 I'm back! Did you miss me? You may not have noticed I was gone but I was. I was gone for like two weeks which is the longest I've ever gone without uploading a video. Hello friends! Oh hey guys, remember me? It's been a minute. Did you miss us? Because we missed you. How are we doing? Today we are going to be reviewing my 2023 reading goals, seeing whether I achieved them. Then we're going to go through some life goals for 2024 because I don't feel like I share stuff like that with you very often and I'm just feeling like I want to and then we're going to get into my reading goals for 2024 as well. Hello friends! That's what we're doing today. I feel like we need a little bit of a debrief though about why I've been gone. I have been so ill. If you remember my last video was my Christmas book haul video where I was ill. I was ill before Christmas from like the 20th of December over Christmas, you know, up until the last days of the year. Then I actually started getting better guys. I started like feeling good last three days of the year. I was like ready for 2024. First of January fell the sickest I've felt in a long time with a chest infection. I rotted in bed for five days. I'm starting to feel better now and I'm back. But yeah, this has been my day every year where we react to last years. I feel like it's a good way to bookend the year and then we'll get into what my goals are for 2024 and at the same time, 2024 I have a lot of goals and also not a lot of goals. It's a strange year and we'll get into that when we talk about 2024. But shall we just begin and react to what my reading goals were last year and see how I did? I've spoken to you all throughout the year about a lot of these reading goals. Kind of giving you updates on how they were doing, referring back to some of them. Some of them I feel like it's going to be a few I don't remember making, but like most of them I kind of kept track on throughout the year and know how well or not well I did at them. So shall we just dive into it? Get into reacting to my goals of last year. In terms of the amount of books I would like to read in 2022, I'm setting my Goodreads goal to 100 books, okay? I discovered I do not do well with negative feedback. I need positive affirmation, okay? So Goodreads ever telling me I'm one book behind schedule. I'm five books behind schedule. That does not motivate me to read more, that motivates me to read less. So I'm setting it to 100 so that it keeps telling me, oh my god you're doing so well, you're so ahead of schedule. But I would, in the back of my mind, I would really like to reach 150 books for the first time ever this year. Guys, I did it! You're talented, you're thoughtful, you do it all and I am very proud of you. I did it! I achieved this reading goal last year was the first year I have ever read 150 books in a year ever. I have never read that many books in a year and it'd been my goal the previous year and I hadn't reached it. I did do what I said. I set my Goodreads goal to 100 books and then once I reached 100 I upped it to 150 because I don't want it to tell me I'm amounted books behind schedule. I haven't read anything yet this year. It's the 9th of January when I'm filming this. I haven't finished a book. I haven't even, I've read 40 pages of the book this year. So my Goodreads goal is at 100 currently and I am behind again. Which I don't like. I'm just not looking at it. But yeah, this was my biggest goal of last year. I would say it's why I set it first was to read 150 books. If we're honest, yes I was like, oh I'm setting it to 100 but the goal was for that to help me reach 150 and I'm so proud of myself. I've never read that much. Who knows if I've read that much again? I would love to. I would love to hover around 150 from now on because I feel like just even for the amount of content I want to make I kind of need to read that much but I'm so proud of myself. This was really the big goal and if I achieve this everything else is okay. I'm saying that because maybe I haven't achieved the rest of them. I read 155 actually. I overshot. I'm an overachiever. I read 155. I've read five books as fair. I feel like we can all be proud of me. Well done Megan. I mentioned series and my goal this year with series I mentioned in the series wrap up video is just to have a net negative with how many series I'm starting and finishing so just to have a net negative. Just a net negative. Just a net negative. Oh let's be realistic. I went into this goal in detail in my series review video of the year at the end of last year so I'll leave that link below if you want to go check it out. Depending on how you view it I did achieve this because what we did in that video is any books I got caught up on during the year we counted as like not currently reading so we took them off the currently reading total and I think that meant that I was on the same amount of currently reading series I was at the start of the year. So technically I kind of did do this. The rules don't apply. Even though I didn't because if we don't know a lot of books I don't account which we're into account at the start of the year. I wanted to make that change and the thing is it's gonna fudge with the numbers at some point so yeah this was a goal I was very aware of throughout the year and technically I did achieve it even though I didn't really but technically I did. I'm pretty proud of the series progress I made last year. I really did focus on making progress in series but not necessarily finishing them because the previous year when I'd had a really strict like currently reading series goal like I had to finish I didn't achieve it the year before but I was really trying to finish a lot of series. I just kept finishing the series. I only needed one book to finish. That meant there were a lot of series where I had like three books I needed to read to finish a series that were just like languishing so this year I did focus on doing more series reading that wasn't necessarily. I keep saying this year 2023. I was that kind of