2020 Resolutions (That I Hope I’ll Be Able to Keep!)

I’ve always been the kind of person to roll my eyes at New Year’s Resolutions. I mean, most people don’t even make it an entire week into the New Year without breaking one of there newly set rules, let alone an entire year. Then I’d be the person to laugh and say “I told you so” while I sat on the couch eating chips and thinking about how I wasn’t going to let ANY of my resolutions end in failure—mainly because I hadn’t even made any.

After all, goals can be such unspecific things. I know people who have promised themselves they’d “be healthier” when the clock strikes midnight, heralding in the New Year, but what does that even mean? That you’ll go vegan and take up yoga? I find that without fully-defined goals, our grand ideas for the year to come often crash and burn not long after takeoff, no matter how well-meaning our intentions are. 

So this year, I decided to join the masses in making some goals for myself! Instead of making my goals broad, I’ve tried to make them as specific as possible in the hopes that this makes them just a little bit more achievable. 2020 is the start of a new decade, and no matter how terrifying that thought is, it’s also so full of possibilities. 2020, here we come!

Write two film scripts and three TV pilots.

For those of you that don’t know, I’m going to be studying screenwriting at university next year! This will be my second degree, and I’m so excited to start studying something I’m really passionate about. I’m absolutely obsessed with film and TV, and I’d love to hone my skills in this course and hopefully get the chance to work with some experts in the field. So next year, I want to experiment more with writing scripts and gain feedback from my peers.

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Enter a screenwriting competition / fellowship.

Screenwriting seems like a daunting world to break into, specifically because there’s no “easy” path to follow—unlike becoming a traditionally published author (which is, as I understand it from my research, something like write a book—query agents—get an agent—agent sells book to publishing house—edit the book some more—book is published). But screenwriting is more about industry connections, and if you don’t have those, entering screenwriting competitions and fellowships until you get noticed by someone. Soooo… yeah. It’s a little more difficult than I thought it would be to get your work out there, but I’m going to give it my all.

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Write three novels.

As well as writing more scripts next year, I’m also going to finish three novels! In 2019, I wrote four books, so I’m hoping to write at least three next year. 2019 was also the first year in which I wrote middle grade for the first time, and two out of the four books I finished ended up being MG! Again, I want to write a mix of MG and YA in 2020, continue to query agents, and see where that takes me. Fingers crossed!

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Try a new format with my booktube videos.

Over the last couple of months, I’ve felt my passion for booktube start to disappear. I’ve hardly watched any booktube videos, and while I enjoy filming my own, my concepts don’t feel fresh. It feels like I’ve been doing the same thing every month—from wrap ups, to hauls, to event vlogs. While I still want to continue making videos, I want to change up the format and freshen things up. I don’t want to be making videos just because everyone else is. I want to make videos that I’m excited about and that I hope other people will be excited about too.

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Limit social media time to 30 minutes a day.

This is going to be a tough one! While there will be some days where I break this rule because I’m live-tweeting an event or hosting a Twitter chat, I really want to try and limit my daily use of social media. I was honestly shocked when I looked at my screen time on my phone and realised some days I’d spent two hours on social media. While I love the online bookish community, I feel as though there’s a vicious cycle involved in going online to feel less disconnected, then becoming less involved with the real life people around you, so you feel lonely and go online to feel less disconnected… and so on. What I want to do is quickly check what’s going on, post my content, then log off. This is going to be the hardest one to stick too, but hopefully I’ll be strong enough to resist the urges of TikTok compilations and IGTV unboxing videos!

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Run at least three times a week.

Call me unhinged, but I actually like running! Sure, I get out of breath and look as red as a tomato by the end, but the positives definitely outweigh the gross sweaty feeling and the embarrassment of having to stop every hundred metres. Running is the time where I get to listen to audiobooks, enjoy the scenery of the parks that surround my house, and watch the sunset at the beach in summer. This year I’ve been doing a lot more walking with my power walking-obsessed mother, but I hope to run at least three times a week and smash through some audiobooks in the New Year.

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Cook at least one meal for my family each week.

I’m a TERRIBLE cook, but that’s kind of because… I never try? The greatest extent I’ll go when cooking for myself is boiling some pasta or putting a vegan schnitzel into the oven. I KNOW. I’M THE WORST. And because I’m so notoriously bad at cooking and take forever to chop up an onion, someone else usually just takes over. But I don’t want to rely on the rest of my family to make proper meals—I want to try and cook some as well. I just need to channel my inner Antoni!

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Organise a family vacation.

I absolutely love family vacations. While my family and I have been to various small towns around Victoria in the last few years, it’s been EIGHT YEARS since our last big vacation to Britain. EIGHT. YEARS. Apart from one other destination, that’s the last time my cousin and aunt went overseas. So hopefully I’ll be able to convince them to come on a proper vacation with me in 2020! We always have such a great time together, and while I’m not too sure where we might go yet, I’m sure it’s going to be a blast. If you have any recommendations, do let me know!

What are some of your goals for the new year? Do you have any of the same resolutions as I do? I’d love to know!