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My 2019 Reading “Goals”

I know I’m super late to this, BUT I’d still like to share my thoughts on my reading “goals“ for this year, even if it’s the end of January already. Also, I had to break my few weeks long hiatus on my blog somehow, and what better post is there to do that than this?

If you‘re an observant reader, you might have noticed that I put “goals” in quotation marks in the title. And why is this, you might wonder? Well, I need to reach back a bit to explain this. I created my blog in May of last year, and joined Twitter soon after. So this end of the old year / start of the new year was the first time I experienced the turn of the year in the reading community online, and to be honest, it made feel a bit self-conscious.

So many other book bloggers have set themselves goals in numbers – which, apparently, is a common thing to do in the reading world. And don’t get me wrong, please, I’m not new to reading at all – reading has been a huge part of my life ever since I can remember, and I couldn’t imagine a life without books. After all, I started my blog because of this. And let me tell you something else: I LOVE THE BOOK COMMUNITY ON TWITTER! I’ve made so many great friends and met so many nice people. But belonging to one group doesn’t necessarily mean I have to do everything like everyone else does, right? After all, there isn’t a right or wrong way to do it, right? So many times of asking for affirmation, lol. But this time though, I am sure I know the answer.

I’ve seen so many people set their reading goals to 100, 150 or even more books, and I find these numbers very impressive. But what if I don’t make it? What if I stay way below the number I have set for myself? Or, maybe worst of all, what if I put so much pressure on myself in order to reach my goal that I don’t enjoy reading anymore? These and many more thoughts have occured to me during the last weeks of 2018, which is why I decided against setting a number of books as a goal for me to read in 2019.

I want to read books because I love it, like I always used to. In the second half of 2018, some things happened that made me enjoy reading less, and maybe I’ll write a post about that soon. But for now I just want to read because I love reading, and start enjoy every minute of it again. And if this means I read only two books a month, then so be it. Maybe I’ll read 10, or 50 books in 2019, or 100, I don’t know. By the end of the year, I just want to be able to say that I loved what I did, and even though I might read some books that I don’t enjoy as much as others (that is part of reading too), that is totally fine.

What do you think? Is it ok that I didn’t set myself a proper reading goal this year?

Let me know in the comments! And also, let me know if you did set yourself a goal, I’m very curious!

Thanks for reading!

xoxo

Noly

10 thoughts on “My 2019 Reading “Goals”

  1. Not setting a “proper reading goal” is absolutely fine! You do what works for you. Sometimes I’m not sure all the hype is worth it. This year I set myself goals, reading and otherwise. Apparently, it’s the year of the goal for me, haha! But my most important goal is for 7 months or more, my average rating is 4.0 stars or higher. Basically, to help me focus on enjoying reading which is the most important thing.

    1. Thanks so much for your reply! That sounds lovely! I think you’re right, this works best for me at the moment, so I gotta try it this way… 🙂

  2. You don’t need to read a certain amount of books. Enjoy what you read, enjoy talking about what you’ve read, enjoy the community. quality of conversations over quantity of books!

    1. Thanks so much, I feel so much better now, much more understood! I love the reading / book blogger community 🙂

  3. Loved this post and it’s super relevant to me! I never set a reading goal in terms of the number of books I want to read, I just let it happen naturally and whether I read 15 or 50 – I’m just after a memorable reading experience. I hope you have a brilliant year full of amazing books, however many that ends up being. Thanks for sharing!

    1. Thanks so much for your comment! Love the wording “memorable reading experience” – you’re so right – this is what we should chase with our reads! Absolutely agree!

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