The transition into the new year shines with possibility and hope. The typical new year’s resolutions are usually pie-in-the-sky wishes that when you really dig deeper, ultimately require developing an entirely different personality.
For example, some of us aren’t morning people. Quit telling everyone that the key to being a successful person is to pop out of bed at 4 am with a smile on our faces and the Rocky soundtrack blaring through the house. Or my other favorite piece of useless advice, “Want to improve your mental health? Lower your stress.” What?! I could spend the whole year dismantling the toxic positivity of generic goal setting.
Let’s stay on theme, though, and focus on reading goals.
Reading challenges abound on the Internet. Some have fun elements to push you out of your typical book selection habits, like "Read a book translated from another language." These are great for expanding your perspective and reading tastes. Others set a total number of books to read by the end of the year. I’ve had years where I’ve pushed to reach higher and higher numbers. In 2022, I went for the gold with a goal of 200 books and made it to 210. Am I proud that I did it? As someone who bases their value as a human being on achievement, absolutely. (Don’t worry! I’m working on this with my therapist.) Did I enjoy reaching that goal? Well, I felt accomplished seeing that final number, but I spent the year fixated on how many books I was ahead or behind. It didn’t matter if I was necessarily enjoying the book I was reading. If I had already invested time to read it, then finishing it was more important than finding something else to keep that number ticking up. Looking back at the end of that year, I couldn’t say that a higher total of books-read improved my reading life.
Even before this super-charged book-count goal, I found it hard to not finish a book I’d spent any amount of time reading. After spending a year obsessed with completion, I was able to reflect and ask myself, why? Life is too short and my TBR list is too long to spend time reading something that doesn’t keep my interest.
Too many things on our to-do lists as adults require mustering mental and sometimes physical stamina to endure. If we can’t prioritize our wants in how we spend our leisure time, then what is the point? It still isn’t easy for me to stop reading a book in the middle, but I do it more often now when the story or writing is just not clicking. I know I’m going to read a lot of books so the last few years, including this year, I’ve set a quantity goal I know I’ll reach. By not chasing a number, the average star rating I give books I do finish has gone up. Increasing the quality of my reading life helps me contribute to the reading life of others by giving me more books I can confidently recommend.
So in 2025, I challenge you to stop reading those books that just aren’t grabbing you and keep seeking the ones that do.