girl. It took me up until like 20th of January to start writing the new year when I was at school. I keep writing the old one even though I love a new year. What was I saying? Yes I made more progress in series rather than finishing them that's all we need to know. I'd say probably my biggest and most difficult reading goal coming this year is I want to get my physical TBR to under 200 books and I started 2023 on 227 currently owned physical TBR books. I started the year on 227. I demand a recount. One for Martin. Who for Martin? Would you like another recount? No. Okay here's the situation when I did my all my unread books on my TBR video I noticed that number of books I held up in that video was about 20 more than I had on my own shelf on Goodreads which is what I'd been pulling these numbers from like this is how many books are on my TBR because I thought every book was marked. I went through that video and I went and checked every book on Goodreads and I found the 20 books that had been missing so even though I'm saying is it 224 I sat the year on it was probably 20 more than that because most of the books were books that I'd got in previous years and just hadn't shelved correctly when I changed how my Goodreads were shelved. It's very complicated so I thought okay so realistically it was more like 240 I started the year on. My TBR is currently 261 yeah yeah so even though I read 150 books I bought in I mean some of the books I read last year were not books on my TBR but like how did I not make a dent in it how did I add 20 we're calling it 20 because really it was 240 in the start of last year because the maths were wrong how did I add 20 books to my TBR even though I read 155 that is obscene that is obscene yes yes a concern and a worry so yeah needless to say my TBR it's 261 currently I haven't made this a goal this year anything to do with the number of books my TBR but like let's be honest I would love to get it below 200 which I know is ridiculous I know there'll be loads of you with like four books on your TBR I'm like what is wrong with this woman but you know I don't do drugs if I want the amount of books my TBR to be my problem so be it. My final one is to read more 2023 new releases than I read in 2022 so I feel like I'm getting better of reading new releases when they come out. I read I think 33 which isn't terrible you know I read 130 books 33 of them were new releases but I would like to do more so even if it's 34 again I'm happy what I'm asking is one more okay I think I did this let me check my reading spreadsheet yes okay so in 2023 I read 37 2023 releases so it was only four more than I read in 2022 but I said I wanted to read more and I read more you know there's certain things in life where you find your level and this year I'm not gonna make this a focus I've got so many books right I've got so many books it would actually be irresponsible of me to say I want half my reading to be 2024 releases yes of course I'm gonna keep buying new releases that's what I do and I I know you guys are gonna have so many new releases throughout the year that you want to know my opinions on but I also do just want to like get through this backlist a bit right if I want to achieve my goal of getting my physical tbr down proportionately I have to get through these books which none of them bar maybe like one arc are 2024 releases so you're following the logic here the two don't go together it's oil and water so anyways I achieved this goal so I achieved really if we're being honest three out of four of my reading goals last year who is she wow go me okay I'm amazed by you let's get into 2024 goals shall we now that we've reacted to those I want to talk about my lifestyle goals to begin with because I feel like I don't share that a lot with you and I just need to talk through my year a bit I want to share more of my life with you I have this ongoing concern with YouTube which is strange that I think you guys don't care about my life and just want to hear about me review the books so I feel nervous sharing things about my life also my life isn't very interesting I do the same thing every day I spend time with my family my boyfriend and my cats I go for walks spend time with his family that is basically it I don't have a very exciting life but I do want to share more with you because when other youtubers share their you know the mundane day to day I find it interesting but anyways for me my focus I came upon this doing yoga the other day um my I think my theme for 2024 my word is cultivate right I want to cultivate the life that I want to live when I think of my dream life just in terms of my daily habits the the style of my life the attitude that I'm going through life with it is a bit different than what I have now and I want to cultivate that life but I like the word cultivate because it gives me this image of me like in a garden like cultivating this little garden in a cottage you know what I mean it's really important for me in this new year especially because I haven't had the best start to the new year right usually in the year I'm like I'm gonna have these really unrealistic goals and I feel like this the start of the year of me being ill start the year actually gave me pause and made me realize I need to give myself time to actually build that up right cultivating is not something that happens overnight right like your garden grows slowly but you've still got to turn up to water it every day and I'm not saying like I'm going to be like I have to do this and this and this and this and this habit every single day right but I have to I want to do something constantly I want to constantly have that in my mind to do something to like bring me closer to what I want to be does that make sense so there's not a rush on it everything happens slowly everything grows slowly everything has to take its time to grow but it's about turning up every day and watering the garden you know what I mean so for me my number one goal in terms of that is to start meditation as a I don't want to say