all my goals for 2023

We are officially over halfway through January and I’m just now getting to this post.

(Maybe one of my goals for the year should be to write this post earlier.)

I had wanted to write this post earlier (as well as a few others) but with R2 and BB8 unexpectedly stay at our place for ten days I am still feeling a little behind.

So, even though this post is later than I wanted, I still want to write it so I can have this to refer back on. Plus, sharing the goals helps me want to achieve them a bit more.

I like to make my goals a mix of easier boxes to check and others that will take some more work so you’ll see both here.

I have three main categories for my goals this year: personal, business and reading. And I thought I would just share them all in this post. So, without further ado; bring on the goals.

PERSONAL GOALS

write 200 poems

This is the first half of a goal, the second half is to:

self publish a poetry book

I do plan on checking in with both of these goals over on my BookTube channel throughout the year. Like most things, so far I’m behind.

whiten my teeth

Not much to explain here I don’t think.

shop more at small businesses

Also, pretty self explanatory.

bike and walk more locally in the summer

Last summer I didn’t use my bike once. I blame the fact that it would have involved pulling 75+ pounds of children behind in the bike trailer. Plus, at one point we had three little kids and only two would fit in the trailer. This year I don’t have that problem so I need to get back into the habit of biking.

initiate going out for coffee with friends ten times

I mostly blame COVID for getting me out of this routine. But there are also other factors as play. Like the fact that I don’t have free time. Between homeschooling in the morning, working in the afternoon and having every evening of the week full . . . thankfully soccer will be over in two months.

make and order a 2022 photobook

I failed miserably on my photobook goal last year so this year I’m trying to keep it simple. I’m only putting one year worth on my goal list. Plus, I recently realized that I could make a much smaller photo book that I have in the past and that has helped a bit mentally.

study Revelation

It’s one of the books of the Bible I haven’t spent a whole lot of time on.

get a haircut

I actually did this one last week. I’ve been cutting my own hair for years and even then, I don’t think I’ve cut it for the last year. I got about three inches off and it’s been almost a week and no one has said anything. Either it looks terrible or some how no one has noticed.

attempt to like raw peppers

I need to eat more veggies and I want to like peppers so I’m going to work on it this year.

BUSINESS GOALS

switch to this website for all my blogging

I’ve started this, now just need to continue it all year.

go back to old school blogging

By that I just mean, publishing posts after I’m done writing them and mainly writing whatever I want to write. So far, so good. Though, I do want to be writing more here than I have been in the last two weeks but it’s a start.

figure out if I want a BookTube tier on Patreon

So, I’m thinking of adding a couple tiers to my Patreon, one is for those who have a BookTube channel and are looking for tips/how to grow it or for those interested in starting a channel. First I need to decide if I want to/have time for this, and if so, then start it.

figure out if I want a postcard tier on Patreon

My other tier I’m thinking about adding is one where I make bookish postcards and send two to each Patron in that tier each month. That way they can send two out or send one out and keep the other. Just need to decide and then actually start if that’s what I decide.

hit 15,000 subscribers on BookTube

This is above my current growth trajectory but I would still like to try for it.

hit 10,000 followers on Instagram

My bookish Instagram is slowly growing and I would like to focus on it a little more this year because so many authors and publishers hang out there.

get my Patreon to 100

I love the community that I have been growing on Patreon and this year I would like to hit the 100 patrons mark.

get more personal in my vlogs

Since I’ve decided to scale back from three YouTube channels to just one this year I would like my vlogs to be a bit more personal/a combination of all the things I talked about on all the channels.

self-publish a poetry book with the kids

I enjoy writing poetry with my kids and this year I want to print out a book of all our poems (that means trying to track down the old ones that I thought I kept but now can’t find). I guess “self-publish” is probably not the right term here because I highly doubt we’ll make it available for others.

build my homeschool membership to 350+

At the end of last year I launched the Intentional Homeschooling Membership and I’m just wishing I did it sooner. I’m really enjoying that space and would like to focus on growing the community this year.

READING GOALS

I did share most of these goals in a video already but I’ll write them below and then embed the video as well in case you are curious. I did modify a couple of the goals since I made the video so here are the modified goals:

complete the 2023 Read Your Bookshelf Challenge

I mean, I created the challenge so I should probably finish it.

keep my monthly TBR’s to a seven book maximum

I want to make sure I have time for mood reading in the month as well.

read 25 NetGalley books

I want to for sure read all the NetGalley books I currently have (12ish) and then decide if I want to keep using it. The trouble is that I’m just so bad at reading ebooks even if I want to read the book.

read seven classics from my list

I made a list of fifty classics I want to read before I die so I’m slowly working away at the list.

post at least five videos that are more “creative” in content or filming

I just like to push myself a bit.

read seven books that are 500+ pages

I have a tendency to avoid big books but I’ve been really craving them lately.

read ten books by Enclave publishing

They are a Christian publishing house that mainly publishes science fiction and fantasy but their books aren’t overtly Christian. I’ve really enjoyed the ones I have read.

read ten non-fiction books

It’s pretty straight forward.

break up with the library for a season

I want to use my library less this year or for the first part of the year. I love the library but I tend to take out all.the.books. and then I can’t read them all and get discouraged, or I prioritize my library books and don’t read the books I own. So, I just wanted to try taking a little break.

Okay, here’s the video I made on this topic:

What are a couple goals you have for the year? I would love to hear them! Or if you have a blog post with your goals, please link it in the comments!