I’m Not Setting Goals for Myself in 2020 (Or Rather, Not Blogging Goals)

Wow, I can’t believe I’m launching this post out into the world in mid-February. It is what it is though.

Back in 2018, I thought it would be a really good idea to keep myself accountable throughout the year by creating a blog post of goals I would hope to accomplish.*

Um, yeah… that post is super old and very off-brand with featured images because I moved to WordPress later that month and didn’t focus on branding until later.

I did the same in 2019, and for both those years, it turned out to be okay? Good considering how I have a lot on my plate? I definitely don’t give myself as much as credit as I should. 😪 Actually, I never give myself enough credit.

I wanted to create goals for 2020.

2020 vision and all that. If only I got an actual perfect vision, though. It took me a few years to realize my vision isn’t going to get better, just worse.

I even had a draft ready to be written since October 2019 with a title. A funny title, too, because I try to be funny even if I might not be. Except sometime between October and December 2019, I dropped off? Lost motivation? Lost energy? More than likely both.

I mean, even the number of blog posts I wrote was a depressing amount. We’re not counting the end of October or the month of November since that was for a class project. It was fun, but it took way too much from me, and I basically fell behind in all the review copies I had. (Look, summer me felt like I could take on the world and make it my oyster. Turns out, summer me was a whopping liar.)

So I told myself in 2020 I’d skip out.

I don’t mean I won’t create goals. It’s kind of in my nature, plus I’m graduating this year??? I do need my ducks lined up together somewhat considering how I have a portfolio defense and I need to be ready when I’m not (or I’ll be ready physically, not mentally; don’t we love anxiety). My goals this year just won’t be 100% set in stone.

Self-care is my priority this year.

I have a habit of taking on too much and not knowing when it might be too much until it is too much. And even though it’s too late for regrets, I still do anyway.

• Taking on three review requests in the summer? Bad idea with two internships and a job. I still have to start reading two of them, and one of them I still need to write a review.
  • I’m more than likely going to be showering them with apologies.
  • I’m actually rereading one of them right now. That makes up for it, right?
• Requesting 2020 ARCs on Netgalley late summer? Okay, I thought I would have enough time. I got super picky with my ARCs by then, though, so I’m not in a horrible hole.
  • 15 ARCs total is still a high number in my opinion, even if my Netgalley ratio is high from all my timeliness in high school. It’s like high school me took a trip to college me and asked, “Hey, how stressed will this fledgling adult be?” and college me responded, “Super stressed. Brace yourself.”
  • Also, I just don’t like having a million things on my to-do list. My mom would say I’m lazy. That’s true here.
    • I think I just don’t want to be overwhelmed by 386+ ARCs. That’s also true.
• Going full storm into blogging? Really bad idea, but also I did have to do something for a class project… so that’s not exactly on me other than poor timing. I should have taken the class earlier.
  • It’s not my professor’s fault don’t you dare go after them.
  • I would’ve taken the class in an earlier semester but it didn’t work out. 😤
  • In all honesty, this was still a good move because why put in more work when I can put in work to what I have?

So self-care is definitely a priority. Will I actually learn not to take on too much before it’s too late? Probably not until I have a personal shoulder devil constantly saying, Stop doing this to yourself!

More than likely I won’t listen. I can hear my mother calling me stubborn.

She’s right. Stubbornness has done me some good at times, though. Other times it backfires.

Setting goals takes a lot of energy.

It takes a lot of time and energy to come up with multiple goals for an entire year.

It takes energy that I, quite frankly, did not have. Or at least, extra energy. I definitely have enough to get through day-to-day tasks, but nothing more than that at the moment. I spent a lot of my winter break being a hermit and watching shows and movies or playing games. Sometimes I read a book or wrote a draft. 95% of the time I ignored the blog. And 95% of the time I ignored the universe other than rolling into Discord every so often.

I want to be a little more flexible.

Putting my goals out there each year felt like I was setting it down 100%. It’s great to keep myself organized, though, because everything is in one place and I can’t lose it. And I definitely can’t lose my own blog unless I do something horribly, horribly wrong.

That would be a little shocking. Hilariously funny, but shocking. I did break my own email servers once and it took me like a week to notice, so there’s that.

But I want things to be more flexible without having that constant nagging feeling. I’m that person who, when I should be relaxing, can’t really relax. It’s like I feel weird not being productive. (Or maybe it’s just been so ingrained into society to constantly be hustling, we often forget self-care is necessary in order to hustle.)

2020 is going to be a huge transition period.

I’M GRADUATING! Only this time, I’m not entirely sure where I’m going after. Back in 2016, I knew I was going to college, but what’s next after college? Continuing graduate school? Haha, not enough money. All I know is I’m getting plopped out into Adulting as a full-fledged adult with a degree.

Just writing this gives me lowkey anxiety.

But not knowing exactly what’s next kind of makes it hard to set goals in my opinion. I didn’t exactly have a 100% set schedule, but I had a bit of an idea and now it’s unknown until it’s known. Scary thoughts to think about and not something I’m really going to think about. (But you know… this might change in a few months after posting, who knows? Future me can worry about that.)

So blogging goals in 2020? 100% out the window. Plus, I just want to enjoy blogging without worrying about the endless tasks at the moment. There’s something nice about cleaning up years worth of past content, but it’s also good to take a break once in a while. 2020 is my year of taking that break and I don’t feel setting them up is the way to go about it.

Let’s talk, bookwyrms: are you a goals person? If so, have you ever chosen not to? What’s your stance on goals?