2021 was not the best year for completing my goals or for this blog. Those things are probably connnected, but perhaps not how you might think.
I’ve had this blog for many years and one of the reasons that I created it and keep it is that it is one of my greatest accountability partners. When I plan out goals here, and am able to refer back to them in this space, it helps me keep up with them in real life. If I have to check back in each month to keep updating, all the better.
The last few years have not really gone how anyone expected, but that wasn’t the only reason I’ve had trouble keeping up with this blog. Since starting my BookTube channel in Oct of 2020, I have devoted more and more time to that and had less time to invest in this space. I think I can find a balance there, and I hope to in 2022.
Another reason I have taken time away from this blog that directly ties in with my goal setting is that between 2020 and 2021 I experienced a long stretch of productivity burnout. It’s not that I was not productive during that time. I certainly was where my channel was concerned. But I was burnt out on the idea of always being productive, of goal setting, of measuring accompaniments in that way and constantly keeping up and keeping track. I really love goal setting and productivity techniques as a way to keep track and measure ones accomplishments, and intentions for the most part. But if it’s dragging one down, discouraging one, or simply not serving one, I know when it’s time to take a break.
That break for me, mostly included this work space as well as instagram and a few other areas. Some things that didn’t waver were my bullet journal, and of course, BookTube.
So why am I telling you all this here, in a post about 2021 goals? Mostly bc I haven’t looked at these goals in months, perhaps a year, and I wanted to record for you and for myself why that was. Usually I will check these goals often over the year, check in with you around mid year to adjust, see what needs to be tweaked or changed, then finish out my over all thoughts in this yearly post. This year I can’t even remember if I did a mid year check in. I could go back and look, but why bother?
Although, I firmly believe that one can start any goal at any time, I really love to check in in the beginning of, the middle, and the end of the year.
And here we are again at the start of the year! A perfect time to check on last year’s goals. Let us see what they were and how I did. Considering I haven’t checked, I’m very interested to see of there was progress made.
Creation Over Consumption
In 2020 I think my consumption has really changed but the other day I had a realization about how much I’m still consuming. Like suddenly I realized that watching youtube is just watching TV. This might seem like a no brainer, but I always thought of yourtube as teaching me something and therefore not mindless like TV. I also realized basically the same thing about reading. Now, obviously there are levels of consumption, from mindless to imporatnt. And I’m very happy that my consumption has leaned more to the imporant and edulcational this year. But in 2021, I want to make sure that my creation and creativity is at least more balanced, and more of a priorioty.
This first goal is one that I have had for many years. I think that I did not more well on this goal in. 2021 than in past years, but I also think I didn’t do worse than in most years.
I definitely still watched too much YouTube and perhaps even read a bit too much (I finished out the year having read 95 books). Reading is a little bit of a catch 22 in that I think it can help with creativity, but if that’s all you are doing, that’s not a help to your creativity. I did add effort to creative endeavors like BT and did a hand ful of projects over the years. Over all, not the worst, but no great leaps here.
Be More Self Sustainable
Double down on zero waste - I feel like in some ways I have gotten better at zero waste and in some ways more complacent. In 2021, I want to renew my pledge to the zero waste and low impact lifestyle in dramatic ways.
Live slow
Work more - Usually this goals is flipped but in 2021, I want to work more for MYSELF!
Forage more
Grow more food
Beach more
Spend less
Let see. This goals also wasn’t a true success. I didn’t advance my zero waste lifestyle nearly as much as I had wanted to. Here I feel like I’m in a holding pattern, circling just off where I would like to be and how much I would like to be progressing in this goal. I have had many discussions on what I can do to advance here, but very little tangible has come from them. I know I’m the kind of person that needs to think about things quite a bit before taking action, but neither much thought or action went into this in 2021. Now, that is not to say that I haven’t continued to live a more sustainable lifestyle than many people or even more so than in previous years. But I have reached a sort of plateau, and I would love to take the several next steps to become closer. To the goal I really want to achieve.
The way that I see this happening is to really focus on living slowly, hone in on what it means and how to do it. Create smart and concise goals within this goal to make it happen. I’m still working it all out, but one aspect is going to be doing a slow living series on my channel. One way that I kept up with zero waste in 2021 was to have a One More Month Of Zero Waste series on my booktube (my BT is not just about books!). Much like the series I do on this blog, we focused on one zero waste challenge each month and became more zero waste one month at a time. Over on YouTube, we rehashed and revisited a lot of the same challenges that we had already seen here. This both introduced the series to viewers, but also reinforced some things that we already knew but may have been slipping on.
I didn’t really work more in 2021, neither for myself nor for an outside job. The former needs attention, but I was happy with the amount of outside work I did in 2021. Part of a slow lifestyle, in my mind, is to work a job less, maintain it as a job you like that is low stress and deosn’t demand tooo much time or mental energy. Although one must make money to live in America, part of my slow lifestyle is to spend less, make less, and devote more time and energy to the real work of life, creativity, self employment, and enjoyment. Spend less was on the list of goals for last year. I can’t quantify if we actually did, but it felt like we did spend less in 2021.
Foraging and growing our own food kind of goes hand in hand. While we grew more food, and did find things we needed instead of buy them, I think. We could have been more intentional in the execution of this goal.
Health
Cook more
Cat health
Find doctors
Walk
Swim
Stretch/yoga
Health and supplements
I’m seeing a trend. Although we made some progress, we didn’t really focus on this goal. Plainly put, we did not cook more, focus on cat health, walk more, swim more or do yoga. We did all of these things a bit, but not more than the normal amount. We did do some work to find doctors, but that is ongoing and so doesn’t feel like any great accomplishment.
House Projects
Kitchen
Basement
Woodstove
Roof
Piano
Clean and reduce
Again, no real movement on the kitchen (a little tho!), basement, woodstove, or piano. But we did get a new roof, and we did work a very little bit on the cleaning, decluttering and reducing. I think we will see a big shift in these in the new year.
Travel and Explore - I’m not convinced there will be a lot of travel this year, but we can explore locally.
Irving in the car
Explore possible vaca home locales
This is a goal that saw NO movement. Zero.
Reading, Booktube, Blog
Read every day (65 books at least for the year)
Build my content creation and community
Be consistent with blogs and videos (schedule, schedule, schedule)
Be creative
We know I reached my reading goal, and along with that some goals I had for book tube. So I was able to buil my community in that way. I was pretty darn consistent over there. And fairly creative. But we also know I failed in all those aspects in this space. And the links between them were tenuous at best. Food for thought in 2022. I also hope that taking some time to concentrate here, now, is already helping.
How did you do on your 2021 goals? Did you keep up with and feel productive? Or were they pretty much dropped like mine? What are your plans for 2022?
Bc I use this blog to help dissect and evaluate my goals, it feels good to be back here. It feels solid and that it holds all the potential for the new year. I’ll need a few days to ruminate over what I’ve gone over here and will be back soon with some new goals for 2022.
Be I use this blog to help dissect and evaluate my goals, U
