A big part of why I shared my Blogging and Bookstagramming goals for 2021 was so I could share my progress and reflections towards the middle and end of the year. But as the months passed and I come to my mid-year review, I realize that a lot of my goals have changed. 

In addition to my bookish goals, I created my own personal goals, as well as a word of the year that summarizes all of my goals for the year – balance. In my personal life, I’ve been making great progress towards those goals. But for my blog, reading, and Bookstagram? Not so much.

On top of the regular blog and Bookstagram organization goals, I set goals about what I want to read and review. But in hindsight, these goals aren’t working and don’t reflect the direction I started in. I had goals to balance anticipated releases, physical TBR books, ARCs, blog tours, and more – and it’s becoming too much. The most important goal of mine was to reduce my physical TBR to under 15 so I could start incorporating more impromptu reads and library borrows without guilt. In reality, while I’ve made progress on my other goals, my physical TBR hasn’t budged.

So instead of checking in on my goals, I want to reflect a bit on what I’m changing, the future of my book blogging presence, and finding my balance as a reviewer. I want to share this especially knowing that the last point may be relatable to so many. I’m also acknowledging in this process that it’s okay for our goals to change as our priorities change. And it’s okay to let some goals go!

A Mid-Year Review – A.K.A. Making Progress by Not Making Progress

Looking back on my bookish goals of 2021, I realize just how ambitious I was with my goals. And I have to ask my past self – why?

Reviewing every single book I read as a full review? Post at least every other day on Bookstagram, including reels? Keep on top of ARCs, and do more blog tours, and read more backlist books, and stay on top of all of my anticipated releases, and read more translated books, and finish all the series I’m in the middle of (one of which I have about eight books to go for)…

…WHAT?!?

And the best part is, one of my most important goals to me was reducing my physical TBR to under 15 so I could be more intentional about what I’m reading and buying and put myself into the right headspace of feeling like I could read books when I wanted to without TBR guilt. 

Do you know where I started this January? 

38 books. 

Do you know where I’m at now?

Yep. You guessed it. 38 books. 

It’s like the tribbles are a metaphor for all of my unnecessary ambitions and goals coming back to bite me.

And if you weren’t around on the blog late 2020 / early 2021, I was dealing with a lot of health issues, burnout, and then doing a bit of a pivot on my career path. So where I thought I was going with me and my bright ideas, I don’t know. But I do know now that I don’t want to be as ambitious about my bookish hobbies as I originally planned, and that’s okay. This isn’t my full-time job, and I don’t want to make it feel like one by taking all of the life out of something that’s meant to be a hobby for me. I think that’s a hard balance to find for bookish content creators since we put so much effort into our work, but I think it’s important to establish what we want to achieve from doing this. And for me, the goals I set earlier this year are not only unachievable for me, but no longer reflect what I want as a book blogger (and a Bookstagrammer, for that matter). 

Reading is a big part of my life, and I never want that to change. I love the community that I’ve found here, and I’m glad that I became a part of it after a couple of years of watching from the outside. But it’s not the only thing I do, and if I keep going where I going it will just end up being the only thing that I do. And I think that blogging and Bookstagramming really just became front-and-center throughout the pandemic since I couldn’t venture out. But now that things are opening up where I live, I realize that I do need to shift my priorities just as bit as I’m able to return to the commitments I had beforehand. 

So…What Do You Want?

Blogging and Bookstagramming is something that requires a lot of time and organization, and I’m still all here for that. But I want to dial down the pressure I’m putting on myself, because why the pressure in the first place?

But more importantly, I kind of just want to read what I want. I’m at a point where I’m scheduling my reading months in advance between ARCs, blog tours, and anticipated releases. And while I still love all of these things and want to participate in these kinds of reading/reviewing spaces, I really just want to balance this out with some more spur-of-the-moment reads. And while I love getting so many recommendations from this community, there are definitely a few books out there that I wouldn’t have read if I hadn’t seen them everywhere. I want to be intentional about what books I’m picking up, and picking up books out of my own interest rather than convincing myself I need to read a book after seeing it so much.

A Mid-Year Do-Over

I gotta be honest, the planning part is my favorite part.

Now that I’ve done a bit of reflection of where I want my blog and Bookstagram to go, it’s time to set some new goals, right? Here’s what I’m thinking: 

• Ask myself: why do I do this? My first and foremost answer to this is always the community, but I want to dive deeper on this question a bit. Knowing what brings me joy when it comes to contributing to this platform will help me figure out what content I should write and how to schedule myself better. I think I have this down for my blog, but Bookstagram could use a little work. 
• Devise a schedule that actually makes sense. I’ve been using content calendars to plan out content, but once some other life event rolls through I lose my momentum. I think my organization system works well and want to post about what I’m doing when I’ve got my momentum back, but I’ve been struggling a lot because of how much I pushed myself to post. So more likely, same system, just dial it back. 
• I still want to get my TBR down to 15. Many of you will say my physical TBR isn’t bad at all, and I don’t necessarily disagree. But I really want to be intentional about my purchases (books and in general), and prioritize what I have. I also want to read books more spontaneously (i.e. via library browsing) and I just can’t help it. The TBR guilt consumes me.
• Stop feeling the need to review every book. I struggle with this, I do. I really want to review every book and get my thoughts out there, especially knowing how much book reviews help authors. But reviewing is burning me out too much and I do also want to make room for different types of content on my blog. Plus, I feel like I can promote these books via wrap-ups, reading lists, etc. so I can still get the word out there. I want to figure out a comprise here – perhaps it’s writing a short blurb on Goodreads for what I don’t review? I’m not sure yet. Or, books I don’t review fully I can make a Bookstagram post about. But I definitely want to figure this one out, and maybe share in a post as well of different ways to review and promote books.

Thanks for Joining Me As I Get It Together.

I wanted to share this post for a few reasons – for one, I think goal posts like these help keep me accountable. But I also think that some of these points may be relatable to other bloggers, and despite my ramblings, may be at least somewhat helpful. So thank you so much for reading through all of my ramblings, and my blog in general! I look forward to what the second half of the year brings.

Let’s Close This Post Out With Some Stats and Faves.

Even though I’ve technically never done a mid-year review (and there’s no right or wrong way to do them), I’d feel weird to not share some reading progress during one, you know? Because if there’s one thing that’s going well, it’s my actual reading progress (and finding lots of books I loved!) So here’s how that’s looking so far: 

Favorites

Goodreads
Bookshop

Goodreads
Bookshop

Goodreads
Bookshop

Did you set any reading or blogging goals for 2021? If so, how are they going for you?