My Books, Blogging and Life Goals for 2016

Boom, and we're back on board the blogging train! How were your Christmas and Holiday celebrations? Did you bring the New Year in with a bang? The last few weeks of December were pretty awesome and stressful and lovely all at once, especially when you consider I worked both Boxing Day, the following Sunday and New Years, and the joy of retail means that Christmas and New Year have been, well, let's just say no blogging occurs at the end of those work days, which pretty much explains why I took my break for as long as I did, but I'm back, and that's what matters.

Christmas this year was a smaller, low key affair than it was last year. Last year involved three families around one table and me in the kitchen all evening, but 2015's Christmas was much calmer. We had one dinner at the Grandmother-In-Law's Christmas Day, and another on the 28th with my Nanna due to work commitments - much less stressful. Also, it was our first Christmas with Simba, and sure, watching him play with and try to eat the wrapping paper was a lot more fun than picking it up, but he was happy.

So far, my 2016 has been rather chill, but I want to know how your 2016 is so far. Is the diet still on, or did you work your way through some Christmas sweeties and vow to start again next month? Dear friend, you've got to stop setting goals you just aren't going to follow through with, it's not only pointless, but it's counter-productive too, and the only person you're disappointing is yourself.

Me, I'm all for making goals this year. Last year, I didn't make any goals, and I really regret it. I know I learnt a lot, and achieved a lot, but I'm just not as proud of those achievements as I should be, or want to be, and that sucks. This year, I want to reach the end and think 'damn right, look at everything you achieved, and hey, this year wasn't the year for this or that, but maybe next year!' I talked about everything I achieved and some of last year's favourite things a few weeks ago, but let's check out this years goals instead.

Book Related Goals

• Read 30 books. I used to be a rabid reader and would read a vast amount of books, but last year saw my numbers fall, hugely, and I confess, I really didn't mind all that much. This year however, I do want to spend some q-u-a-l-i-tea time with my books and a brew and swap blogging in the evening some nights for reading in bed, and at an average of just over 2 books a month, I'm confident I can smash this goal. Currently Read: All In, See How They Run, Leap of Faith.
• No ARC's. Unless I know I'll read them. 2014 was a year full of ARC's and reading books I didn't really love, but because I read less last year, I enjoyed them more. Go figure. I was requesting books based on other people's excitement, not my own, so this year, I'll only be requesting the books I really want to read, that are fueled by my own excitement and nobody elses. There's more to life than free books, and I have plenty already. Lesson learnt.
• No buying books unless they're on the list. This really shouldn't be too difficult in the grand scheme of things, as I didn't buy a book between April and December last year, and along with the books I've already said I'd love to read this year, there's only a few that I have noted that I want. If it's not on the list, it's not happening.

  

Blogging Related Goals

• Start and complete projects #1 and #2. I'm being purposely secretive on what these projects actually are, a) because if they don't become actual things, the only person I'm disappointing is myself, b) because I want to finalise a few details before I go head first into them, and c) because damn, announcing projects is scary and your expectations are being kept firmly inactive for the moment. What I can say about these projects is that I'm super excited about them, I'm actually going to have to spend money on them (shock horror!) and they'll actually require you to spend money too, if I can pull it off. More on those in the future!
• Post higher quality posts, 2-3 times a week. When I started Nellie and Co. I had a plan to post 3 days a week, 4 if I had something I really wanted to share, but I admit, my content wasn't as good then, and neither was my social media sharing habits. Oh, and I didn't have a job too. I want to continue posting the same quality posts I've been posting since Sept/Oct and improve upon them, but this means lower post frequency expectations. To keep things more realistic, it's better to expect two posts a week and be pleasantly surprised by a third than to expect more and find less. Speaking of social media..
• Increase Nellie's Subscribers. Just saying 'I want more people to interact with my blog' isn't a good enough goal in my opinion, so for the sake of getting down to the details, I'm aiming for 100 Newsletter Subscribers, 500 Twitter Followers and 100 Pinterest followers. They're pretty high goals in terms of numbers, but with some hard work, great content and the help of one of those mentioned projects, I'd say it's possible.
• Reach 5,000 pageviews a month by the end of 2016. Now, this is what I'd call a hefty goal. I'm currently getting just over half that, but I definitely want to see Nellie's reach going further, so in my eyes, it's go big or go home my friend.
• Participate regularly a Twitter Chat. My current bedtime means my daylight hours don't coincide much with the Twitter Chats I'm tempted to get involved in, but I'll be making special exceptions for some chats this year in order to get involved more. I want to meet and greet other bloggers and expand my circles, and Twitter Chats seem like the perfect place to do it.
• Create more pages for the 2016 Blog Planner. Silly ol' me decided to create the Blog Planner in November, which didn't give me a whole load of time to actually create as many pages as I would have liked to, so throughout 2016, I'll be creating additional pages to compliment the planner, with the help of recommendations and requests from followers and users.

Life Related Goals

• Put aside at least £30 a month savings. Every year I tell myself I will make a start on lots of exciting projects, or that I'll reach Christmas and not be counting pennies, and every year, that doesn't happen, but 2016 is going to be different. I have a trip to Blackpool planned again in May, and I want to nail Christmas savings this year, and with my job still on tow, I can actually put money aside and still have money left over for a random treat every now and again.
• Create another cash avenue. I definitely don't want to just stick with being part-time employed, at least, not financially, so I'm definitely making plans to either find another part-time, switch to full-time, or create another income source, whether that be through creating a job, or through Nellie and Co. - I'm not 100% sure yet, but I definitely want more dosh coming my way.

What are your 2016 goals and resolutions?