daily practice but like ideally it would be a daily practice again I'm not putting pressure on myself to do something every single day I have noticed I can pinpoint the times in my life when I've had it together and they have been times and I've meditated and I want to take a moment to say a big thank you to the sponsor of today's video which is aura for me meditation really helps control my stress and anxiety I'm naturally quite a stressed and anxious person particularly when it comes to work and like productivity I was like this in school a lot I had to go to like school like therapy in school for my anxiety from when I was like 12 years old right so it's something that's followed me throughout my life and aura has really been a life-changing app for me aura is a new mindfulness and sleep app that won the best of apple award and is used by over seven million people it is a all-in-one app for your well-being and sleep it has thousands of meditations stories and so much more like CBT life coaching and breath work aura's content is created by hundreds of expert coaches and therapists throughout the world I think what has made aura really the app that has worked for me in terms of my meditation style in terms of finding something that really works for me is there is so much variation like I said there's hundreds of experts and coaches so you can really find someone with a speaking style that works for you or like a meditation pattern that works for you there's so much variation with other things I've used in the past I find it's like one style this is it but aura has so much variation option and choice so I cannot recommend it enough and you guys can get started for completely free by using my exclusive link down below the first 500 people to use this link will get a free trial and 25 off so go check out aura if you're thinking of starting these kind of practices in this new year like I am I cannot recommend enough so go check out my link down below in the description and in the pinned link down below yeah I think you should all give aura ago because it's genuinely been revolutionary for me and then my other life goal for this year is gonna be just to be more caring and also efficient with my time I think I spend far too much time scrolling through social media doom scrolling if you will and that habit has gotten worse while I've been ill I don't want to hear any goddamn excuses anymore but I feel like it's a problem I've had forever especially recently where I just feel like I feel like I have no time because I'm wasting my time on these other things and I just want to be more caring when it comes to my time I want to have more care towards the value of my time and to really value it do you know what I mean and so I guess it's a runabout way of saying I want to have less screen time and spend more time doing the things I love be that meditation be that yoga be that going for walks be that reading right I want to spend less time on the phone it's a big goal for the new year so that's kind of my life goals my big my big goal is cultivate I think cultivate is such a lovely word when you think of it I just imagine myself gardening in a little cottage garden you know I don't know if that's weird but that's kind of the approach I want to take in my life and I mentioned this at the start I think I was going to talk about this that you know I don't want to set too many goals for 2024 because it's going to be a wild year and this comes into the reading goals which we'll talk about in a second as well but it's going to be a crazy year like I am Tom and I are hoping to buy a place together in the new year which is kind of scary it's kind of scary um so that's going to be wild and that will take up a lot of our time like finding a place decorating it we're buying furniture like God you know that's the whole part of my life that I want to just I that is going to take up a lot of time and energy and I want to because it's such an exciting thing to happen but that might mean reading takes a bit of a seat for a while what have you you know and I just want to give myself the grace and time to like know that this might be a busy year for me and to not put too much pressure on myself you know so shall I just get into my reading goals of the year they're pretty much a lot of my goals that I have every year so okay my big goal my big goal this is the big goal of the year I tend to have one big goal every year and my big goal of the year is to have my best reading year ever and what I mean by this is I want to have my highest average rating of a year ever I want to read books that I love this year whoa I am crazy consistent when it comes to my average rating almost every single year that I have been reading I think every single year that I've went back and I've tracked this my average rating has been 3.7 3.7 around that it'll be 3.68 one year it'll be 3.71 another year but it's literally 3.7 almost every single year and so my goal this year is for that to be I mean let's say 3.8 or above is we're winning but ideally I'd love it to be like a four I really want to read books that I love I want to have loads of five stars I want to have loads of books that I want to share with you I want to seek out the books that I'm gonna love good luck have fun hope it works this time around and so I'm doing I'm gonna be doing a series throughout the year to kind of help this hopefully we'll see how it goes but yeah I just want to I want to have a better reading year than ever so there's not much like control over this there is element of luck to it because who knows like it is like a draw when you read a book what you're gonna rate it it's not like the series goal where like I can numerically make sure that happens I can't right but I want to do things that try to help it happen we shall see what if I end up like giving like a average rate of 3.5 this year like what if it goes the other way I'm a bit nervous that is my big reading goal of the year other goals we have some returning goals I want to read 150 books this