Goals For 2014

I always debate making New Year's resolutions. It's been proven over and over again that I hardly ever complete them. But at the same time there's something so fresh and promising about the first day of a brand new year. There are so many what-ifs and possibilities! My inner dreamer kinda loves it.  

So of course I have some goals for 2014, even though I know I probably won't complete all of them. Or any of them, if recent history repeats itself. Though it should be noted that I don't think completion is the only thing that matters. I think the setting of a goal—deciding to work toward something, striving to better yourself—is pretty important too. As is the follow through. Even if you don't complete a goal, as long as you tried and made good progress, that's still something, right?

I didn't complete any of my goals for 2013. But does that mean I failed? I read 94 books instead of 100. I drafted two novels instead of drafting one and revising another. I didn't maintain a three video per week average, but I still made a lot of videos this year and my channel has grown far more than I expected it to. I didn't study Korean as much as I wanted to, but I did watch a ton of Korean dramas.

Sounds like a pretty successful year, even if it didn't go just as I'd planned. And who knows what 2014 has in store? I have no idea where this year might take me, but here are the five main things that I plan to focus on:

READING – I'm going for the 100 book challenge again. I fell 6 books short this year, which is a bummer, but I'm not going to be upset about reading 94 books! I'm just going to try a little harder this year to hit those triple digits. I also want to do more book reviews, both video and written. Ideally, every book I read will get at least a brief written review and I'm going to try to do one book review video each week.

WRITING – Since I didn't revise a novel last year, I'm going to focus on just that this year. I have several sloppy first drafts of novels that desperately need revision. I don't know exactly which one I'm going to focus on—I simply CANNOT decide and it's driving me crazy and I'll make a vlog rambling all about this soon. But basically my writing goal is to work on revising something and get it to my betas by the end of the year.

VLOGGING – Just like last year, I'm going to aim for an average of 3 videos per week. I'm thinking one book review, one book tag/haul, and one writing related video each week. But this is just a loose plan and I don't have a schedule or anything so don't count on that. Mostly I just want to focus on putting out good content that I enjoy and that you all enjoy too! Lots of vlogging in 2014!

BLOGGING – Oh hey there, welcome to my blog. I've had it since 2009 but it's been neglected for the last few years because most of the time I prefer to vlog. But lately there have been things that I wish to discuss that wouldn't be right for a video, or maybe I just don't have enough time to make one. So blogging might be my solution. I say might be because I'm still iffy about this one, but I'd like to post here at least a couple times a week. Also, don't be too shocked if this whole blog changes up soon. (I might move to wordpress because everyone says it's great, but I really like blogger so I'm inclined to stay. But oh, what do I know? I'm blog-ignorant. Blognorant?)

KOREAN – This one is difficult to quantify, but I want to put more effort into studying. I've been in this beginner stage for a while now and I know the basics, but I'm eager to start learning more. I will probably do at least one blog post each month about my Korean studies, just to keep me on track with my language learning progress. It's too hard to set a measurable yearly goal at this point, so I'll probably set monthly goals. For example, in January I'll be making my way through the TTMIK level 2 lessons as well as miscellaneous other studying (e.g. watching Korean dramas).

There you have it! Those are my goals for this new year. I think it's gonna be a good one and I'm excited to see what plot twists 2014 might throw my way. I'm looking forward to a very busy year of reading, writing, vlogging, blogging, and watching K-dramas studying Korean!