My Yearly Reading Goal Failed
Here is How I Will Go about Goal Setting Next Year
Every reading year is different.
Your reading goals change, life gets in the way, and that’s okay.
In 2023, I set my GoodReads reading challenge to 50 books.
I ended up reading 40 (and a few of them were cookbooks that I cheekily counted for the sake of my reading challenge — dirty move, I know). It still is a lot of books, of course. My challenge was not a complete flop.
In my mind, though, it doesn’t feel like much.
I don’t mean for this statement to sound arrogant . The reality is, I did not read too many highly impactful, memorable for life books last year. So when I try to reflect on those 40 read books of 2023, I can count on the fingers of my hands the books that really stood out.
Partially, it was to be expected: this year I chose to focus on non-fiction books. With non-fiction, if the book is bland, then it is really bland (this happens way more often than with fiction in my experience).
Life also got in the way: starting September, I started preparing for the international move (we have recently relocated from Germany to Scotland), so my free time was mostly dedicated to packing my life and sorting out paperwork.
Interestingly, based on my past GoodReads challenges, reading up to 40 books is my personal trend over the years (even though I ambitiously set the 50 goal every January — which I only managed to achieve last year):
All this is to say that there is no shame with not achieving reading (or other type) goals. The only important thing is to reflect on them:
Did I achieve what I wanted?
Yes, I read a lot of insightful books. Reading keeps being one of the most important habits that really enrich my life.
Do I feel bad about not getting to the original goal?
Not at all, see above. Ambitious goals are there to motivate — not to put you down if you don’t achieve them to the exact extent you had envisioned.
What is my reading intention for 2024?
2024 is the first year where I consistently write on Medium about my reading experience. So, the overall intention is to consistently publish ideas for every single written book. Writing and sharing my ideas is more of my focus this year, not just reading.
Yes, I still set my goal to 50 because why not try and aspire for a bigger number of (hopefully) great reads. But I will not beat myself up if I read less than that. Let’s give each other some slack.
I don’t publish book reviews without beer recommendations. This will continue in 2024, and the lychee & mango IPA Silk Road from my now local, Scottish brewery Brewdog was a lovely start of the year! Seriously one of the best flavored IPAs I have had in a while.
