Resolve to Rock

Storytime Underground is encouraging us, as professionals, to make goals for the upcoming year.  I love the start of the new year – fresh and ready to work toward some new goals.  So, without further ado, some of my goals for the new year.
1.) Focus on my blog.  Last year was a great year for my own blog… I got a lot of traffic, interacted with librarians and really started to find my footing as to where I would like to see my blog go in the future.  This year, I want to take a closer look at what’s working, what I should change, and where I want to go in the future.
2.) Comment more on other blogs.  I read a ton of blogs from librarians, teachers, and other professionals and love when people comment on my blog and I should do the same in return.  My goal is to comment at least once a week on a blog I read.  I think that’s fairly doable!
3.) Interact more on Twitter.  I tend to use Twitter to merely push my blog, whereas I could be using it much more effectively to interact with authors, librarians and others in my PLN.  I may not have a specific “number” goal, but would like to at least post something other than my blog regularly.
4.) Read more across genres.  I’m doing really well with middle grade fiction, but would like to make sure I’m reading across genres as well as reading early chapter books.  I do all right with picture books, but my easy reader section seems to get bypasses as well as a lot of informational text.  I haven’t figured out exactly how to make sure I’m reading across genres, but I’m thinking about it.  I don’t want to focus on one genre per month, because I’m afraid of getting burned out and getting bored, so maybe I’ll try and mix up genres each month to get a wide range of material every month…
5.) Provide excellent customer service.  I’m getting to know a lot of really great books and getting to know a lot of families in my community and want to ensure that I’m providing the best customer service I can on a consistent basis.  Which not only means, addressing families as they come past my desk, but stopping to ask if anyone needs helping finding things, and highlighting great books that I think kids will enjoy on the endcaps of the shelves and changing them regularly to keep it fun and exciting.
6.) POP.  My co-worker let me in on this little secret: the Power of Positivity.  I am not necessarily the most positive person naturally, so my professional and personal goal is to be more positive in my thinking!  This may be my hardest goal of all, but one that I think is vitally important to how happy I can be this year!
I could probably go on an on, but I want to make sure I stick to a few goals and do them well!  Here’s to a happy and healthy 2015!