating yourself to turn your vision of this future  into reality. The process of setting goals helps you choose where you want to go in  life. By knowing precisely what you want to achieve, you know where you  have to concentrate your efforts. You'll also quickly spot the  distractions that can, so easily, lead you astray.

Pick your objectives, then work backwards from the objectives to the actions to be taken, in the necessary order, scheduling general times frames for "deliverables".  Break each large set down into smaller sets, making interim goals.  Then start at the beginning, working your way through the identified steps, achieving interim goals that lead to final success. Be prepared for adjustment, delays, changes in direction, scrapping and starting over.  The biggest thing that guarantees failure is not starting.  Objects in motion tend to remain in motion....

Focus on what matters. See: https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/What_Matters