2021Review || Evaluating My Progress

 Hello, my friends, and Happy New Year! I hope 2022 finds you well and I wish that it'll make all of your dreams come true!

For the first post of the new year I wanted to do a little bit of an evaluation of the year that passed; see if I have met all of the goals I had set for myself and if I didn't then how far did I get and why I didn't make it. I would like to do a little wrap-up and see how much I committed to my reading, writing, and blogging goals in hopes that this will help me do even better this year.

So, without further ado, let's see what my reading challenges for the past year were:

1. Read at least 15 books ✅  - So, my initial reading challenge for 2021 was 15 books, but by the summer I knew that I could easily make it and I wanted to make it a little harder for myself and decided to rise it a little higher. I set a goal of 16 books with the prospect of making it even higher later on in the year. As the year proceeded I was pretty confident about the 16 books goal but hesitant for anything higher, so I changed my mind and kept it as it was. As the year approached its end, I was in kind of a reading rush, so not only I reached my goal, but I passed it quite a bit managing to read 20 books. I know it may not sound much and especially in comparison with other bookworms/book bloggers, but it was enough for me. In the end, I am very happy with my results and quite satisfied with myself.  
2. Read at least 1 classic book ✅ - I almost failed that one, because I didn't even get to it by December when I suddenly decided to read some poetry (to be honest one of my online book friends talked me into it). I went for the classic Greek poet Constantinos Cavafy and I read his complete works. I hadn't read any classic Greek poetry since high school, so this was quite a change for me, but I'm happy I did it.
3. Listen to at least 1 audiobook ✅  - I listened to 2 audiobooks: (I) "Everything is f*cked" by Mark Manson and (II) "Brida" by Paulo Coelho.
4. Read at least 1 non-fiction book ✅  - I did manage to read only 1 non-fiction book ("Everything is f*cked" which is also mentioned above), but I wish I had managed to read one more.
5. Finnish the Harry Potter series 🆇 - Now, this is the first and only one of my original goals that I failed. BUT, I am still happy with myself and not disappointed at all that I didn't make it, because I still managed to read 4 entire books of that series (within 2021 I started and finished "Chamber of Secrets", "Prisoner of Azkaban", "Goblet of Fire" and "The Order of the Phoenix") 2 of which are huge! To be honest, when I got to the middle of the 4th book and realized how big it was I felt a little overwhelmed for a moment (even though I have read as big and bigger books in the past) and a little intimidated. I realized that reading a big series like that, even though it is a very nice experience and can be really enjoyable, it is also a bit of a commitment as well and I didn't really know if I was able to make this commitment at this point in my life, but I decided I was too far along to give up and I didn't want to give up, because I was having fun. So I took it easy on myself and said that I'll do with my own rhythm and way and even if it takes me longer I'll finish it. Needless to say that the 5th book intimidated me, even more, when I got to it, but by that time I got over it quickly. So, not quite there, but very good overall.
6. Keep writing and posting on the blog - Now, this is kind of both a pass and a fail at the same time, because I did keep writing and uploading on my blog and I even made a few changes and improvements, but what I did was nowhere near what I had hoped to do. So for this one, the result is kind of "meh". 😐

These were the goals that I had mentioned one year's post, but I would like to add some more, more abstract goals that I had set for myself even if I hadn't written them down:

1. Try to read every single day even if it's just a couple of pages - So, I kept track of every day that I read or wrote in the past year and it turns out that last year I read 264 days out of the 365 days of the year. This means that I read most days of the year and not to mention a rather difficult year for me with a couple of health problems in my family. I'm happy with how I went and I hope to keep up like this and even a little bit better for this year.
2. Try to read a variety of different genres, books, and styles - I definitely did try to meet this goal, I read comic-books, children's books, adult books, funny books and "heavier" books. So, I'm pretty happy with how I did, I do wish, however, I'd done even a bit better. I would have liked to have read 1 or 2 horror/thriller books. 
3. Try to write as much as possible - I have always loved writing and whenever I have spare time I try to write a little bit. I've been doing that since I was a teen. This year, however, I decided to take it a bit more seriously and try to make writing a habit. I started these efforts around February, kept writing every day for a few months, then had a bit of a break for a couple of months, and then I managed to pick it up again. I managed to keep a writing schedule for about 130 days in the year, while I also did much research and kept trying to learn more about writing even on the days I could not write. I know that this is probably not much, but for me, it was great because it helped me accomplish a number of amazing things like: (I) Finally hit my word count goal of 50000 words on my current W.I.P., (II) Learn more about my characters, (III) Unravel more of my plot and (IV) make me fall back in love with my story and writing in general.

So, overall, I am quite happy with how I did. I could have done even better with a little bit more effort but still I'm satisfied with my reading progress, proud of my development as a writer and I'm happy that I managed to stick to it for the most part. Now I feel more determined than ever to commit to my new goals for the new year as well and I'm also pretty confident that I can stick to it and make it for this year as well and possibly even better this time around.

So, how has your reading been going? Did you do well? Reach your goals? I would love to hear your experiences! Feel free to comment.

Thank you for reading!