year again I'm setting my good reads to 100 until I reach that and then we'll up it to 150 um like I said it is gonna be a busy year for me so I'm a little bit nervous about setting this goal but I think having done it once I feel like I can do it again so yeah we're setting a goal for 150 books I want to read this year I don't know why it makes me nervous but it does what is that it's like 12 books a month isn't it something like that yeah 12 and a half books a month I can do that I tend to average like 13 14 books a month now so it should be easy it shouldn't be something that's a struggle so hopefully it'll be okay then we have another goal I said this would be a goal every year to have a net negative on series this will I mean this will have to end at some point because like we can't we can't get down to zero but I am currently reading 34 series that does not include the series I am up to date with a lot of those series I will no longer be up to date with like because a lot of them have got books coming out this year so you know take that into account hopefully I can just stay up to date with them but yeah net negative in terms of series we'll see how that goes my first book of the year may be a book in a series not exactly setting myself up for success but um yeah net negative in terms of series is gonna be a goal at least for the next few years for me every year it's something I want to keep tracking I'm still going to do a few videos a year where I really try to like get some series finished um and that also is just going to be in my reading hopefully I can incorporate it more in my reading throughout the rest of the year as well then we have two genre specific goals number one is to read four classics I can do this I can do this I said this year was gonna be my classics era I can do this I'm gonna have a video series hopefully coming out once a quarter that will have me reading one classic that is totally doable that is totally totally doable why am I saying no I can't I can't I've tried it and I failed why does everyone expect it then I'm not including things like when I read acrocracy I count that as a mystery but anything else that's that old I would probably class as a classic but acrocracy I tend to not class as classics because also they're not intimidating they're they're short they're easy they're quick right classics are my brain or anything a bit more intimidating yeah we're gonna be starting this series that I've wanted to start for years to help me read more classics and I just never do it because it's not a video series I necessarily think is gonna do amazing but I just want to do it even if I only do it this year it's four videos you know big work let's get over it Megan let's do it and then I'm also setting a goal I've said this before and I never reach it but we're gonna do it this year I want to read 12 nonfiction that's one a month one a freaking month one a freaking month nonfiction I probably am not including memoir autobiography in that I will probably class that as separate in my in my spreadsheet right so we're classing am I is that fair yeah I think that's fair so we're saying nonfiction that's like anything other than memoir or autobiography I'm gonna be reading two memoirs this month and two nonfiction in January whoa but so we're only counting two of them towards the goal but yeah I've always set this goal how many did I read last year because imagine if I read more than that last year how many did I read let's have a look nonfiction oh I read five last year I read one memoir so we're talking about like doubling bloody hell I thought I would have read more than that okay yeah we're gonna try and read 12 I don't know the last time I read 12 nonfiction a year I've always said this before I sat on my channel I when I first got back in treating bear in mind this wasn't for a very long period because I kind of like got back in treating I was like I'm gonna make a youtube channel but I would read one fiction one nonfiction one fiction one nonfiction so my reading used to be 50 nonfiction and I would love to get up again because there's so much nonfiction I want to read so we just got to get into it we just got to get into it I look at so much the nonfiction my tbm I get excited so get it together 12 nonfiction we can do this then my last goal that I thought of whilst filming this video that remembered I want to do I want to for the first time ever I want to track my spending when it comes to books I want to track how much I spend on books this year why do I want to do this I don't know because I don't necessarily want to change this but I just kind of want to know I'm just intrigued I don't have to necessarily do this in the future but this year I want to track it if I only do it for a year I do it for a year but I just I'm intrigued to know do I want to know probably not but like I feel like I should know for once and for all how much should I spend on books in a year god give me strength and I'd love to know that in the future so I'm like oh the books I read this month I spent this much or whatever I don't know I don't know if that makes sense but I'm just gonna start tracking that I've never tracked it before but it's not you know if I stop I stop if I'm like that's enough of knowing that did I stop so there we have everyone that is me reacting to my 2023 reading goals and talking about what my 2024 life and reading goals are I would love to know what some of your reading goals this year are hopefully they're a bit more exciting than mine because mine are like the same as usual apart from me trying to like drastically change the average rating I'm giving to berks out of nowhere but yeah I'm so happy to be back with you guys and again make sure you check out aura down below to try out this wonderful wonderful app of mindfulness and sleep and meditation and breath work and so many amazing things I cannot recommend enough I'll leave the link down below and I hope you all have a wonderful week and I will see you soon I'm back baby I'll see you soon bye