It’s a well-established fact 2018 was a bad year for reading and blogging for me. I mean, it wasn’t terrible but it’s definitely not been the best year. So I made the decision that 2019’s goal would be simple.

I refuse to put too much stress or pressure on myself to do things a certain way in 2019. Blogging has always been a fun, easy, slightly creative outlet for me and it became really not fun towards the middle to end of 2018 when I was continually worrying I wasn’t blogging enough and felt like I was dropping the ball with blog hopping to replying to comments. That wasn’t fun and I think my time away has helped me remember that is the important part: having fun.

In keeping with my no pressure plan of blogging, I am not going to join a bunch of challenges. I have a few simple plans instead.

Look, I have two pages of unread ARCs on Netgalley. Along with others I have received in the post and I want to read them already. They make me sad to look at and I wish my Netgalley feedback was higher so I am making a concerted effort to give each one a try within the first few months of this year. I will not necessarily commit to finishing them all but I am reading them to see if I am even interested in reading them and either way I will give polite feedback on there and show willing.

I have never been hesitant about DNF-ing a book I’ve not been enjoying but, like a lot of readers I have seen, I seem to convince myself it’s me and maybe another day I’ll enjoy it more and never get rid of the damned thing. No more! I know me best, some books can be put aside due to mood but I know there are plenty of books which just don’t work for me and so I am going to stop lying to myself and admit defeat. Some books don’t work for me and there is nothing wrong with that. It’s sad but I know me best and DNF-ing is ok. I will let no one tell me otherwise.

I found reading challenges I wanted to join. There was a really cool one called All About the Trope where I was going to read all the fake dating romances… but I’m going to do that anyway so why join a challenge to add pressure on myself? And I wanted to try and do the Popsugar challenge because it looks really interesting this year, I mean one of the categories is reading a choose-your-own-adventure book which is awesome! And sure, I might see how far I can get in my own time but I’m not going to announce a commitment to doing it because I know my attention span. I’ll be bored of it in a week and it won’t get mentioned for the rest of the year. So down with the challenge!

That being said, I will be doing the Goodreads challenge.

Yes, I have made my Goodreads goal as 12 because my theory is a book a month. Totally achievable and low pressure. It leaves me with the opportunity to DNF as much as I want and reread to my heart’s desire whilst still reading new books too.

On a personal note, I want to stick with bullet journaling. Mine got forgotten about in 2018 right around the third or so month of the year because I was in a slump and didn’t set aside 10 minutes to jot things down in there each day. I want to make a better effort of being organised with it. I enjoyed writing lists and keeping track of things like my reading and that in there. I’m hoping I can do that again this year and do it right.

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And those are my goals for the new year. They aren’t grand plans and they aren’t overly challenging but they are mine. Do you have any goals and resolutions for this New Year? And are you pushing yourself to do something new or are yours more lowkey goals like mine?