There’s been an unusual amount of banter around the house this year about our annual reading goals.
Last year I all-caps FAILED at my goal of reading 50 books, and when I said I was going to aim the same in 2014, the Dude spent the next seven days trying to wrap his mind around the idiocy.
He pointed out how I’d never even come close to 50 books in a year (true) and how during only two months of 2013 was I able to finish a book a week (also true) and, in a king-of-the-castle sort of way declared that meeting a goal must not matter at all to me, because clearly I’m not going to read 50 books this year (2014 promises to be a doozie) and that I should just make the goal 100 instead if there was no point in meeting it.
Uhhh… Okay.
But goals for me are really more like aims. Achieving them is neither motivating nor rewarding, so I’ve stopped bothering to pretend like it is. But I’ve found the process of considering where I want to go and deciding a direction I think might take me there to be worth it, so I set them.
Several friends of mine don’t make reading goals because they’ll read a bazillion books just by following their inclinations. And bravo to them for realizing the pointlessness of setting a goal for something you’d do anyway. But reading-focus eludes me, and as long as it does, I’ll be setting reading goals/aims. I’d like to meet them, but I won’t be sobbing out back if I don’t. Here they are for 2014.
2014’s Reading Aims/Goals
In total: 50 books. Fail by trying, right? Finishing a book each week keeps me reading and is much easier to keep track of from week to week.
Any way I get to 50 will count, be it Anna Kerinina or pdf ebooks, audiobooks or Kindle books, but I’m adding a few sub-aims to help me read a little more specifically. The sub-aims:
- Re-read the Harry Potters.
- Re-read three other non-fiction books (Re-reading is something I’d like to grow in)
- Read 6 soul-nurturing books
- Tackle 3 nagging books (books that have been on my list for way too long).
- Do 2 short sprints where I read 3+ titles within a single theme (be it a topic, author, or other similiartiy)
Depending on the overlap-of-categories, if I complete the above I’ll still have room for 25 read-whatever-I-wants. Score.
Do you have a reading goal for 2014? Dish!
(And in case you’re looking for help getting started, How to Set and Keep Annual Reading Goals.)
I have been consitently hitting my reading goals (via Goodreads) each year, some with more trouble than others, but I decided this year to go with the same number as last year, plus 1. So essentially it worked out to go with the number that corresponds with the year, plus one. So, 2014 = 14 books +1 = 15 books is my goal. Then, next year it will be 15 +1 = 16 books. Yeah, simple math is perhaps a strong point for me 😉 Really though, I like the ease of remembering, and the +1 just makes it a little less easy to get, which I like the (small) challenge.
Kudos to you on tacking the nagging books. I waiver back and forth on those boogers…part of me HATES quitting a book, but part of me (more recently) has decided life’s too short to make myself read books I’m not enjoying. Word.
(pun intended)