What Are My 2023 Goals and Expectations?

Hello friends! It’s finally time to discuss my goals for this year! I honestly expected this post to go up a lot earlier than it is, but such is life. Interestingly, in the time that I was unable to write these goal, I got to thinking some more about whether the goals I originally intended to set for myself were truly attainable. Which means that I gave the matter some more thought and these are technically revised goals! The plan is to tell you what the goals are, but also to give you some insight into why this is what I landed on as my goal, with some glimpses into what I was considering setting as a goal here and there. So let’s get started, shall we!

Blogging Goals

We’re gonna start off with the more difficult goal category first, and that’s blogging. See, originally, I was going to aim high. I wanted to reach 1000 followers! I wanted to blog at least 2 times a month! I wanted to promise to be more consistent! Now, those aren’t the most lofty of goals, I realize that. But the thing is, despite being relatively simple goals, I don’t think they’re necessarily attainable.

Let’s break it down, shall we?

Reach 1000 followers? I have literally no control over this. The only modicum of control I do have is to blog consistently. To blog hop a fair amount. To promote myself on social media. And you know what? That just isn’t going to happen this year. So, I hope for follower growth, but I’m not making it a goal to grow a specific amount.

Blog at Least 2 Times a Month? Now this is a hard one. Because 2 times? In 28 to 31 days? That should be doable! But the thing is, I really cannot promise consistency. Doing so would most definitely lead to failure. This is a hobby, and I never want to reach the end of the month and realize I only posted 1 thing, and feel pressured to write another post. My schedule and workload has been all over the place in the past 6 months. Every time I think I’m in a rhythm, something new pops up. I think my original intent was a monthly wrap up and a discussion or review. But my wrap ups are on hiatus until the HarperCollins strike ends, so I don’t accidentally cross a picket line by mentioning a title that I read or acquired that’s from a HarperCollins imprint. And writing reviews and discussions requires me to sit down and write them, and I don’t know if I’ll have that kind of time every month. So the modified goal? To keep on blogging. Maybe not consistently. Maybe more sporadically than I’d like. But I want to keep this blog going!

I will also take this time to mention that I most definitely will be participating in the 2023 Discussion Challenge hosted by Nicole @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction and Shannon @ It Starts at Midnight. I won’t be aiming for any specific level, but if I have a discussion, and I really do hope to have many discussions, they will always be linked to the challenge, and I will do my best to read as many other discussion posts as I can, whenever I am able.

Promise to Be More Consistent? Sorry, but not gonna happen. I will try my best, but it’s unlikely that I will remain consistent for a full year. Hopefully my burst of prolific posting will be far greater than my random and unannounced absences, but only time will tell!

The one blogging goal I do want to make, that actually is a bit of a stretch, is to respond to all pings and tags and mentions that I have piled up in my inbox as well as any that I get in 2023. I’m terrible at getting to these, but I would love to start off 2024 fresh, with a clean slate! (And by slate, I mean inbox!)

My last goal is an exact repeat of last year’s goal, which is to do check ins. I’m unsure if they will be quarterly this year or not, seeing as I first set my goals in February, but I will make it a point to check in at least once this year, probably around the midway point!

Reading Goals

I think my goals here are a bit more reasonable, so there weren’t as many modifications to this section as there were to the first section. Interestly, I noticed when reflecting on last year’s goals, that I hadn’t set a numerical reading goal for myself. Apparently that was between me and Goodreads. So this year, I will be doing something similar. I’ve set a reading goal on Goodreads and StoryGraph, but I am feeling no pressure to stick to that number and will be changing it as I see fit throughout the year!

My next goals have to do with buying books and then reading them. Firstly, I do not want to purchase more than 60 books this year. But more importantly, I do not want to spend more than $800 this year. If you’ve read my post about my book buying habits in 2022, you’ll know I spent about $820 on books. I really would like not to spend much more than that, so my goal is $800. So far I’m not doing too great because I have pre-ordered so many books, but hopefully that will just make me more mindful when making other book purchases!

This is not me, and therefore I must budget

However, I’d like to actually read what I own. So my goal for this year is to read at least 15 books that I owned before 2023 began. I even made a StoryGraph challenge for myself to help make the process more fun! I’d also like to read at least half of the books I purchase this year. Not acquire, purchase. Since I don’t want to purchase more than 60 books this year, that caps that goal to a max of 30 books, depending on how many books I purchase.

Now, for what may be the most exciting and yet most challenging goal. I am banning myself from requesting books on NetGalley until I have reviewed the remaining 4 backlist titles on there. So, no new requests, no downloading widgets. No NetGalley activity whatsoever besides browsing just to look at upcoming releases, or updating with a review. I’m honestly not sure if I’ll request books even once I reach this goal, since I really am not doing much e-book reading recently, and would love not to be stressed out by review deadlines, but if I do, here’s the rule I’m setting for myself. For new requests – I cannot have more than 5 books active. That includes both downloaded/approved titles and those pending for request. That way even if I do return to reviewing, I’ll be keeping my load to a more manageable level!

And those are my goals! Not very lofty. Not very exciting. But reasonable. Goals I think I can achieve, and goals I want to work towards. I’m curious to see how these goals end up going and how that impacts my 2024 goal planning!

What’s one of the goals you set for yourself in 2023? Are you a fan of aspirational goals or ones that seem manageable? How do you think I’ll do on my goals this year?

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