Hello, book friends! This post is going to be a little something different because I’m participating in a blog tag for what may well be the first time. After seeing the This Time Next Year tag on Mind, Beauty, Simplicity , I knew I had to take part. I’m not great with actually tagging people because my social anxiety has big “how dare you bother anyone by tagging them in things” energy, so if you see this and you want to do a post, consider yourself tagged!

From what I can tell, this tag has the following rules:

• Thank the person who tagged you (Thanks, Mind, Beauty, Simplicity!)
• Write about your goals for next year
• Write how you’ll achieve the goals
• Tag 5 blogging friends (see above note re: social anxiety and tag yourself if you’re interested!)
• In 365 days, write a follow-up to share how you did

If you don’t know this about me and my Virgo moon, we love a good plan almost as much as my Pisces sun likes getting distracted and abandoning them midway through. The New Year season is one of my favorite times of year because I love hearing other people’s goals and hopes and plans, and setting my own. So, let’s look at a few bookish and non-bookish goals for my year ahead!

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Goodreads Challenge: 80 Books

Last year I set my goal at 60 books, then got back into book blogging, made a Bookstagram, and blazed right on past that goal. I’m on track to hit 75 books by the end of 2021, and so I’m eyeing a similar goal next year. I think reading is more quality than quantity, but I do like to set a numbers goal to keep myself motivated and give me something to work towards throughout the year. I love seeing my progress bar go up each time I finish a book!

I’ll achieve this goal by, um… reading books? Audiobooks really help keep me on track because I tend to keep listening to them even when I’m otherwise in a slump, so they’re kind of my secret weapon. I’ve also got some 2022 ARCs lined up that will keep me motivated so I can maintain a good NetGalley response ratio.

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Read Harder 2022

Cherrypicking Book Riot‘s Read Harder challenge has become an annual tradition for me. I love that the prompts inspire me to read books I normally wouldn’t, but there are also some things I just know I’m not interested in. And I don’t believe in wasting my book time. So, I have never fully completed the challenge but it has enriched my reading life in so many ways!

Here’s the 2022 list from Book Riot. I look forward to periodically consulting this list throughout 2022 to help me choose a few books outside my box, and to quickly realizing there’s a handful of tasks I just will not complete.

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Read at Least 5 Spiritual / Self Care Books in 2022

I have a shelf in my home office/yoga room/guest room that is filled to the brim with various spiritual, yoga /witchy / general self-care books I’ve gathered over the years. I have not, however, read nearly as many of them as I would like.

Initially I wanted to set the goal of reading one self-help type book per month, but I worry that’s setting me up for failure because realistically there are some months where I only read one or two books, and it’s unlikely those will be enriching nonfictional types. So, I think reading at least 5 of these bad boys in 2022 is a realistic goal to set. I’m hoping to get to..

• Yoke by Jessamyn Stanley
• The Tarot Inspired Life by TK
• Set Boundaries, Find Peace by TK
• Happier Now by Nataly Kogan (I have started and abandoned this one many times)
• Your Spiritual Almanac: A Year of Living Mindfully by Joey Hulin (I read this for the latter half of 2021 but am very excited to start fresh with January and read throughout the year)

I’ll do this by setting out to read one of these titles every month for the first couple months of the year and see where this gets me. Then, I’ll reassess and kick back into high gear if I haven’t met my 5 book goal by May. Realistically, I might not, seeing as how I’m also planning a wedding for April 30th, so I’ll be cutting myself some slack, reading-wise.

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Complete My Annual 30 Days of Yoga in January

I’m one of those Yoga with Adriene people, and have been for over ten years. Since 2015, the first year of the annual 30 Days of Yoga journey, I’ve rolled out my mat once a day, every day for the month of January, following along the free 30 days of yoga that Adriene and her Find What Feels Good team compile.

This year’s theme is MOVE and I am excited to say that sign-ups are now available as of this week. I don’t know what this says about me, but I anticipate sign up day like its own holiday and can’t wait to enter my email (you have to sign up for the journey even if you’re a regular subscriber because there’s a dedicated email to go along with each day’s video).

