2017 Goals: How Did I Do?

At the start of the year I set myself some new year’s goals to push myself to do more of the things I enjoy like reading and writing, and to try and prompt some self improvement (you can find my original blog post here). Now that almost a year has passed, it’s time for me to take stock of the progress I made with these goals.

So how did I do?

Build resilience and adaptability

This first resolution is the outlier of the set, and it’s also the hardest to measure. This was my goal for my personal development, and was a characteristic I was hoping to work on improving this year. I wanted to make a conscious effort to not let myself be crushed by setbacks and to recover quickly with solutions, rather than feeling snowed-under by problems.

I think I’ve achieved this. Or at least, I’ve thought about this a lot over the past year, and made a conscious effort to be more resilient to setbacks. This is probably the kind of thing you always have to make a conscious effort to improve on, so it probably isn’t something I’ll be able to rule out for the future.

Read more great books (but also buy less books!)

The reason for this resolution was simple. I love books, and so I wanted to read more. I also knew that the more I read, the more I have to blog about, and I was looking forward to writing more book reviews in 2017.

I’d say I’ve absolutely aced the first part of this resolultion. This year, I’ve read 63 books (and there might still be time for one more), compared to the year before when I read 25. I’ve got through some fantastic reads this year and found some new favourites, including V. E. Schwab’s Shades of Magic trilogy. I also tried my best to hold myself back from buying new books this year, and I think I was semi-successful. At least, I’ve not fallen into bankruptcy from my book-buying habits just yet, so I’ll take that as a win.

Write more blogs, and read more blogs

My aim for this year was to publish a blog post each week, and to take more time to read other peoples’ blogs. I wanted to give myself more time to be creative, write more book reviews, and interact more with the rest of the blogging community.

At the beginning of the year, I did fantastically at this (if I do say so myself). At one point, I was consistently publishing two blog posts a week, and spent time commenting on other bloggers’ posts. Sadly, as the year went on, I grew busier and it became harder to keep up this kind of posting frequency, but I’ve still managed to publish over 90 blog posts this year, which is certainly more than the year before.

Keep learning python

My penultimate resolution was to keep learning the Python programming language. I was enjoying learning this towards the end of 2016, and wanted to continue making time to build this skill in 2017.

Unfortunately, this is the one resolution I’ve failed. I’ve found myself so busy this year that I just haven’t been able to make time to learn a new programming language without sacrificing something else. This was my lowest priority resolution (not least because I was already learning Java and studying a masters in Computer Science), so I’m ok with not achieving this goal.

…And relax

My final resolution was to make sure that I took time out to relax. This is something I’ve historically found difficult, since even during my downtime from work or lectures, there are so many things I want to be doing, whether that’s writing a blog, or checking some other activity off my to-do list.

And for once, I think I’ve managed that this year. Whilst I’ve found it hard to sit back and really commit to doing nothing, I’ve managed this year to find some balance between work and relaxation. I’ve found time to watch TV, to play video games, to go to conventions, and to and spend many an evening with a cup of tea and a book in bed.

So, all-in-all, I’ve been pretty successful at achieving my 2017 goals, and those I didn’t achieve, I’ve learnt that I was never really that invested in. I’m still deciding on what I want to achieve in 2018, so I’ll be posting my resolutions for the coming year in January.

Did you have any goals for 2017? I’d love to hear about whether you’ve achieved them!