My 2024 Goals (& 2023 Recap)

Welcome to 2024!

I can’t believe we’re ten days into the new year already. The holidays and end of 2023 absolutely flew by, and my brain still hasn’t caught up!

The start of a new year is always exciting to me. I love the newness of it – the feel of a fresh start, a reset, and a chance to look back at what worked best and what didn’t work well for me in the past year. It’s also very encouraging to take some intentional time and reflect on what God has accomplished in the past year – the lessons He’s taught me, the trials He’s walked me through, and the growth He’s worked in me.

2023 was one of the busiest and most eventful years I’ve ever had. Every month held some kind of big change. From getting married, to moving into our apartment, leaving my nannying job, increasing hours at my office job, applying for a house loan, moving out of our apartment, closing on and moving into our house, publishing my first full-length novel, our first holidays as a married couple, and all of the many, many details involved in all of the above, it’s been a year of learning and relying closely on God’s leading!

This year doesn’t look as though it will have quite as many big changes, but there will still be a lot of newness. With trying to learn about owning and maintaining a house and the changes I’m hoping to make in both my office work and my writing journey, I anticipate lots of trial and error and prayer.

And as I’ve been looking ahead to the rest of 2024, I’ve been contemplating my goals for the year.

I have a love-hate relationship with goals. I think they’re good to have, and especially knowing my personality type, I need to have concrete ideas to aim for. They motivate me and keep me working, even when I don’t feel like it. But I can also get so wrapped up in my goals and with my plans that I don’t take the time to listen to God and consider what He’s saying. And that only leads to frustration.

So as usual, although I’m setting goals for myself, I’m sharing them with the intent of being flexible. If something doesn’t happen this year, or if it looks different than I’m picturing (which is very likely), I will hopefully not get bent out of shape about it. I need to remember to take it to God and trust that His vision for the year is infinitely better than mine. Ultimately, I’m very glad my life’s plan isn’t up to me!

Remembering that, here is a recap of how my 2023 goals went, and my list of new goals for 2024.

How did my 2023 goals go?

Let’s look back, shall we?

Read Through The Bible

This one didn’t quite happen. I didn’t read through the entire Bible as I would have liked, but I did read a lot more of it. This year, I’m not sure if I’ll attempt to read through the entire thing, or if I’ll go the route of really studying certain books that are especially relevant during my current stage of life. Either way, I plan to continue diving into God’s Word a lot more!

Get Married!

Hey, this one went wonderfully! On April 1, 2023, my husband and I were married, and we just passed the nine month mark. The planning process had its ups and downs, and the days before were full with decorating, last-minute fixes, tornado watches, no power, and little sleep, but we did it!

My husband and I braved the freezing cold for our pictures after the ceremony, and in an unexpected blessing, the chilly air stopped my migraines from getting too bad before the festivities were done. God really took care of us, and we can hardly believe we’re approaching our first anniversary! (This was definitely the 2023 highlight.)

Move, Sort, and Settle In

This one also happened…twice! I moved into my husband’s apartment with him after we got back from our honeymoon, and we settled in there together for about seven months. Then, as of last month, we moved again – into our very first house together!

As anyone who’s bought a house before can guess, things went far from smoothly, and we ended up moving our things into storage and staying with family for a week in between our lease ending and our closing date. But it all worked out. God’s provision was very obvious throughout the entire process, and we absolutely love our little home in a small village near where I grew up. We feel so blessed to be here.

Publish Cabin Girl (. . . finally . . . )

We’re on a roll! Cabin Girl was released September 18th of 2023, and I’ve been blown away by the positive reception! I had so much incredible support and help during the launch, and every month, I hear from more people who have discovered the book and want to share their thoughts. It’s been so much fun to see others enjoy the story as much as I do. And of course, it feels great to finally have published it, after so many years of it being in the works. Now I have the green light to work on other projects too!

Read 100 Books

This one was only half-accomplished. My goal of one-hundred books was ambitious and unrealistic for me, but I kind of meant it to be. As I hoped, the huge goal spurred me on, and I read exactly half of it. Fifty books is a lot more than the twenty-seven I read the year before, so I’m happy! Many of those were amazing new discoveries from other Christian and/or indie authors, so I found some new favorites!

