simpleek

A brand new year means a new beginning. A chance to start over and do something differently. If you’re the type of person to believe in that sort of thing. Maybe what isn’t so different are the goals or intentions you set for the year. The common ones are usually lose weight, eat healthy, or quit bad habits. How successful you are at actually accomplishing these things depends on your motivation and commitment. Why else are these the usual ones people start off saying they will do only for it to fall by the wayside after a month?

While the above aren’t the type of goals I set for myself in the new year, mine are more of the same ever since I started doing them a few years ago. Why change them when it has been easy to achieve year after year, right?

Writing

Last year I was hoping I’d be able to finish the first draft of the YA fantasy novel I have been writing for years. In some ways I came close. Due to apartment hunting, finding the place and settling some paperwork, and moving into said apartment, it had been difficult to reach that particular goal before the end of 2022. This time I know I’m really close in writing the ending. Granted, it’ll be a badly written ending that will need to get reworked several times over before it’s in good shape, but it’ll be done. That’s what matters. All in all, I can’t wait to say I have finished writing a whole novel from start to finish.

Video Games

To be honest I don’t have any clear plan for how I’m going to get more games played and finished. Last month I kind of fell back into playing a little bit of whatever game I felt like it, adding even more partially started games but never completed to my backlog list. The video game challenges I used to write about on the blog was a good idea to keep myself focused on one. Overtime it became a bit difficult to maintain and I had to abandon that venture. It also made playing games a little less fun for me when it started feeling more like a chore. Instead of putting a lot of pressure on myself, I’ll just simply go where the gaming winds take me. If I manage to finish one or two for the whole of 2023, well, that’s better than nothing.

Books

My reading goals for the year will continue to be more structured than my gaming goals. I’m still playing around with the amount of books I want read by the end of the year. Last year I set my Goodreads goal to 10. This year…I’m not really sure. Some of the books I’m reading for the first month and a half will be related to this professional development benefit my job gives to all full-time employees. The other half will be tackling my own personal reading backlog once I finish those job related readings. I’m not sure if I want to be overly ambitious and set it to 10 despite not being quite able to hit that goal last year. Maybe 5 books read might be more manageable. Either way, I’m aiming to reach a good target by the end of 2023.

What are your goals for 2023?