why I'm giving up on reading goals
It's time to make reading fun again
#WednesdayWisdom
“We're not waiting for perfect moments to do the things in 2023. We're doing them now. The things that make us abundantly happy. Stop waiting for perfect, it doesn't exist.” ~ Jasmine Morris
Morning Musings
I’ve been reading for as long as I can remember. I fell in love with The Berenstain Bears at a young age; graduated to Goosebumps in middle school and may or may not have read the entire Twilight series after college. I love reading. I love escaping to a different world, falling in love with characters and, as is the case with self-help books and memoirs, leaving inspired.
Reading was fun. Reading was a hobby. Reading was an escape. And then along came Goodreads. When I signed up for the book cataloging site years ago, I found the ability to set a reading goal rather compelling. After all, competition is my number-one strength (according to StrengthsFinder). I started with 20 books in 2017 and read 22. I set a goal to read 50 books in 2019 and ended up reading 51.
And then the pandemic happened. With the loss of my two-hour roundtrip commute, my reading also took a plunge. Not to mention living through unprecedented times, hello! I *only* read 39 books in 2020…and for some reason I felt ashamed?
It could be because I’m in a book club with even more ambitious readers (one of whom read 100+ books in one year!). It could be because I’ve always viewed reading as a more *noble* hobby compared to, say, watching movies and playing video games. But at the height of the pandemic I also found myself numbing out to the reality TV (Love Is Blind season 1, anyone? And I was just…tired.
Now as a new mom and first-time author my “free” time for reading is even more nonexistent and my reading “goals” have plummeted. I’ve since transitioned from Goodreads to StoryGraph (which is Black woman-owned, btw!), but I’ve given up reading goals. According to my 2022 Reading Wrap-Up, I read a measly 16 books last year. But I don’t feel bad about it.
Reading is one of my last true hobbies. And, like many millennials, I’d found a way to monetize it by doing author Q&As when I was freelancing for various publications. But not everything needs to be tracked. Not everything needs to be a goal. Some things can just be. So that’s what I’m choosing for myself for 2023: to make reading fun again.
What are you leaving behind in 2022? Let me know in the comments!
Love,
L’Oreal
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If you subscribe to The New York Times, you may have noticed a familiar name in Jessica Grose’s parenting newsletter last week: mine! In it, she shouted out my Fortune article about whether Black women leaders could be as messy as Sam Bankman-Fried and Elon Musk. Spoiler alert: the answer is a resounding HELL NAH!
I also wrote some other articles you may like:
People-pleasing could be hurting your health. How to stop now and take charge of your life.
How healthy is your relationship? Do an annual review before the end of the year to find out
4 ways to build healthy habits—and stick to them—in the New Year
Links I Love
Archiving Your Teen Self (): If you've been following my own archiving of middle and high school mementos, then you'll understand why this post by
is particularly timely. How many *NSYNC notebooks does one girl need?youtube vlogger burnout and the realities of social media influencing as a long-term career (The Anuliverse)
Is Bella Hadid's Style Plus-Size Friendly? I Dressed Up Like Her for a Week to Find Out (Teen Vogue)
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I'm so glad you're doing this! Reading shouldn't be stressful. Completely the opposite. I think the average American reads about 12 books a year anyway, so you're still a super reader! I've been intrigued by Story Graph but am so used to Goodreads. There's a way to transfer over all your data, though, right?
I love this so much! I like to track on story graph for stats that aren't the number of books I read in a year. I set my original story graph goal to one book and my goal is just to read and see what happens too :)