Hello…

It’s been awhile since I’ve written and posted something, hasn’t it? I promise that it’s not because I forgot about the blog. One busy week led to another and another and I didn’t really have the creative energy to write the many, many blog posts I had planned. Thus, my entire schedule went out the window some time in mid-June.

Normally, I’d feel a bit guilty, but considering that it was my social life that got in the way - wow, who even is she? I’m okay with things falling behind a little if it means I’m connecting more with my friends. Unfortunately for them, it means they’re all now subjected to my ability to ramble about books for hours on end and randomly bring books into all topics of conversation.

Okay, now to get to the point of this blog post, my goals for 2022. Seeing as it’s been well over half a year since my first post about my goals went up, I thought it would be a good time to check in and see how I’m doing. For each goal, I’m gonna give myself a grade to measure my progress/success so far.

(Hint: I’ve been slacking on some of the bigger ones)

Living

Get into some kind of workout routine // D

I had great intentions with this goal and that lasted about a month.

Keeping accountable with working out is something I struggle with unless I’m paying for a class or going with someone. It’s always been hard for me, and I kind of abandoned this pretty early on.

It would be nice to find a way to keep active and healthy. Going out more means walking more, so I’m not entirely devoid of exercise, but it’s not at the consistency I’d like it to be at.

Right now, I’m thinking about taking pole classes once I’m bringing in a regular income each month. It’d be a fun way for me to get active while getting back into dance classes. The sheer amount of muscle required to do anything pole related is why I think it would be a good way for me to get strong while doing something I enjoy.

There are Chloe Ting workout I’d like to get back into, but truthfully, it does sometimes get dull with some of the repetitive moves. I honestly think I need to figure out a new approach to finding a workout routine that works for me.

Journal once a week // A-

I’ve been quite consistent with this due to combining it with my morning devotionals. Having something to respond to sometimes makes it easier when I don’t feel like there’s much about my life to write about.

Giving myself permission to write about literally anything has also helped. There are times when I have deep reflections on things I’m struggling with and other times when I talk about how I just want to have a productive day after procrastinating all week. Of course, can’t forget my rants about the Instagram algorithm, those have to make an occasional appearance too.

The perks of being so consistent with journaling are that I feel more in tune with my thoughts and emotions. The awareness I’ve gained from challenging myself to be honest has been very rewarding. My mind feels a lot clearer on a daily basis and I find myself missing the routine when I skip my morning devotions and journaling session.

Most of the time, I find myself wanting to journal as a form of internal processing and giving myself an outlet so I’m not trying to sort through everything in my head. Plus, it’s nice to have a physical record of what I’m feeling and how I’ve grown over time.

I gave myself an A- because there are times when I skip a week or two, but the number of times I have journaled each week kind of makes up for that.

Become top 0.05% of Taylor Swift listeners on Spotify // C+ or B-

This is a hard one to gauge my progress on because I can’t actually see how many minutes I’ve listened to so far.

There have been a couple of months where I didn’t touch my swiftie playlist at all, choosing podcasts over music or playing YouTube videos in the background instead. However, I’ve been talking to more people about this goal of mine in the past couple of months and that’s given me a push to put the playlist on more.

I truly have no issues with listening to her music all the time. Having so many albums in the playlist makes it easy to get something different each time and experience a variety. Plus, I’ve never been the type to listen to a wide range of artists in the first place, so I’ve pretty much always stuck to the same few people.

Right now, if I were to break down my estimation that a minimum of 8,000 minutes are required to get me to the top 0.05% that would mean about 26 minutes of listening each day. If I can manage a couple of hours every day, I think I could easily make up for the times I chose podcasts or lo-fi music and maybe even surpass the 8,000 minute mark.

Considering that I got to 5.5K minutes last year without really trying, I think it’s really possible for me to achieve this goal as long as I’m a little more consistent.

Re-do my room // Achieved

In February, I was able to take on the challenge of repainting my room walls white and getting new furniture to replace all the old. There was a period of around three weeks when I was missing furniture and lived out of a duffle bag, but it all got done.

Over the course of a couple of months, I got contact paper and went about covering up the alternating blues of my closet. Everything now looks much more spacious and uniform, with more than enough storage space for me to grow into.

I wish I had taken some before and after pictures. I might have some videos on my camera of what it was like when I was doing all the painting and cleaning up.

In the six months since this change, I’ve been thoroughly enjoying being in my room. It’s done wonders for my happiness and my Bookstagram feed. The room feels more like an adult lives here and has become a very cozy spot to curl up and read with Tabby snuggled next to me.

I’m happy to cross this off my list as the first goal I achieved.

