Monthly Personal Challenge Link-up: January Results

I know that everyone says things like this, but I seriously can't believe that January is already over.  The month just sort of flew by for me, and I think that will become very obvious as I share my monthly personal challenge results.

It's ironic, really ... The theme for January's personal challenge was complete, yet I managed to only complete about 50% of my goals.  I'm kind of embarrassed that I did such a shitty job sticking with my goals last month.  And, honestly, I'm not sure why I couldn't bring myself to complete everything (other than the fact that I sometimes have difficulty following through on personal projects, of course).  It wasn't a particularly hectic month, and I feel like I had plenty of free time to finish these projects.  I just ... Didn't.

To recap, my original goals were as follows:

1.  Finish the 4 books on my January "to read" list in an effort to get a good start on completing my 50 book challenge this year.

2.  Write a review for each book I read and feature it on this blog.  Additionally, I wanted to start participating in at least one book-related link-up.

3.  Organize my blog's Pinterest account.

4.  Update my "About Me" page on Divulge and Indulge.

I already mentioned that I only managed to cross about 50% of these things off my "to do" list, but I'll discuss my results in a little more detail here:

1.  I'm happy to report that I actually finished 4 books in January and am currently working through book 5 of the year!  I've attempted the 50 book challenge numerous times in the past, but I've always failed.  I usually fall behind early on and really struggle to catch up, so this was actually very encouraging.

2.  I'll call this goal complete even though it's more like 50% complete.  I shared my thoughts on The End of Everything and The Dinner in this post, and also managed to finish part 2 of this goal by sharing my post in the Show Us Your Books! link-up.  I'll be posting reviews for the other 2 books I read in January (as well as the book I'm reading now if I manage to finish it in the next few days) next week when the next Show Us Your Books! link-up rolls around.  Although I didn't share a review for each book yet, I feel confident that I can mark this goal as "completed" since I have a deadline for finishing the rest of my January book reviews.

These were the books I read last month.

3.  The Pinterest account organization was a big fat failure.  I logged into the account I created specifically for this blog exactly 1 time, stared blankly at the screen as I tried to determine exactly how I wanted it to look/what I wanted to share, and then promptly logged out, logged back into my personal Pinterest account, and started searching for recipes and cute outfits.  Clearly not my best effort.  This is something I'd really like to accomplish at some point this year, but I just wasn't in the mood to work on it at all last month.

4.  When I posted my January goals, I kind of knew I wouldn't be able to rewrite my "About Me" page.  It was by far the least time consuming goal on this list, but when I couldn't immediately come up with at least a few things I wanted to share about myself and my blog, I knew it wasn't going to happen.  It's funny because I post random shit about myself and my life on this blog all the time, yet I find an actual introduction strangely difficult to write.  What do I want people to know about me if they're checking out my blog for the first time?  What was my inspiration for creating this blog?  Why did I choose the name?  Why do I blog at all?  These are all great questions that I should probably be answering on my "About Me" page ... But for some reason every time I try to rewrite it, everything comes out in a jumbled mess and I'm like, "Fuck it, I'm done."  (And yes, I know that's a winning attitude.)  This is also something that really needs to be done at some point this year (preferably within the next month or so), so hopefully I can figure out what I want to say soon.

As I said earlier, I'm kind of embarrassed that I wasn't able to complete more of my goals last month.  I guess that just means I'll have to work harder this month on my new goals!

Speaking of my February goals, I'll be sharing those in a post either tomorrow or Saturday.  Since I started participating in this link-up, I've been writing separate posts for my results and my new goals.  I started doing this simply because it was more convenient (I didn't have new goals in mind when I sat down to review the previous month, I didn't have time to write a really long post, etc.), but I think I prefer to keep them separate.  (And, if I'm being honest, I don't have my new goals completely figured out yet anyway.)

This month's theme is "create."  While I consider myself a pretty creative person in some aspects, I'm definitely not a DIY kind of girl.  (Sorry ... There won't be any amazing craft tutorials or anything like that.)  I really need to figure out what I should focus on, though, because I don't want to set so many goals that I'll never realistically be able to stick with them all.  I don't want a repeat of this month, after all!

A Time to Focus and Complete: My January Goals

Image provided by Unsplash (unsplash.com) and edited by me.

I can't believe it ... I'm posting something on a Saturday.

I planned to share my January personal challenge goals yesterday, but near the end of my yoga class I got a migraine from hell ... So that didn't happen.  (I honestly don't even know how I managed to finish the class since I was completely dizzy and nauseous.  It was horrible.)  If you've never had a migraine, you're lucky.  I get them fairly often, but last night's was particularly nasty.  As soon as we got home from the gym, I took a couple of pills and laid in the dark on the living room floor with a pillow and blanket and slept for about 5 hours.  Thankfully my headache was gone when I woke up, but I wasn't really in the mood to update my blog at 1:00 a.m. so I just ate a bowl of cereal (I didn't eat dinner), got ready for bed, and then read until 3:30 a.m.

Today, though, I'm ready to talk about my goals for January.  As I mentioned on Thursday, the theme this month is "complete."  As I also mentioned, I sometimes find it difficult to follow through on personal projects.  I'm hoping this month's challenge is the kick in the ass I need to actually complete a few things!

My January 2015 Goals:

1.  In my New Year's resolutions post, I talked about my desire to read 50 books this year.  So far I've finished one book and am more than halfway through a second, so I'm definitely on track.  (Though it's only day 10 of the new year, so there's still time for me to get behind.)  I decided that it might be beneficial to make a list of books to focus on each month, and I think this has actually helped me so far.  I don't have to think about which book to read next for an entire month, and somehow that keeps me motivated to keep going.  My first goal, then, is to finish all 4 books on my January "to read" list.

Here is a lovely picture of my January books.  I really wanted to stack them in the order I'd be reading them, but size order just made more sense.  I've already finished The End of Everything, and I'm currently working on The Dinner.  The other books are actually rereads, so those should go pretty quickly.

2.  To go along with my first goal, I'd like to write a review for each book I read and feature it on this blog.  I'm already behind on this, but that's okay ... I'm sure I can catch up.  I know some of the bloggers I follow will occasionally have book related link-ups, so I'll probably try to participate in at least one of those as well.  (Maybe this is actually a separate goal, but I'd probably be linking my review posts so it seemed to belong here.)  I'll also probably be posting these reviews on Goodreads (I joined right before the new year).  If anyone reading this uses Goodreads, please feel free to send me a friend request (if that's what it's called on that site) ... I signed up using my blog email: divulge.and.indulge@gmail.com.

3.  I'd like to work on organizing my blog Pinterest account.  I still haven't done anything with it, and I'd really like to get it going.  My plan is to pin some images from my blog, but I'll also be using it to save other recipes, inspiration, etc.

4.  Finally, I want to rewrite my "About Me" page.  I'm actually a little worried that I won't be able to finish this by the end of the month despite the fact that it's the least time consuming goal on this list.  It's something that really needs to be done, though, so hopefully I can finally figure out what I want to say.

I realize that a lot of my January goals are basically repetitions of some of my New Year's resolutions, but if I actually want to be able to proudly say, "I achieved all of my goals for 2015!" at the end of this year, I need to start early.  And, luckily for me, several of those resolutions fit perfectly with this month's theme!