Why I Reduced My 2022 Reading Goal

After reading 161 books in 2021, I thought 130 would be easy. Ten weeks into the year, I was three books behind schedule and starting to stress about not reaching my goal.

So I changed the goal from 130 to 100.

That’s the great part about self-imposed goals – you can change them for any reason. You must weigh the desire to achieve those goals against the work it will take to achieve them. Since there’s no life-enhancing benefit to reading 130 books in a calendar year, it wasn’t worth the stress or the other moments I felt I was missing as life slowly returns to normal following a two-year pandemic.

One of my goals for 2022 is to read more fiction. I am happily working toward that, however, I’ve realized one fiction book can be two to three times as long as a typical non-fiction book. I’m reading just as much, but fewer books. I’ll be interested to see how my “words read” changes at the end of the year. I predict it increases.

At the end of the day, your reading challenge is for you. It’s not a competition with your friends or family. Enjoy the process. Read what makes you happy. That’s all that matters.