Find a reasonable morning routine // Achieved

My main reasoning for having this goal was to ensure that I was able to transition to working life pretty easily. The plan worked and when I was briefly contracted with a small start-up, I was able to easily get up and make time for devotions and journaling before I had to leave for work.

After that work contract ended, I admit that my wake up times leaned more toward the 8-8:30 mark and I became less mindful about the time at which I went to bed. My excuse was that I had no reasons to be up that early and socializing was making me more tired, so the sleep was necessary. Didn’t explain going to bed past 1AM though.

It’s taken a few weeks of realizing that I’ve fallen back into bad habits and watching Jen’s newest video in her Glow-Up series to make me get back into the mindset that an early start can benefit me more in the long run.

The goal was to give myself a morning routine that allowed me time for devotions, journaling, and didn’t rely on my scrolling through my phone to wake up. In a lot a ways, it’s more about discipline and helping myself work towards healthier life habits.

I’m back to aiming for a 7:30am wake up time and giving myself little chunks of time to get ready and get seated at my desk to accomplish the things on my to-do list instead of wasting hours on YouTube.

Marking this as “achieved” is because I have found a routine that works and that was the goal. Whether or not I stick to that routine is another thing entirely…

Expand my video game playing // C

Honestly, I think I’ve played even less video games since writing out this goal.

I did start a game called Fobia and have made it through about an hour of trying not to die. I won’t say it’s an hour of gameplay since I did spend 15 minutes trying to figure out how not to get impaled by spiked logs.

The goal was to encourage myself to pick up more of the games I’ve accumulated and that’s still something I very much want to do. I’ve avoided getting more games until I play what I already have, with the exception of Animal Crossing: New Horizons because that was a birthday gift from some friends.

Hopefully, the second half of the year will see me using my Switch more often and working my way through my backlog of video games that I’ve collected. I’ve been playing more of ACNH since getting it for my birthday, but I’d like to pull out some of the mystery games I bought during various sales.

And of course, I’m continuing to be terrible at Don’t Starve.

Invest in a better skincare routine // Achieved

My skincare routine hasn’t changed a lot since I wrote out this goal. The products I use are the same and I’m sticking with Innisfree since they have a large variety to choose from.

The consistency hasn’t always been there in terms of washing my face at night, but I do invest time in my skincare during the mornings. It’s part of my routine for waking up and I enjoy doing each of my little steps.

Even in the evening, the days when I am good about doing my whole routine are reminders that it’s part of a winding down process for me.

I think I’ve changed my interpretation of this goal to “investing time in my skincare routine.” It’s a good thing to spend my time on and I’m happier on the days when I choose to take that extra five minutes to wash my face in the evening.

Reading

Read 52 books // B+

While I’m not outrageously behind on my goal, I am a few books behind. As of the week I’m writing and posting this, it’s the 32^nd week of 2022 and I’ve read 26 books. That’s six books I need to read to be back on track.

I partially blame April for being a month where I only read 1 book, but really, this goes back to what I said last time about not choosing to make time to read.

The purpose of this goal is never to make myself feel bad about reading, but more to give myself something to aim for. I enjoy reading and it’s something I don’t seem to make a lot of time for despite how much time I spend talking and posting about books on the Internet.

And while it sounds and feels easy to read a book every week, realistically, I know that there are weeks when I choose not to read or don’t have time to do a lot of reading because of other things going on in my life. There’s nothing wrong with that.

I do wish I were a little more on track with this goal. My very ambitious TBRs each month haven’t done a lot to catch me back up to where I should be, but I still have faith that I can reach this goal.

As usual, if you want to see how I’m keeping up with this goal, you can follow me on Bookstagram or StoryGraph. I’m barely active on Goodreads anymore at this point.

Start reading before bed // C

This goal has been a mishmash of success and…me going to bed without reading. I think the main problem is that I get on my phone to post about reading, then end up scrolling online until I realize that I should be asleep.

That doesn’t mean I’m not reading during the day. Sometimes I block out whole chunks of the afternoon to finish a book or read while commuting to different places.

When I’m really into a book or make the effort to get ready for bed at a more reasonable time, I can get anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour of reading in and sufficiently wind down for bed. Really, it’s a benefit for me to read before bed. Saves my eyes from more screen times, gets me further into my book, and helps me unwind before going to sleep.

Clear some backlist // C-

The main reason I’m giving myself a C- on this goal is because I haven’t gone through as much of my 22 In 2022 and 12 From 12 challenges as I would like. In fact, both of those lists remain largely untouched.

Of the 24 books I’ve read so far, 10 have been from my TBR list. Which I would consider quite good, except for my own expectations that I’d have gotten through more of my challenge list by now.

I haven’t been pulling from my TBR jar at all when planning my TBR for each month. It’s something I’d like to change in the second half of the year as I try to clear more books off my massive backlist.

