My Board Game Goals of 2022

Happy New Year!

As we enter into another new year, it is customary to set goals for ourselves. Usually these goals consist of things such as losing weight, which is why fast food lobbies are strangely vacant and gyms are completely unable to achieve any semblance of social distancing in the month of January, or abandoning some bad habit. This, however, is a blog about board games, so my board game-related goals are those that I'm going to share here.

But first, I should reflect on the goal that I set last year. Yes, there was only one. I wanted my small blog to attain 500 views per month in its first full calendar year of existence. Believe it or not, that seemed like an almost impossible task. However, I am happy to report that with the exception of one month, May's 470, that I achieved this goal. As a matter of fact, the monthly average that was attained was over 850! That might not seem very impressive to most, but I am proud of that fact.

Now, as the year closed, I was hoping to find 1,500 new views in the month of December, and though I did get close, it looks like this goal will remain unachieved as I am still a little over 200 views away from it in the waning hours of the year. I am not discouraged (too much), and will use this as motivation to discover ways to meet all my board gaming goals- both with this blog and with gaming in general- this year.

Here are my board gaming goals for 2022!

> 12,000 views over the course of the year. This averages to 1,000 a month. I did have four months where I managed over 1,000 visitors, so while it's a stretch, it's also possible.

> Restart monthly game days/nights with my friends. I am fortunate enough to have a family that plays games with me weekly or more, but there are many games on my shelf that won't get played unless I am able to do it solo or with my good friends.

> Play at least 12 titles at least 12 times each. I want half of those to be games that aren't twenty minutes or so. I'm thinking that games such as Wingspan and Century: Golem Edition need to be on that list, but I'll let my wife help me with selecting some. I just don't want it to be filled with games like Silver and Gold and Second Chance. I enjoy those games, but I want to include longer experiences.

> Finish my Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion campaign with my brother. This would take care of one of my "twelve games twelve times." We will be on scenario eight the next time we play, and while I am sure we'll skip some of the scenarios due to branching paths, by the time we hit the twenty-fifth one, we should have hammered out twelve or more.

> I want there to be ZERO games on my shelf of shame by the end of the year. Caveat- Any game I receive in December will not count toward this. December is difficult to carve out time, particularly for learning and playing a new game.

Games I receive in December are sometimes difficult to learn and table.

> Play every board game I own in my collection at least once.

And that's not all of them!

> Support at least four creators on Etsy. There are so many wonderful artisans selling amazing component upgrades, trays, mats, coins, and even clever little devices such as the board clips I got for Christmas to help the game board lay flat. 

> Send a random stranger a gift. If you haven't already read my last post about the generosity found in the board gaming community, you can find it here. I want to be a part of that.

There are other goals that I could make, but I believe that these eight will be more than enough to try and achieve. Most of these are all about me, but I definitely want to try and be a blessing to others during my 2022. 

What are some of your goals of 2022- board game or otherwise?