A first quarter check-in with my Goodreads "reading threshold" goal.
Spoiler alert: It's not going great, but I am still winning.
Happy Independent Bookstore Day weekend! This afternoon I am heading to Italy, where every bookstore is independent — and you know I will visiting as many as I can! Please visit your local indies for me on Saturday.
Today we are revisiting reading goals.
At the end of last year I declared that in 2024 I would be reducing my Goodreads reading goal. Rather than continuing to raise my goal year after year like I’ve mostly done since joining Goodreads in 2013, I decided I would lower my reading goal — and try not to surpass it.
After seeing a few other declarations about reading goals as we entered the new year, I came across a new way of expressing my goal: a reading threshold. As in, “I will read between X and Y books”, rather than my usual goal of a specific number, which I always hit and typically continue past.
Why did I want to lower my reading goal? Isn’t that counterproductive, particularly for someone who writes a newsletter about books?
No.
I lowered my reading goal because I want to take my time with books. I want to read my Poets & Writers magazine; the lit mags I picked up at a writing conference; books in Italian that take me forever to get through. And when I’m always pursuing a reading goal as lofty (to me) as 50 books per year, it’s harder to grab the 600-page book that’s been sitting on my shelf, begging to be read, than the 250-page pacy read that’s enjoyable but doesn’t align with my intentions and desires.
Because Goodreads doesn’t allow for a threshold goal like “between 45 and 50 books,” I dropped my goal from last year’s 52 down to 45, and I am hoping to not surpass 50. (But if I do, that’s okay too. The point is the mindset change.)
How am I doing so far this year? Well, I am eight books ahead of schedule. So, not great.
But I’ve been doing the things that I want to do, which is what compelled me to create the threshold in the first place. I am leisurely flipping through The New York Times Book Review on Sunday mornings. I started reading Harry Potter in Italian in January and I’m still working on it, a couple of pages per night. Some evenings after I get the kids to bed I will even spend some time writing instead of reading (or rather, before reading). I never used to do that. I am a changed woman!
Maybe I shouldn’t be so attached to my Goodreads goal that I need to create a threshold in order to feel free to do the things I want to. But maybe the only thing that matters is that I am reading what I want, when I want. And that matters to me a great deal.
As I check in after a quarter of the year has passed and I see that I’m a little ahead of schedule, I see everything else I am doing right, and I call that a win.
How about you — Are you winning with your reading goal this year? Are you pivoting and changing your goals?
What I’m reading: Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt
Love,
Words on Words is a free newsletter about books that hits inboxes on Thursdays. Subscription upgrades exist so readers can support my work if they feel compelled, but these weekly essays are free.
Note: When you purchase books through my links, you support Words on Words (I get credits for more books!) and an indie bookstore of your choice at no additional cost to you.