Happy New Year! Welcome 2020, you are an interesting number indeed! A new decade, with new expectations and goals to accomplish. There’s a lot I want to see happen on this blog and I like to keep myself accountable by creating this yearly post. I started this blog in 2014, which is when my first post was published, so it’s been almost 6 years!

My first bunch of posts were….not that great, very spontaneous, and I was still growing as a writer. It’s nice though to see the growth from then to now, but it’s sometimes embarrassing to read and think, “wow, I needed help writing that stuff, it’s not that great”.

This year, I am challenging myself more than I believe I ever have and have taken practical steps towards completing what I want to for these next 365 days. Not only for this blog but for every area of my life. I would like to share some of the strategies I am using, along with updates for what you can expect this year from Gaming & God.

The reason I seem to be more on top of what I want out of this year is for several reasons. It’s a new decade so I feel the weight of how time is just moving along and sometimes I am sitting around wasting it. Whether it’s social media, not finishing what I start, or not utilizing tools to help me stay organized, I don’t want this year to be like 2019.

Another is that I have a passion to accomplish certain things, but I know I haven’t been persistent enough. I am making the necessary changes though and not holding back, I pray that every year I am this motivated to continue. I’m not getting any younger, and I refuse to get to an age where I say, “I wish I would have done xyz but I can’t anymore”.

A New Decade

Many pastors, prophets and other Christian sources have been giving a lot of insight into what God wants to do this year, through the body of Christ as a whole and individually. I want to be sure I am open to what God has for my life and my family, so that would mean spending more time with Him in worship, prayer, reading, and being guided by Holy Spirit.

Most of my life I do write down goals for the year, but I hardly make practical steps on how to achieve them. Travel? Check! Write more? Check! Pay off debt? Check! Improve my relationships? Check! How do I do these things? Wing it!

This year, I am not winging it. Whether it’s a planner that will help me stay on track (this is the one I ordered for 2020), downloading an app (I am trying Coach.me which is free on IOS), writing this blog post, or reminding myself daily to stay on task. I have to create strategies for myself, if not I won’t succeed.

As a site, I have not been very intentional with taking this seriously or putting a lot of effort into it, thus I see the fruit of the little labor I have done. My post schedule is hardly planned, even though I tried to do one post a week it didn’t happen often. The fact is, I was being very “random” about writing instead of attentive to what I wanted to write about.

This year, to help with that, I am going to decide what I am going to write about before I start writing, in advance. So if I am going to review something, I will start the draft and schedule it so it has a due date. I am aiming to do one post a week, but hopefully more. Guest posts don’t count towards my goal as they weren’t by me, though I edit them.

Bringing on new writers is something else I am hoping to do. I already have a fantastic guest writer, Andrea, who you may have seen adding a few posts here and there. She has her own site but will be contributing some articles now and then. Between Twitter and Discord, I’m going to see if I can add some new “party members” to my blog.

Here’s the general list of quests I want to complete this year, from my personal life to my blog:

• Read 2 books a month. One Christian title and a misc title.
• Write 1 blog post a week, hopefully, more!
• Go to the gym 3 times a week. I often do that but I want it to be on paper.
• Pray daily, which I try to do. Also read the bible more, as I have been lacking there.
• Beat 1-2 games a month, even if the game is halfway complete. This month I have Detroit and Tales of Graces F. I am at the ending of Detroit, and Graces I just started since it’s been sitting on my PS3 for years.
• Gain at least 2-3 writers for this blog, whether they post monthly or bi-weekly.
• Become more involved in the various roles I am beginning to cultivate with Discord groups like Higher Score Gaming, Mighty Grace Positive Gaming, and God’s Gamers.

There are some more personal ones I’m not going to list here. I just want God’s will to be done in my life, and for everything He has given me charge of to prosper.

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I would love to read about your goals for this year? What do you want to accomplish?