Goal Setting or Wishful Thinking? My Goals for 2019

I’m normally not one for goals. Frankly, I’m not one for the whole “new year” concept either (except Chinese New Year, because then I get to eat lots of food).

But symbolically I realize how it could help people (still don’t really see why it’s a holiday, but I’ll take what I can get) set goals and refocus, which is what I’ll hopefully be doing in today’s post!

And, I guess it is kinda cool seeing a new year.

So I’ve got bookish goals and real life goals and writing goals and all sorts of goals. Some are big, some are small, but hopefully all give me something to look forward to!

Bookish Goals

I’ve got a lot of bookish goals to influence my reading, and I tried to keep them manageable as well, because I expect to be reading less this month! Let’s start with the obvious, and you can find more about specific reading challenges in 2019 here!

READ 120 BOOKS THIS YEAR.

I know for some people that seems a lot, but this is less than half of what I read in 2019 because I like to keep my goals manageable! And 10 books a month sounds pretty good to me! That would cover just the ARCs, not the backlist, so I’m pretty certain I can accomplish this!

READ 40-50% DIVERSE BOOKS & 10% #OWNVOICES.

Last year I only actually read around 28% diverse books, so this year I really want to bring that figure up and read more diverse novels! Which I hope will be feasible, especially given how much fewer books I’m reading this year.

READ 30 DEBUTS & 30 BACKLIST BOOKS.

I love supporting debuts, and I also love catching up on backlist books, so I hope I can do this! I read more than twice as many last year, so given my halved reading goal, this seems pretty doable!

Writing Goals

This is where some of my dreamier goals come in–I really want to make progress with my writing, even if it is only in private! So here are some of my goals!

FINISH MY CURRENT MYSTERY WIP & REVISE REVISE REVISE.

This is my biggest goal, but I really want to finish drafting my mystery work-in-progress and get to the revision process! It’s tough working on the final 30k because I have a whole laundry list of things I want to change, and it’s hard refraining from editing as I go. Ideally, I’ll have this done by March, but knowing me it’ll probably be late summer. And I have so many edits planned because this book is a hot mess gah.

DRAFT MY NEXT WIP IN FULL.

I’ve been doing some brainstorming and research in my down time, and I’m really excited for this one! If there’s one word I’d describe it with, it would be PINK. (And you know I love the color pink!) I’d love to get the first draft done by the end of the year. Maybe 30k in July NaNo and 50k in real NaNo? We shall see.

ENTER A PITCHING CONTEST OR MENTORSHIP PROGRAM.

This is my one huge writing goal of the year, and given the completion of Mystery WIP, I’d love to try and enter something. Just to test the waters out and get to experience what it’s like.

I’m not in it to win it, but I think it would be really cool to be able to try and see what it’s like entering in one of the competitions or mentorship programs! Especially if it means I get a little bit of feedback, too.

Real Life Goals

I mean, 2019 is a really big year for me. I graduate high school this year, will be starting college in the fall, and these are all huge life changes! So some of my real life goals:

GRADUATE HIGH SCHOOL.

This one seems kind of silly, but I’d still love to make sure I do it! Pretty sure the one thing standing in my way is my online physical education class that I basically have not touched in 6 months but need to finish to graduate. Oops. Someone yell at me to do this, please. I literally have one module to go.

ADAPT TO COLLEGE (ALSO, NOT GET RESCINDED).

Yay for college! I’m already committed to my dream college, but adapting is going to be crazy because I’ve never lived away from home before and it’s cold where I’m going. So fingers crossed that it’s not too hard to adjust to the lifestyle! I want to start some good habits while I’m there.

GET TO KNOW MY COLLEGE PEERS. 

I mean, we currently have a groupchat for the early decision kids, but I’d really love to get to know them better! I’ve had the same friends since elementary school, and going to college is kind of like me testing to see if I can actually make friends without being stuck with them in all my classes for 10 years. These things are hard and it takes time and effort and I’d really like to genuinely get to know the people in my class!

Yup! So these are my 9 goals for 2019! They’re honestly not that big, but the writing goals are definitely going to be the toughest to accomplish! I hold hope and intend to achieve all of them, though, so fingers crossed and shoulders squared.

What are some of your goals for 2019?