I adore this daily practice to start my year and it’s the first goal I set and (usually) complete for a new year. If you want to take the journey with us and join the best cultish community around, you can do so here. It’s free and this isn’t an ad–I just love this annual journey so much I can’t help but share.

I’ll let my excitement and the Kula community support me on this goal, and may do a daily or weekly blogging check-in, as well. To be determined, since it doesn’t really fit my bookish niche but would be a fun project.

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Keep Writing / Blogging Consistently

This is more of an intention than a goal since it isn’t specific, measurable, and so on. But, I intend to keep myself writing–on this blog, on Medium, and in the Google Doc that is my memoir manuscript. 2021 was a wonderful writing year for me, and I have felt so much more in alignment with my identity (and education) as a writer since I started penning my thoughts more regularly again.

I’d like to have a finished manuscript draft of the memoir by the end of 2022 so I can make a 2023 goal of querying agents, etc. Apparently book deals don’t just come find you because you have an MFA and an idea for a book. Who knew?

So, I’m going to keep writing and blogging and reading next year, in whatever specific form that takes. If you didn’t know that I make words about non-book things, you can find my catalog of Medium articles about pop culture, mental health, chronic illness, and more on my profile page, here.

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Use My Planner(s) All Year

I have a real thing for planners. Since my AmeriCorps days when our cohort received a donation of them, I’ve been a Passion Planner user. I like the setup and vibe of constant self-improvement that they come along with, and don’t even get me started on all the phenomenal planner stickers you can buy on Esty (my go to is Chelsea Brown Designs).

This year, I grabbed a second planner specifically for my self-care and spiritual practices that I’m hoping will be kind of like a journal but without being a journal that I will undoubtedly abandon a few months into the year, because planner. My goal in 2022 is to consistently use my day-to-day planner to keep on top of work and life events (appointments, bills, the upcoming return of student loan payments) and use the Moon Goddess planner for tracking my moods, symptoms, and other self-care aspects of the year. I’ve got both planners and a few month’s worth of stickers all lined up and ready to go, so now I just have to look forward to using them!

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Be Intentional About Cultivating New Local Friendships

This goal is more bookish than it seems on the surface because my hashtag friendship goals include gathering once a month with wine and charcuterie to talk about books. But, in all seriousness, it’s hard to make friends as an adult and many of my local friends moved away once we completed our graduate program. I am so thankful to have a core group of wonderful, nerdy humans who I see at least a few times a month thanks to our ongoing Pathfinder campaign (that’s Dungeons & Dragons but for nerds who are also hipsters), and to have been adopted by Andy’s friendgroup as well.

However, though I am indeed a massive nerd who loves writing and TTRPGs, I am also a basic bitch who wants to drink wine and do facemasks and go to brunch after yoga. Which is not something that I currently get out of my current local friend group.

I don’t think “make friends” in itself is a realistic goal because you can’t control the behaviors of others and also I believe extroverts are all secretly wizards equipped with magical powers I do not possess. But what I can do is try to put myself into places where I’m likely to meet humans with the mutual interests I want to cultivate friendships around. Going to the yoga studio or local events on occasion, as well as actually meeting up with some women from Bumble BFF, are a few ways I’m going to try and work towards a more robust group of female friends who live near me in 2022. I think trying to get out for one of these activities once a month (so long as we can, in fact, continue to socialize in person safely) is a good goal, so I’m going to go for it.

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Well, that became a longer list than I expected pretty quickly, so I’ll stop myself there. Looks like I’m bringing a good number of goals and intentions to bring with me into 2022.

I tend to spend most of December reflecting and planning for my yearly intentions, so I’m quite confident I’ll adjust or add things as I approach January and make my annual vision board, but most of these are yearly staples I like to keep up with, so I’m confident speaking them out into the world and hopefully manifesting those realities.

Now, I’m curious. Do you set goals, intentions, or resolutions for the new year? If so, I’d love to hear about them!