Why I like to fail the GoodReads reading challenge!

 

Confession time, I have failed the Goodreads Reading Challenge every year since I started in forever ago. Also, I am ok with this. Really OK with this. 

What is the Goodreads reading challenge? It's a year-long reading goals tracker that Goodreads encourages. If you aren't on Goodreads, you can join here as well. 

So the deal is, if I gave myself reasonable reading goals, I could meet them—exceed them even—and let me tell you that my former G&T heart would like to see those sorts of things checked off promptly and ahead of schedule. 

That's the whole deal. Reading isn't a chore, not anymore. This isn't misery in paperback on loan from the ninth-grade English department with an alarmingly specific essay due at the end of it. I am choosing to read these books, and reading is a joy. I don't want just to read ten books or twenty, or whatever rando-number. I am confident in my ability to get through at a comfortable pace. I want to get through as many as I can. My TBR pile is very likely longer than the rest of my life as it stands already, and it gets longer every time I dare to get on the internets—and between you and me, because I am supposed to be editing—is all the time. 

Of course, the only problem with that line of thinking is that I don't know what that number is. So I shoot high to motivate myself. 

The thing is, I am a very good little author girl this time of year. I sit down. I plan all my projects out for two years. My planner? Color-coded. My To-Do-List? Optimized. The next month, I will take my trusty crowbar and find a way to make a new project fit. Then I will do the same the next month, and very likely the month after that. 

Then I will tell myself to be good.

I won't be good. 

So with my reading, I want to be able to read as much as possible without sacrificing sleep or sanity—of course, because I am bad, I will probably do both of those things. However, I will still likely fail the challenge again, and I will still be ok with it, even if I do like that super high goal pulling me along.