How Badly Did My 2019 Goals Go? (Spoiler: Not so great at the end)

Can you believe it’s almost the end of the month, the year, the decade? No? Just me? Also, I swear yesterday was August 2019. Apparently it’s months later. What the hell, time?

2019 has been rough.

Not just for me, it seems. Everyone else around me seems to be feeling the same way. From reading slumps to blogging slumps to low energy and lack of motivation, it has been a trip. If I thought 2016 was rough, 2019 is laughing maniacally right now.

Welcome, anxiety, old friend.

I made some goals back in December 2018 during Bookending Winter and then did an update/check-in in March 2019. Because in March 2019, things didn’t exactly go downhill as it seemed to have in the last few months? Six months? I definitely don’t keep track.

So About Those 2019 Goals

I’m a firm believer that you don’t have to have goals to be successful. Everyone is different and while publicly announcing my goals (selectively) generally helps keep me accountable, it might not work for you. Or you might not want to have any goals, and that’s perfectly fine as well.

That being said, let’s talk about those goals for 2019 and the updates I made in March!

🆗 Continue posting at least once a week

I updated from once to twice a week in March because blogging was going well for me. Nothing major was going on, there was less stress and I could keep up. But I also mentioned I wouldn’t stress myself into creating content, so while I did drop off for a few months, it’s safe to say I didn’t do too badly.

I’m still planning on taking a semi-hiatus during winter break, though… because while the class project was fun, it also burned me into ashes big time. I have burnt to a toast and need to be a potato from blogging.

🆗 Finish formatting, updating and cleaning

I had the opportunity in one of my classes during school to use my blog! During that class, I really wanted to focus on this goal, but since I switched hosts due to cost in the summer, I had to go back and check up on an extra year’s worth of posts.

Plus, one of my goals is to continue working on branding throughout the year, and that was a part of my project as well. But since I got stuck back into the wrist brace 24/7 for 3 months (?) straight, I didn’t get the chance to do as much cleaning as I wanted to.

I still think I didn’t do as bad considering the circumstances, but again, a thousand posts is a lot. I might have deleted well over 200, bringing the number of posts to around 900, but that’s still a lot. Expecting to go through all of that while working and going to school is impossible.

✅ Continue working on branding

I think I’ve reached a point where everything is much more consistent and all-around satisfying. *pat pats the pretty images*

But let’s be honest, this will probably change as the blog evolves neverendingly. Will I cringe five years from now? I don’t think I will as much as I would with my first posts? At least, I like to think so?

🆗 Continue blog hopping and staying on top of comments

When I switched hosts, I finally caved and purchased a subscription to Replyable, which allows me to reply to comments through email. It’s definitely worth it for me since I do a much better job of replying quicker because I hate having so much email in my inbox. That kind of gives me an incentive to reply quickly. (I hate having a lot of emails in my inbox.)

Blog hopping, however, I’m not the best, and I highly doubt I will ever be the best. And with 2019 being a rough year, sometimes I didn’t want to blog hop, and that’s perfectly fine. But I’m trying my best and that’s all that matters. 😌

🆗 Work on bookstagram

I updated this to be more specific in March since I had no clue what exactly I wanted to work on in December.

• post daily if possible
• actually figure out my theme
• batch take photos

I’ve had to adjust my posting schedule and haven’t let it put me down or stress me out. While this does result in lower growth and engagement, I’m not too bothered. Social media can go down at any time, taking my content with it along with my audience.

I did, however, figure out my theme! I loved my dark theme and working with Photoshop while having access to play with certain themes, but my current theme is super flexible and I can take aspects from my previous themes to put into my current. We do like flexibility.

That being said, this gives me plenty of batch photos being taken and saved for whenever. It’s perfectly fine if I forget them and use them next year because I don’t think this will be changing soon. Except maybe I’ve jinxed myself. I definitely stopped posting because I started burning to a crisp.

❌ Create a Patreon and Ko-Fi

I planned on working on this during summer break. That didn’t happen. Being compensated is something I believe should happen for book bloggers because creating takes so much time and energy away while also juggling school and life. And I would definitely be able to focus more time on creating awesome content… if I didn’t have to worry about the ten plates on my head and counting, like how I’m going to make next month’s rent payment. If that damn rock didn’t hit my car and break the windshield… But my anxiety likes to be a pain and secretly whisper about how I’m going to get judged even though I’m not forcing anyone. 😶

✅ Find an in-person internship

I did it! Okay, what really happened is I told my anxiety to shut up for once so I can go to an event otherwise I wouldn’t have had one.

Side Note: I did have an anxiety attack almost (which is unfortunately crying) but I’m pretty sure a few people noticed and some actually rescued me a little by talking to me. 😅 Hey, at least I showed up, yeah? I wish I could thank them because it couldn’t have been more obvious I had a huge I want to run away crying sign taped to my forehead in all caps and written in permanent marker.

🆗 Post more reviews at The Arts STL

I was reading a lot by March when I updated to two posts a month. Want to know what happened? I dropped off again. 🤣😭

I swear I’m trying my best. It’s probably really awkward for me to respond to an email 5+ months ago, though. It is what it is? If I pretend it wasn’t 5+ months ago…

🆗 Stay more on top of ARCs

I did great until June, then I got bitten by the reading slump and have struggled to catch up since. I thought I would keep up at least but then I got bitten by a fantasy reading slump. Aren’t they great? 😒

If there’s one positive outcome I’ve been a good bookwyrm and requesting few ARCs from Netgalley. And definitely not requesting or clicking request review copies from emails.

❌ Work on Pinterest

I think this falls more on the failing side because I dropped off pinning posts until my class project. But I did do some cleanup? Sort of? We’re going to call it a fail instead. 😂

Honestly, Pinterest for me felt like it takes more time that I could focus on reading or doing other things. But again, Pinterest does occasionally have people hopping over. Only as much as Goodreads, though. Half the time I’m mindlessly repinning as much as I lurk on Twitter.

🤷‍♀️ Batch create blog posts

This worked out well a little… until around July when I basically abandoned blogging except for when I needed to blog. But hey, having nearly 14 posts prewritten in pending really helped with my class project when I had to do 3 blog posts weekly for 5 weeks.

So I wouldn’t say this failed, but I definitely wouldn’t say I consistently batch created blog posts throughout the year. Which is kind of why there’s a shrugging emoji. Maybe I’ll have better luck in the new decade.

🎉 Convince Lupe to Join a Discord Server

The first thing I did was convince Lupe to join a Discord server, but then life happened and she disappeared. Which happens, because like I mentioned way back in the earliest sentence of this post… 2019 has been rough all around, and it can go sit in the timeout corner.

Let’s talk, bookwyrms: do you like creating goals for yourself? What are you proud of accomplishing in 2019?