Better My Health

I don’t have much to report here, but I did succeed somewhat. There’s always more that I can learn and do, and I hope to continue improving this year, but there’ve been positive changes. Namely, my migraines are very much still here, but I haven’t had any full-blown, stay-in-bed ones since last spring. I count that an enormous blessing! And when I do have days where I really can’t do much, my husband and I are finding more and more things to either help the headache, or to at least manage the symptoms better. I’ve discovered stress is a huge factor, and leaving one of my previous jobs last spring definitely helped.

Tweak My Website

If you’re here and have been around my site long, you’ll notice that this one happened too! Shortly after Cabin Girl‘s release, I redid the look of my entire site, added a shop where you can purchase signed paperbacks of my published books, updated my contact page, and started tweaking my blog to look more cohesive. I also developed a logo! I’m sure I’ll continue updating and changing it this year, but I’m so happy with how it’s turned out so far. And if you have any feedback or suggestions for me, please let me know!

My 2024 GoalsPublish Gills

This is one of the biggest goals I have, but I don’t have a set timeline for it yet. With the positive reception for Cabin Girl, I’ve had lots of people asking about Gills, which is its prequel novel. And I do already have it written. It just needs a rewrite, lots of editing, and some quality feedback before I feel ready to hit publish. I’m looking forward to diving into that pirate-y atmosphere again!

Publish secret novel

I’m so excited to share this project…but I can’t give details…yet! Just know that there is going to be another fun novel published this autumn! I have my work cut out for me with this one, too. There have already been lots of lessons learned, and I’m looking forward to growing even more through it.

Share another secret project

This one isn’t exactly writing-related, but soon I get to help spread the word about another still-secret project coming up this spring. It’s been yet another huge learning experience, and I’m excited to share it!

Write and publish a short story

This one is a flexible goal, but I’d really like to write, edit, and publish another “short” story. Or, just finish editing and share one of the short stories I already have sitting in my drafts. I struggle with writing truly short stories (all of mine seem to be either a few pages, or around 8,000-15,000 words) so it will probably either be a really short one put up for free on my site (like here), or a much longer one on Amazon.

Draft NaNoWriMo novel

I haven’t participated in a NaNoWriMo since 2021 (when I wrote Gills), and I miss it! I have a novel I’ve been meaning to write for a couple of years now, and I would love to get that written this November. November is a long ways to go though, so I guess we’ll see what the year brings. If not the entire draft, I at least want to start writing it by the end of 2024.

Update author photos and bios

This is a small thing, so it should be doable. I haven’t taken any official author photos yet, and as the pictures I use are my senior pictures from high school, I think it’s about time for an update, haha. Especially as I’m getting more and more of my novels published. In addition, I’d like to make sure my bios reflect me clearly in this new stage of my life and writing journey.

Read 75 books

I’m not going to aim for one-hundred books this year, but I’d love to read seventy-five! My focus for 2024 is to read through the books I already have on my shelves, both physical and on my Kindle app. This includes any ARCs I’m signed up for. I found so many intriguing and well-reviewed books last year, and I’m really eager to get reading. I hope to be better about reviewing them consistently too.

Continue to better my health

Like last year, this is vague because I don’t know exactly what it’s going to entail of. But I’m hoping it results in more energy and strength, fewer aches and pains, and next to no full-blown migraines. Managing stress is also something I need to get better at, especially as I’m hoping to accomplish a lot this year. I see lots of experimenting with meals, routines, sleep schedules, and rest periods ahead.

Guest post/collaborate with other authors

I love writing and exchanging guest posts, and collaborating with other authors, but I rarely buckle down and actually set things up. This year, I’d love to start and share more projects that involve working with other authors. And with that, if you’re an author that would like to collaborate on something with me, please reach out and let me know! I’d love to figure something out!

Blog, post on social, and send out newsletters consistently

I’m not setting a specific number on any of these goals, because I don’t know what my schedule is going to look like yet. But I do want to focus on consistency. Whether it’s posting once a month or seven, or sending out newsletters once a month or twice a year, I’d just like to figure out a more consistent routine, so that you know what to expect from me. I’ve been pretty awful about that so far, haha. And of course, I’m hoping for more growth and visibility all-around.

As usual, I can expect that this year will definitely not go as I think it will. But thankfully, I can also trust that God has everything under control, and He knows what’s best. Keeping that in mind, I’m excited to reach for my goals, and looking forward to seeing what 2024 brings!

Do you have any goals for 2024? If so, which one are you most excited to achieve? And if you’re not a goal-setting type of person (that’s okay!), is there anything you’re looking forward to, or think might happen this year? I’d love to hear from you, so feel free to share in the comments!

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