I had a goal. I knew it would be a stretch, but that was part of the motivation. I wanted to read 100 books in a year. That is close to 2 books a week. Could it be done? Yes, others have done it before. But I did not just want to read to read, I wanted to read to learn.
So on Jan. 1st I was off. I had about four books in my possession that I started to read. I read all four of them together. I would read a few chapters in one, and then a few chapters in another. This way I would try to mix it up a bit.
The types of books I was reading ranged from history to how to. I did not have any fictional works. Nor did I want to have any fictional books. I wanted to learn. Some would think, that I should pick books with minimal pages, that way I could rack up the count. I thought of that but in the end my main goal is to learn. So I did not pick books based on size, I picked them based on what I wanted to learn.
So for the first two months of the year I was on a record breaking pace. I was already down 10 books and had 10 months to go. I was thinking, was 100 too small of a goal. I was feeling good. Then April hit. I do not know if it was the books that I had, both were over 300 pages or did I hit the reading wall. I do not know what it was to this day, I just know that my 5 books a month average got cut in half in April. Then in May I did not do much to increase it. Once again just 2 books.
What happened to my pace, what happened to my motivation? I would ask myself. I decided to take a break from reading for a few days to look at what the problem was. What I found out it, and I can see this happening with a lot of people when they are going after a goal. I go burned out. Yes, less than 6 months into my journey, my mind was spent.
I knew, if I wanted to complete the journey and still chase the goal I would need to get reenergized. So what did I do? I started to look back at the why. Why was I reading so many books, was the goal based on the sheer number of books, no the goal was to learn, and to learn as much as possible.
I had a new focus, I started to tear through the books again. I was back to a 4 books a month pace. Knowing that I would not hit my goal of 100. I was still ok with it.
Why was I not bothered by not hitting my goal? In the end it was the redirecting of my focus, the goal was not the 100 books in a year, although it looked good on paper. The real goal was to learn as much in a year as I could. The vehicle to do so, in my mind, was through books. The more books, the more learning.
So the year came to an end, how many books did I read? Did I hit my goal? Short answer, no I missed the goal by over half, I ended up reading 45 books. Only 45% of my goal. Yes I was upset that I did not hit my goal, but I soon realized that the average person only reads 1 book a year, so I kicked the average big time. I also learned a lot.
So I created the habit of reading more, so next year my goal was to beat lasts year reading numbers. What I have found to be one of the hardest things to do is to figure out what to read next. Good thing there are plenty of resources, the library, Amazon, and book clubs.
I am looking forward to the end of the year to see how many books I have read, and to set the goal for next year.