Liz Armbrecht

A quick accountability update: I don’t know what happened, but I’ve actually been accomplishing the things I’ve set out to do in 2026 so far. I can’t tell you how or why. I don’t know how much longer it’ll last. But I’m enjoying the hell out of it while it does!

The Book Challenge

Out of the 224 books I own, I’ve read six (one title is missing from my slides), bringing my unread books down from 140 to 134. That’s a decrease from 62.5% unread to 59.8% unread. I’m on my way to my 25%!

I also went to a bookstore and didn’t by anything, cross my heart. I even picked out something for a friend, and made my husband take it to the counter. This is Serious.

The Four C’s

At the end of January, I declared four C’s to theme my year around: Coziness, Contentment, Creativity, and Comfort. Here’s how they’re going:

Coziness

One of the whimsical delights in my Coziness category was to teach a new game to someone, and I taught Twilight Imperium to friends last weekend. And one of them won! Next up, I have to learn a new game myself.

Contentment

I’ve been trying to cultivate more whitespace and boredom in my life to encourage Contentment. Ultimately, I’d like to be on my phone less. But to start some good habits, I’ve been replacing every time I get the urge to scroll Instagram with Pinterest instead. A friend showed me that you can turn off the AI algorithm and, while you’ll still get ads, it’s a far less addicting experience. I usually get bored and then turn it off rather than lose hours to scrolling!

Creativity

I’ve engaged with a writing group that is phenomenal. With these new accountability buddies, I wrote a story in four days, something I haven’t done since college. It’s an amazing feeling. And, I’ve developed my first two personal curriculums for the year with the goal of expanding my general knowledge and doing more writing about reading. I’m going to do more of that on my new substack, so follow along there!

Comfort

I have a stress management system in place, and I think that’s one of the main reasons I’ve felt so good over the last six weeks. I want to call it “foolproof” at this point, but I don’t want to get cocky—that’s when things get rocky, after all. It’s enough that I’m getting plenty of sleep and prioritizing my mental wellness in a way I truly have never done before, for now.

So far so good! Even just writing all these things out made me feel accomplished. We shall see what the next weeks hold!