It’s the first day of the year; and for all book enthusiasts, that typically means its time to set your new Goodreads goal for the year. It’s an exciting prospect, and most readers naturally want to top the goal they achieved last year. For me however, I am deciding to set my goal 10 books lower than in 2017.
Why am I lowering my Goodreads goal?
I consider myself a slow reader. Although, if I’m trapped away in a small confined space with no distractions, then I can power through a book quite nicely. But most of the time, the pressure to finish a book as fast as possible —so that I can move onto the next one— becomes too much for me. At the end of 2017, I found myself not really enjoying the books I was reading as much, mainly because I was worrying about how long they were taking me.
In 2018, my new approach is to set a low goal that is easily attainable, and then watch myself surpass it. All while enjoying every book I read to its full potential. I’ve told myself that 2018 is the year to really enjoy reading again. I don’t want to be choosing books because of the page count, or because the story’s lack of density. I just want to read books and enjoy them.
This is not a knock on my friends who love setting the bar high though. Every time I go on Goodreads and see friends climbing to 50 – 100 books read in a year and I envy them. Unfortunately, I’m not about that life. At least not right now.
In 2017 I managed to read 32 books, with my goal being 30. But even with going over my goal, I found myself not enjoying books like Night Circus as much as I should because I knew I had to finish reading it by a certain date (to start the next Redital feature). I suppose running a book blog doesn’t help matters. But with my goal of 20, I’m sure the year of reading ahead of me will be far more enjoyable than before.
