For the whole of 2025, I tried to push myself. The more I stressed over how far behind and how unmotivated I was to accomplish literally everything, the worse it got. Even up until the last day of the year, I kept thinking with just a final push I could accomplish everything I’d planned. Now I sit here and ask myself… Why?

Maybe it’s part of the human condition to convince ourselves to, in the words of a great hero, “Never give up, never surrender!”

But is it really a failure to let recent setbacks fall away, leave them in the dust, and hit the reset button? With this blog, for instance, I set a new reading challenge in 2025. And for the most part, I followed it in my reading. Then life got in the way, and my personal life this year was, without delving into details, complicated and suffocating in so many ways. I felt like there were little pieces of me spread out across all of these multitude of issues that would have been difficult to manage as a whole human, but my scattered about self simply couldn’t cope. Often, sitting down to read or write just felt like another chore, another battle I had to weather while my sanity was still moderately intact.

So what was my epiphany at the start of the new year?

That’s not how it’s supposed to be.

I failed to meet my goals because I made them something they aren’t supposed to be. Reading and writing are supposed to be my escape from all the other shit I have to contend with. If I push them into this realm of unwanted obligation and take the enjoyment out of it, I will fail. Falling behind isn’t the failure. The falling behind represents the loss of joy I was infected with by bringing my stress into the situation and letting it consume my every day.

As far as New Year’s Resolutions go, I’m usually guilty of trying to do too much. I basically want to just fix my entire self, but that’s not going to happen because one day ushers in the switching of the calendar on the wall. It takes so much more than that. Sure, the New Year brings with it the promise of possibility, renewed hope, and all that jazz. But, for most of us, that new hope slowly fades away as we give in to the continued monotony of everyday stress and worry. The resolution can only be the catalyst for change if we’re willing to actually put in the work. And, sometimes, that means we just have to hit the reset button. Maybe I can’t do that with my entire life, but I can do that here. I can admit that I failed. I can admit that I never caught up on reviews. I failed at my reading challenge, but that’s ok. It was a rough year, but now it’s over and there are new possibilities around the corner.

There’s no shame in admitting defeat. Sometimes it’s in our refusal to admit defeat that we’re truly defeated and wind up giving up entirely. With that, my New Year’s resolution is just to give myself a little grace. I’m gifting myself a chance to hit the reset button. I’ll add my goodreads ratings for my backlog, and then I’ll move forward. I’ll do my self-imposed reading challenge, but I won’t forget the reason I’m doing it. Here’s to a successful 2026 reset, and if you have something in your life that could use a reset, don’t be afraid to take it. I promise… it’s ok.

Happy Reading, everyone.