2023 Goals & Resolutions + Reading Challenges

Ah January. The month of yearly renewal. The time when we all try to put our best foot forward (sometimes with too much pressure). I have found over the last few years that while I think have goals and resolutions are good, I don’t think January is the only time we need or should lay them out for ourselves. I have also found that, at least for me personally, goals and resolutions should be visited more than once because changes happen in our lives/ environments. Those changes can sometimes have us reevaluate the importance and priority level of a goal and/or resolution.

With that in mind, I decided to try to go simpler with my goals and resolutions for both my bookish and non-bookish life.

Bookish Goals and Resolutions

Focus and prioritize on reading my physical unread books. Usually I put a number or percentage on these type of goals. I think I just forget what those numbers are throughout the year. I’m hoping it’ll be easier to just remember that I want to read more of what I already own. This means that 2023 is another book buying ban year.

Focus on trying to read more diversely. Again, I haven’t quite reached the number I put on this particular goal the last few years. So I’m hoping going a more simple route will be the way to go. Reading diversely to me mostly means reading BIPOC authors. It should be easier to just remember to seek out BIPOC authors.

Read my last 2 ARCs and hold on requests. I’ve already scaled back on requesting ARCs through Netgalley to where I think it’s been many months since I last logged in. I have two left from the last couple years that I really want to read this year.

Read less romance AKA read more across genres. I know this must be a weird goal for someone to have as everyone should read whatever they want to read. However, there are so many books across several genres that I want to read; it’s been easy to get sucked in to a romance mood that lasts ahwile to where I miss out on picking up a non-romance book.

Figure out what works and what doesn’t with my blog posting. I’ve really fallen back on writing posts aside from wrap ups and Top Ten Tuesday. I really want to see if I have anything left to write about, if I should move to a different platform, or if I need to refocus on longform blogging. It’s been easier and easier for me to feel burnout when it comes to writing blog posts and I don’t want to worry about that anymore.

Non-Bookish Goals and Resolutions

Continue to focus on my mental health. I started seeing a therapist again several months ago and has been great. I want to continue to find ways to bolster my mental health in a way that is sustainable for the long term since I see mental health as an ongoing journey.

Focus on trying to be more proactive about reaching out to friends. I have found this last year that I am terrible about being proactive; about being the one to reach out first. One of the reasons that triggered me going to therapy is that the line between being alone and loneliness started to blur. But it was hard for me to take the steps to make that line more visible; to seek out current and new friends. This is something that I hope to really work on this year.

Focus on budgeting and saving. I did way more terrible that I expected when it came to saving last year. I added a few more tracking items in my budget that I hope will help make it clear where I’m spending, how/when to scale back, etc.

Reading Challenges

Similar to my goals and resolutions, I’m sticking to the ones that I’ve done consistently these past few years.

Goodreads Reading Challenge

I’ve decided to set my goal a little higher than the last couple years at 100 books.

Beat the Backlist

I’m definitely doing this one again. Hosted by Austine Decker.

The guidelines are simple:

1. The book must be published in the previous year or earlier (for the 2023 challenge, anything published in 2022 or earlier counts).
2. You have to start and finish the book in 2022.
3. And that’s it!

I currently have 565 books on my list that was published 2022 or earlier. The number is only slightly higher to what it was last year. I will try to make as big of a dent as I possibly can this year!

Mount TBR

I have also done this one the last few years as I seem to always have unread books that I own. Hosted by My Reader’s Block.

Rules:

1. Books must be owned prior to January 1, 2023
2. ARCs count
3. Must be read between January 1 to December 31, 2023

I again own 30 books that are on my shelf that are still unread plus my last 2 ARCs. All were acquired before the start of this year. My goal is to not buy anymore books until I’ve read all my current unread ones.

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And those are my goals, resolutions, and reading challenges for 2023!

What are yours?

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