There’s a little something I’ve call Project TBR that I’m hoping will help me get further along with this goal. You can head to my Bookstagram to see how I put everything together and how I plan to use this method to help me get through more backlist.

Listen to 5 audiobooks // Achieved

I’m happy to call this goal “achieved” as I sit here, a little more than halfway through my sixth audiobook of the year.

Painting my room was how I got through one audiobook, and the others have accompanied me throughout other room projects, like organizing all my stuff and covering my closet with contact paper.

The book I’m listening to right now, Pachinko, has kept me company while I spent two hours fishing in Animal Crossing. It’s likely that I’ll finish it while running around my island like a little maniac with my fishing rod.

Writing

Create some kind of writing routine // F

Dare I say that we all say this coming? My goal of creating a regular writing routine has been around for awhile and never come to pass.

Of all the goals I have, I never know why this is the hardest for me to accomplish. I can sit down a few times a week to write blog posts, but when it comes to my fiction, I can’t seem to find a rhythm outside of NaNoWriMo.

Moving forward, I think I have a plan of sorts to make fiction writing a part of my schedule. I’ve been talking to a friend who does Twitch streams and I think I’m going to use that as my way of staying accountable with writing. Hosting a writing stream means I have to be writing something during that time.

Not really sure if that’ll work for this goal, but I’m hoping that it’s a start.

Finish Project Ceiling Cat Draft 2 // F

I don’t think I’ve even opened Project Ceiling Cat this year.

Not that I don’t want to. I’ve thought about it a lot since NaNoWriMo last year and I think it’s in a place where I have to be writing to fix the problems that exist, rather than thinking about it sporadically for weeks.

My hope is that once I start doing writing streams, that’ll give me a set time each week to work on this story and over time, it’ll start looking less like a jumbled mess.

Posting

Post 1 Reel a week // A

Fun fact: Two days after my post about these goals went up, I posted a Reel that ended up getting 17.1K views.

Truthfully, I’ve grown to enjoy Reels a bit more in the past seven months. It still takes me an unreasonable amount of time to film by myself, but I’m getting better at it. And I’ve found what Reels I enjoy making.

There are weeks when I forget to post a Reel, but I’ve also had weeks where I post 2-3, depending on how many I have hoarded for no reason. It adds up.

Hit 1,000 followers on Instagram // C+

I managed to hit the 800+ mark earlier this year before deciding that I needed to go through my followers and remove the bot accounts and people who I never see interacting with my content. While I did see a big spike in followers after posting about the inaccurate Asian representation in Six Crimson Cranes and The Dragon’s Promise, it hasn’t quite gotten back up to where I was.

Having fewer followers has been nice though. I would rather know that I have a small group of people interacting with me consistently than a ton of followers who never see what I post. And on some level, it makes posting feel less daunting when I have a small audience.

I’m not sure if I’d want to continue on with this goal because it’s not something I can control. Not really. I’d rather have a community of people who love my content than a ton of followers who don’t see or appreciate what I do.

Be on top of reviews // B

My blog is still really far behind on reviews, but I’ve been a lot better about this goal over on my Bookstagram. There’s still a backlog there, but it’s not as bad as it is on here.

The main problem is me wanting to hit to SEO markers and make sure my reviews are at least 800-1,500 words long. Cue the rambling, but there’s only so much I can talk about without spoiling a book for you guys.

I’m also behind on my review notes, so maybe this is all a sign that I just need to sit down and focus solely on writing reviews for awhile. 

Focus on the blog // B

I’ve had to do some rearranging here and there to accomodate for life happening, but for the most part, I’d say that I’ve been pretty consistent with writing and posting here.

Not having the pressure to make YouTube videos has taken a load off and allowed me to work on all the blog post ideas I have. It also means I have a bit more time to work on the blog site in general, fixing up some of the pages that have nothing on them because I never got around to the meticulous work required for what I have in mind.

There could always be more focus dedicated here, I’ll admit that. This goal was never about making this into my primary focus. Bookstagram is much more manageable for me and I think it’s where I’ve found the most community. Blogging is where I started online and I want to keep it going for that reason. It’s a place to share longer form written content and tackle bigger topics without needing to cut them up into little pieces.

I’m really happy with some of the stuff I’ve done here so far this year and I’d like that feeling to continue for the rest of 2022.

Overall, I would say that I’m doing okay with my goals. Having a check-point has given me a better idea of what I’d need to do to feel more like I’ve accomplished what I set out to do.

In recent years, I prefer to stay in the mindset that any amount of progress is good. Not every goal that I set has to be perfectly executed or achieved by the end of the year as long as I make steps toward the things on my list.