Hi friends, happy Friday! How have we gotten to the end of the year?! This year really zoomed by! It’s now time for me to look back on all the goals I set for myself and see how well (or not well 😅) I did!

When I checked in, in July, I think I was in a pretty good place… I feel like I’m still in the same place, but that’s what we’re here to find out, so let’s jump right into it!

Bookish Goals

Read 100 books. My reading has really taken a sharp turn near the end of the year, but I did manage to hit 100 back in November! I’m currently sitting at 117 books read, which I’m very happy about.

Read More Diversely. I think the fact that I actively track this is why I’m getting better-ish. So I have to say, I’m roughly where I was last year. I didn’t really move much (all of 2% – I was at 62% white authors); I thought I had read more diversely, but clearly the numbers don’t lie. I think my goal next year will be to make it to the 50% mark for white authors as well as 50% BIPOC. I’m getting there slowly.

Start doing challenges on StoryGraph. This one I haven’t really kept up with. The only thing I can say for certain that I’ve done is I joined the first ever Readalong that they’ve hosted, which I thought was a lot of fun. I’m thinking about keeping this as a goal next year because I think I want to get into more memoirs and reading outside the comfort zone a bit more, and this could help me with that.

Use Twitter More. The fact that the app isn’t even called Twitter anymore, should let you know how well this goal has gone. The only thing I use Twitter/X for is to tweet out the links to my blog and youtube videos, aside from that, I read tweets, and that’s about it. I can tell you right now this goal is leaving next year because I know in my heart I’m not returning to that dumpster fire.

Use Instagram More. On the whole, I think I did really well with this. I think come the end of the year where I started posting more life moments to the grid. I can definitely say I did a lot more than last year, so that’s a plus. I’m thinking of new ways to reinvent my space on Instagram trying to balance my bookish life with my personal life, since I refuse to make two separate accounts – I don’t have enough content to try and handle two.

Continue to Make YouTube Videos. I’m actually pretty surprised with how long I’ve stuck with this. I honestly thought I would have quit already… but I’m still going, 70+ videos strong! I feel like I need to come up with new ideas come the new year, but for now the videos I’m creating are enough, we’ll see where my thought process on this goes.

Personal Goals

Keep Track of ALL My On-Going Projects. Like I said at the beginning and the middle of the year… I have a lot of them. I have to say, for the most part I’ve been keeping up with them all, some days are harder than others.

• My Stephen King Project. This project is going to be on-going for a very long time… doesn’t help this man is still writing. This year I feel like I motored through quite a bit. I’ve read a total of 6 of his works, I feel like that could be a new record for me! 1 graphic novel, 1 short-story collection (novelette?), 3 novels and 1 novella collection. I’ve also upped how much I read in a week. When I first started the project in 2018 I was reading a chapter a week; I feel like if I was still going at that pace I’d be way back in the 70s of his collection of work. I’m currently in 1984, where I might be for quite some time. All that to say, I’m doing very well with this project!
• My Classics Challenge. This one I picked up last November, and I have to say I’m doing swimmingly. This one I read a chapter a day on a classic. So far I’ve read 13(!) books for this. I’m counting that as a win! That’s 13 books I probably never would have picked up otherwise. There are classics I know I want to get to, but this has really helped me get there and expanded my reading!
• The Canada Reads Challenge. This one has been a slow progress this year (as I type this a week before this post goes live, I still have 1 book left to read of 15 – it’s my next book!). But even though I’ve slowly been making my way through it, I’ve really enjoyed the books they picked (only 1 I didn’t like). The list has already been released for the longlist for 2024 (which is new, normally it gets released in January) so I’m excited to jump right into next year’s… once I read that last book!
• My Star Trek Journey. I have a strong feeling I’ll be able to complete this project in 2024. I’m slowly winding down to the end of all things Star Trek, can you believe?! I’ve been at this since October of 2021. This year I finished Star Trek the Next Generation (that was amazing), Deep Space Nine (my fave probably) and I have 3 more seasons of Voyager before I depart for the shorter series and a few of the movies. The end is near my friends!
• My Disney Challenge. Another challenge I started at the end of last year and I’ve come a long way. In December I put a hold on this to watch Christmas movies… only to get so busy I had no time for movies at all! 😂 I can’t remember if I posted about it or not, but I know I had made it a personal goal to make it to the 1970s by the end of the year and I can, with full confidence, say I made it as I’m sitting in 1971, currently. This is the last decade with under 100 movies released; once I hit the 80s it’ll be a different story!

Bake at Least Once a Month. Hehehehehe, well. I baked in January with the full intent on baking more, but life. I can say though that I did back in October and I did in December… so not the most complete flop… but probably still a flop – at least I baked!

Travel More. I will say that I give myself credit, I traveled on a plane for the first time since the pandemic and so that was stepping out of the comfort zone a bit. But aside from that one trip, I didn’t do any other traveling. I did a day trip to Buffalo and some traveling around Ontario… but I wouldn’t call that ‘traveling’ per sae. So again, not a complete flop… but still a flop. I’m working on it. I really do want to go places.

Continue to Knit. This I can fully say yes, I knit every day and I love it. I’m currently knitting another blanket. I don’t talk about my knitting as much anymore, but it is still part of my every day life. I do it while I watch TV and it’s just so soothing. I think the plan might be to knit and donate the blankets, but we’ll see. I’ve also thought about taking on commissions, we’ll see.

Continue Learning French and Italian on Duolingo. I know I share my progress in my stories on Instagram, but yes this is still happening! Some days I’ll learn a little more in one language than another, but I’m still going strong. I’m at a 1496 day streak. Getting very close to the 1500 mark… and I’d still love to hit 2000. I should look up longest streaks ever… I’ll go for world record!

Continue to Drink More Water. I’m still doing well with this. I’m still weak when it comes to weekends because it’s not right in front of me, but I feel like with the freezies I eat, I’m getting better! I think I might drop this as a goal next year because it feels more like filler than an actual goal.

Start Stretching More. This kinda goes hand-in-hand with the above goal; I think I’m going to remove it as well because it’s something I continuously do that it doesn’t really feel like a goal. I stretch every morning and I’ve gotten more in the habit of doing a second set of stretching later on… maybe that’s what I should make a goal, stretching sessions, working different muscles. Something to look into.

Continue to Grow and Be a Work In Progress. I really think this year was my rest period. I feel like all the growing I did in 2022, worked out for me in 2023. I have a feeling 2024 will be another year where I will be growing in different ways and I feel prepared for that. I feel like 2023 was a stepping stone for what 2024 will be, so I’m excited to keep growing and being a work on progress for myself.

And that is the end! I feel like every year I get to the bottom of this list and I tell myself I want to be more intentional with my goals, that I have to be more specific… I think I’m starting to get a bit better at that. Do you have any goals you keep? Did you keep them? Let me know in the comments below!