2018 Goals Check-in

Hi friends! It has been a hot minute since I have posted, but I just really needed a break this summer from anything that felt like a deadline. This summer I have been enjoying an awesome internship, volunteering at a camp I LOVE, and relaxing with some good books! It has been just the break I needed to decompress from the school year, do some self care, and figure out what I want to be a priority in my life. I would love to allow myself more time for things that I enjoy and things that will build me up as a person. This includes giving myself time to relax, read, blog, and giving myself grace when I need it. I also want to make time with the Lord more of a priority. I don't speak to it much on my blog or social media, but I am a Christian and the Lord has really helped me to find my way as well as help me to believe in my self and gain self confidence. Of course, this is always a work in progress, but if you would like for me to post more on my experiences with God and speak to my own Christian journey, I would love to share that on this blog as well!


I thought a good post to come back on with would be to check in on my goals I set in January. This way I can see what I had planned to do and see where I am in them to try and get myself back on track for the rest of the year. So, let's look at my goals!

1) Implement and keep a more consistent posting schedule 

• HAHAHA, we see how this one went. I feel like in the beginning of the year I was doing pretty decent with this goal. However, as the semester drug on, and I allowed myself to be swept away in the deadlines and stress, this goal fell by the wayside. I don't know if I can promise to have a blog post every week, but maybe we can work towards this goal by having two posts a month? 

2) Network more in the blogging community and make more bookish friends 

• This goal I have been an epic fail at. I am the WORST about reaching out and having the confidence to step out and make a friend. I am super introverted most of the time, and this even applies to the internet. I have a Twitter, but I rarely communicate with anyone on it. I need to be better about commenting on other people's blogs and joining discussions on Twitter. However, I am really bad at finding said discussions on Twitter, so if anyone has suggestions as to how to be more involved on Twitter, let me know in the comments! 

3) Manage my time better in school, so I can have better content for my blog

• I would say that I half way am working on this goal! I saw that the way I was approaching school was becoming very unhealthy for me and causing a lot of anxiety and stress, so I reached out to a mentor at school for help. She then led me to the counseling center where I was paired up with a wonderful counselor who really helped/is helping me to have a healthier view point on school and allowing myself time for other things I enjoy! I am really proud of myself for finally reaching out for help and letting someone know that I was struggling. For anyone out there that is in the same boat as I was, holding in the stress and the pressures that you feel because you don't want to bother anyone or you feel your problems aren't big enough, you deserve help! You can reach out and there will be someone there who hears you and does see your struggles as valid! Please take that step to ask for help, you will be so much better for it. 
• As for the blogging aspect of this goal, I have not done very well on that front. Hopefully as I am getting better with school and allowing myself time away, this will improve as well! 

4)  Read 25 books 

• This goal I am actually doing well with! I have read 12 books so far this year, so I am almost right on target for reaching this goal. I am going to be participating in the Booktubeathon next week, so I will be getting a good chunk of reading done and hopefully get a little ahead of where I need to be! 

5) Read more frequently and make reading a daily habit 

• I have done fair with this goal. I don't read every day, but I have been reading on a fairly regular basis. At school, as a part of my implemented self care routine, I stopped work on school assignments at 9:30 pm to start getting ready for bed. This left me plenty of time to relax, take a nice shower, and read a chapter of my book in bed before I went to sleep. There were still days that I let my stress get the better of me, and I would skip my night routine and not allow myself my reading and relaxing time, but for the most part I did follow this routine. I read most nights now as well, and it has really been an enjoyable addition to my daily routine! 

6) Read all the unread books on my shelves 

• This goal has actually been a really fun one to be working towards! It gave me that little push I needed to finally read some of the books on my shelves that I have been meaning to read for a while, and I have enjoyed them! My unread books did grow a little since January when I posted the original number of 13 (whoops!), so the highest my unread books got to was 18. Now, I am at 13 unread books, so technically I haven't made any progress since my January number, but I have been reading the books on my shelves and not buying any more! I count that as a success. I plan to continue to read my unread books and not buy any more books (okay, maybe one or two) until I have cleared my shelves of unread books! 

Okay, there are all my 2018 goals and my progress! I feel like I'm doing a little better on them than I anticipated when I decided to make this post! Thank you all for reading and for supporting me and my sporadic blogging habits :) 

If you made goals for 2018, please comment down below and let me know how they are going!