My Plans for 2019 and Why I'm Not Making Any Reading Goals

As 2018 wrapped up and I began to look forward to 2019, I gave a good, hard look at what had worked well for me and what I could have done better. My theme for 2018 (which I think I only mentioned in passing on this blog) was to "Focus on the Important Things."

While I felt like I definitely prioritized things that were truly important, there was a missing element of engagement. Day after day, I checked off those important tasks, but sometimes I was only going through the motions while my brain was somewhere else entirely. Or worse, sometimes it wasn't even my own racing mind that took me out of the moment, but my phone.

This led me to decide that my theme for 2019 would be to "Be Present." It was only after I had chosen it that I realized it was totally one of those trendy buzzwords and that literally everyone seemed to have the same idea for 2019. I debated changing to something more obscure, more "my own," but this idea of being present in the everyday moments resonated so completely with what I want 2019 to look like, so I kept it.

I divided my goals into four categories: Habits I Want to Make, Places I Want to Visit, Projects I Want to Complete, and Things I Want to Do to Be More Present. Anytime I brainstorm potential goals, my list quickly becomes unwieldy and insurmountable, so I was careful to limit myself in each category to just three to five things.

I didn't want to bury myself in expectations which would have left me unable to actually "be present" and "live in the moment." I needed to be able to be flexible, change plans to meet the greater good, and analyze the kinds of things that would work right then. So I tried to only set goals that I've been thinking about for awhile and that I'm pretty sure I will still want to do at the end of the year (if it comes to that) as much as I want to right now at the beginning. The other thing is, I already have a good system in place of setting weekly goals every Sunday night, and that allows me to take a shorter view on things, which creates a nice balance to the longer term goals.

Here are my goals in each category:

Habits I Want to Make

• Edit photos on a weekly basis
• Write 2-4 paragraphs for "This and That" posts at the end of each week
• Write book review within three days of finishing book

Note: all three of these habits are actually meant to help me be more present by not letting tasks pile up so that I have to reach far back in time to finish them or block out a huge chunk of time to complete them.

Places I Want to Visit

• Go on a family vacation in the summer (location TBD)
• Take my kids to the Joseph Smith exhibit at the Church History Museum in downtown Salt Lake City
• Try new restaurants that are close to home (1-2 per month)
• Go to a Utah temple that I haven't been to before

Projects I Want to Complete

• Sew a dress for myself
• Landscape the front of our house
• Decorate Ian's bedroom
• Knit a lace cowl
• Read Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days, Volume 1

Things I Want to Do to Be More Present

• Notice the eye color of the person I'm talking to
• Observe what the sky looks like every day
• Limit phone use by setting weekly time and usage goals
• Write down three things I'm grateful for every night
• Continue with weekly special times with my kids

You might notice that out of all those goals, only one of them has anything to do with reading, which is very unusual for me. In fact, since 2013 when I did it for the first time, I have set annual reading goals for myself every year.

But not this year.

Choosing (and then achieving) my reading goals has always been one of the great joys of my reading life. It introduced me to genres and classics and authors I wouldn't have read otherwise. It felt so good to check them off one by one. I loved that final push to the finish line.

But in 2018, those goals felt like a major burden. Perhaps it was because I didn't read as many books as I have in years past (only 48 compared to close to 70), but it felt like all of my reading was planned out for me and that I didn't actually get to choose anything (although, technically, I chose the goals to begin with). In 2018, I belonged to two book clubs, which accounted for about 13 books (there was some crossover between the two, and some of the books I had already read). My goals added another 16 books. Then add in the readalouds for my kids (another 16). That left just seven books that I chose spontaneously for myself (and if you're wondering about my math, it's not all adding up because some of the readalouds doubled as books for my goals). In addition to that, I read approximately 24 manuscripts for my little side job, which was more dictated reading.

All of this is to say that even though I enjoyed a lot of what I read (self-imposed or not), it felt like I lost some of the magic and relaxation of reading. It had ceased to be a hobby and begun to feel more like a job.

I was made acutely aware of this fact during the last quarter of the year when over and over again, I had to tell myself "no" to a book I wanted to read: I read one of the Betsy-Tacy books (ironically, for one of my goals) and really wanted to read the next one in the series, but there were too many other books in the queue. I received Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life at a book exchange and wanted to start it that night, but I had to get in my required pages on other books. And, you might remember, I spent New Year's Eve reading a parenting book I didn't even care about.

I realized that if I was going to "Be Present" this year, then I had to reclaim some of my reading time. My book clubs would still push me to read books I wouldn't normally read, so I could relax my hold on my own reading time. I could pick up a book that sounded interesting, but if it didn't deliver, I could set it aside, no questions asked. If one of my friends mentioned a book, I could check it out right then before it got buried and forgotten in my massive to-read list. I could read the books that piqued my interest in that moment rather than waiting until the excitement had passed.

I don't think I will never return to setting reading goals for myself. It's something that has brought me a lot of joy in the past, and I anticipate the same for the future. But I'm okay with admitting that at this time, I need a break. And I'm excited for the books that such a break might give to me. 

What are your plans and goals for 2019? Are you setting reading goals? What things are you doing to achieve balance and find purpose?