Action Plan - How to get where I want to be? How do other people do it?

I tried to make a little plan for my near future, concerning what I need to do in order to get to a design studio as soon as possible, and how I'm going to make enough money to live/pay rent...

I've got 'find inspiration' on there referring to finding ways that graphic design and illustration can look good together in one portfolio? find practitioners that consider themselves Illustrators & Designers...

After googling 'Illustrator and Graphic Designer' I got a few results:

Claire Hartley - Graphic Designer and Illustrator 

http://www.clairehartley.com/

From looking at her website I can see that her work isn't overly Illustrative and quite type based, however she does do alot with patterns and line drawings. Still I can see that her work has a style running across it. I think in terms of being an "illustrator and designer" your work needs to be a bit more subtle than what mine currently is? Bit less illustrative and perhaps focus on being more decorative?