simpleek

At the start of every new year I always like setting a goal for myself to aim for, whether it’s video games to complete to reading a certain amount of books in a year. I am a very goal oriented person and I pride myself in hitting my target each and every time. As we count down the weeks that still remain of 2022, my list of goals have been off the mark.

Recently I assessed how much of my goals I’ve accomplished this year. There have been a reasonable amount of video games I want to finish and books I want to finally remove from my to-be-read pile. Unfortunately, despite the modest number I had in my head at the start of the year, a lot of it did not go as planned.

The current stats of completion are as follows:

Video Games Played:

• Neo: The World Ends with You (Nintendo Switch)
• Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy (Xbox One)
• Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright (Nintendo 3DS)
• As Dusk Falls (Xbox One)

Total: 4

Books Read So Far:

• Ravine Lereux by E. Denise Billups
• Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
• Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo
• Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo
• Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

Total: 5

Looking at these stats they don’t seem too shabby for what I managed to finish. I suppose it’s more than what people might achieve in a year. But being the kind of person that I am, I like to get ambitious.

For video games, I was hoping to maybe have at least five finished before the end of the year. These days I’m very slow at playing and beating games during my downtime. The four I have ticked off my list is just shy of one. Maybe that’s not a total failure. I almost could have met that if it wasn’t for the apartment hunting and eventual move that ate up a huge chunk of the year for me.

When it comes to book reading and hitting goals with that, I do the Goodreads Reading Challenge year after year. I thought I might be able to finish reading 10 books by the end of the year. I did hit my stride the first few months. The first book was a short story I read and the remaining books were part of a pretty lengthy YA fantasy series. Knowing I might not be able to meet my 10 books read goal, though maybe I could get lucky in the coming weeks, I’ll have to be content with what I did do. Reading a 300+ to 400+ pages book from a popular fantasy series is no easy feat to do on so little time, and yet I did it before the end of the year. Small wins!

This brings me to why I’m not beating myself up over not hitting my mark this year. Am I disappointed? Yes. Will I get over it? Also yes. Instead, I’m not focusing on what I didn’t achieve but what I already managed to accomplish. You have to find the silver linings in life, otherwise, you’ll be making yourself miserable over the should haves.

While I didn’t meet my video game and book reading goals, one thing I did manage to achieve from my list of personal goals was the writing of my novel. Now, I had also thought I might have finished the rough draft of my work-in-progress story before the end of the year. The book is getting close to the ending. Obviously, I didn’t meet that goal either but despite the few abrupt pauses I had to make in between everything else going on with me personally, I was able to pick up where I left off and kept writing.

Days when I didn’t feel like writing, I pushed something out, even if it was maybe a few sentences for 15 minutes if it was all I had time for. This is my source of pride and accomplishment for this year. In the past when I lost some of my momentum with my writing, it would take months or years to build that back up. Now, I am able to just sit at my computer and spend whatever amount of time I can on writing my novel. My commitment to my story has never waned. It’s that determination that will carry me through into 2023 to maybe finally have that rough draft written, and begin the very extensive process of edits and rewrites.

Again, it’s all about the quick and small victories. You may not hit the target every single time, but celebrate what you have done. You deserve it.