Oh, wait, what? It’s a whole new year.

Which means it’s time to look back at all the goals I set (and forgot about) at the beginning of 2018, and set some shiny new goals for 2019. Here goes nothing…

2018 Goal Recap:

• Publish Esmeralda’s Story: Apparently 2018 was so long that I completely forgot this novelette even existed by the end of it, but you can purchase a Kindle copy of Empty Little Heart: Esmeralda’s Story on Amazon! That’s one goal to strike of my list, at least.
• Write and revise at least one book: Yeah… this didn’t work out. I did do little bits of work here and there on some of my background projects (and also came up with about a hundred other project ideas, some of which would involve massive amounts of work. Yay!) but I never got even close to finishing one of my many first drafts.
• Get my driver’s licence: This… actually happened. It still doesn’t seem real that I’m legally allowed to just go out and drive a car around by myself, but it happened.
• Read more: This is kind of a vague goal, but I did ramp up my 2017 Goodreads Challenge Goal of 60 books, which I completed, to 70 books for 2018. Unfortunately, I only ended up reading 67 books out of those 70, so I don’t think I can really give myself full credit for this one.
• Make more artistic stuff: Another really vague goal which I can’t really measure. I posted only one piece of artwork to Instagram this year, but that’s not really a good reflection of the amount of art I’ve done, since I almost never post pictures of my artwork. I did branch out into soap- and candle-making near the end of the year, which I guess could kind of count as ‘artistic stuff’? But I definitely wasn’t creating as consistently as I would like.
• Embrace my emo side: I kind of randomly threw this ‘goal’ in for laughs, and then never actually did anything to realize it, besides occasionally wearing my assortment of chokers, my silver cross necklace, and enormous dangly chain earrings, and acquiring one or two new pieces of black clothing for my wardrobe. I dyed my hair at the beginning of 2018, and it hasn’t been redone since, and however much I dream of getting a fancy purple ombre, I’m really not sure when (or if) that’s going to happen.
• Procrastinate less: This once again unmeasurable goal ended up completely backfiring, and I think I spent more of 2018 procrastinating than doing anything else. If you read my post Vicious Cycles, you’ll know all about the cycle of laziness and always taking the easy way out that I was stuck in. The new year seems to have cleared the air, at least a little bit, and I’m hoping that maybe I can power through it and create new habits of mindfulness and actually doing things before the cycle sets in again.
• Exercise, exercise, exercise: Like most of my goals in 2018, this started out very well at the beginning, and kind of just sputtered out somewhere in the middle of the year. I’m trying to ease myself back into quick Pilates routines and long walks in the outside air, and I’ve even started going to the gym with my dad and brother now and then. Hopefully I can keep up the momentum this time.
• Write more blog posts: I wanted to be posting weekly. I was even doing monthly wrap up posts with updates and plans for the next month. But in 2018 I only wrote 36 blog posts, a far cry from the 70 that were posted in 2017. Going back and looking at my 2017 Best Of/Wrap Up post, it’s hard for me to not notice the enthusiasm, the sheer excitement for what I had accomplished, and what the new year might hold in store. I could say that I feel like I’ve lost that, and that I’m disheartened and cynical and don’t know how to  recapture that lost flame, but… that wouldn’t be quite true, actually . There’s a flicker of that excitement inside me now, because I can see where I’ve failed, and I can see ways to fix it. I want to lean into that, to make better goals this year, and accomplish more of them. So here we go…

My 2019 Goals:

Criteria: These goals must be inherently measurable, specific, and able to be accomplished in the next 12 months.

• Write and revise the script for my new Super Secret Project. That’s right, I said script. And this is not the same Super Secret Sci-Fi project from last year, which is so far on the back burner that it’s basically off the stove at this point. I won’t say too much about this project, as if it works out it’s going to take a lot of time and effort to complete, but it is there and it is humming along in the background, and I do want to put some work into it this year.
• Complete Create This Book 2 by the end of 2019. Create This Book 2 is the second art-journal-type book from Moriah Elizabeth. I discovered her stuff late last year, and her Create This Book series really caught my eye. Create This Book 2 has 100 unique prompts to inspire all kinds of artwork, which you can create right on the pages of the book. I picked the second book because it has a more manageable number of prompts, and if I complete two prompts each week I can finish the book by the end of the year! I’m hoping that this consistent art creation will help me improve my skills, and that the book’s creative prompts will challenge me to try new mediums and techniques that I would have never picked up otherwise. I’m going to try to post at least some of my artwork on my Instagram, if you’re interested. 🙂
• Read 50 books. Yes, 50 is a step down from my goal of 70 last year, but I’m heading into the home stretch of school, and things are getting more challenging and time consuming, so with that and my many other projects, I may not have as much time to read as in previous years. I think that 50 is a rather more manageable goal for me at the moment, and it would be much better to meet and surpass a smaller goal, as I did in 2017, then to fail a larger goal.
• Review more books, movies, and videogames. This goal may sound vague, but I don’t want to set a specific threshold for reviews. I’m planning to at least review the big Marvel films of 2019 on this blog, as always, and continue posting short book reviews on my Goodreads profile. And yes, it has been nearly two years since my last videogame review, but I recently picked up some awesome indie titles with my Christmas money, so keep your eyes peeled for those reviews sometime soon!
• Post what I want, when I want. Whether it’s poetry, random essays, movie, music, or film reviews, awesome quotes, or what have you, I don’t want to box myself into a set once-a-week-or-more posting schedule. I think giving myself the freedom to miss a week or two without worrying about disappointing people or not meeting my goals may actually help me to post more, but of course we’ll have to see. That being said, I would like to write at least 30 posts on the blog this year. Hopefully, that’s not too much to ask of myself.

And… that’s it! It may be fewer goals than I set for myself last year, but I think that’s a good thing. I can see my way clear to completing these goals in the next 12 months, and if it all works out maybe I’ll ramp it up for 2020. Who knows! I’m just excited to be a bit more inspired than usual, and I’m hoping that concrete goals and solid plans for implementing them will go the distance that my own sheer willpower, random inspiration, and zero planning skills has gotten me in the past.

Talk to me, friend! Tell me about your goals for 2019, and your plans for implementing them. Are you as surprised as I am that it’s already 2019?? Let’s chat in the comments below!

See you again soon!

🙂