woman illustration reading book with title performative reading goals

As we finish up the first month of 2025 people are still all fired up about their goals, though some are already seeing the cracks in the self they projected into 2025. Today I want to address the reading goal and it’s value for the quality of your life and the quality of your reading.

Reading Goals are Awesome (maybe)

I get the impetus for setting a reading goal, you want to read more and you figure that a specific number of books read is a good way to measure that and inspire yourself to read. If you use Goodreads to track your books then you’ll see the challenge badge on your profile inspiring you to read more and fill up the bar.

For years my reading goal was 52 books a year and I generally ended up between 70 and 80 books read. My highest year was 90 books and my lowest was in 2023 with 38 books read. Any of those numbers is enviable and means that I spent dedicated time reading regularly. After my low of 38 books I sprang back in 2024 with 48 books read, not quite at my long term goal of 52 but still a good number showing that I had spent more time dedicated to the craft of reading.

The reading goals of my friends often inspired me. I’d watch them make progress and then push myself to find a bit more reading time so that I could stay ahead, or catch up, or keep up. I found the yearly reading challenge motivating for years. I read more books because of the challenge.

Reading Goals are Bad (maybe)

One Reddit one user even confesses that the spectre of it shapes the choices they make when buying books. They can’t buy the lengthy tomes they actually want to read, because “the longer they spend on a book, the more stressed out they become” about falling behind on the challenge. – Reading Goals

There is also a dark side of the reading goal, beating yourself up over low numbers. My 2023 book number of 38 made me question myself as a “reader”. Looking back at my yearly reflection notes I question if I’m really someone who reads books…all because of a stupid number. I still read far more books than most, yet felt like a fraud when I talked about any book online because I wasn’t reading “enough”.

When you see your friend’s challenges you can end up chasing the numbers of others who have a very different life than you. One year I was chasing my friend and only looking back 10 years do I see that she had no kids while I had 3 kids under 6. She didn’t have a fitness practice while I was training to run 50km mountain races.

In short, she had far more time than I did and used it to read. I had no hope of keeping up with her reading numbers unless I stopped working or gave up some other important part of my life. Being a good father and husband is more important than the number of books I’ve read in a year.

If your goal is a book a week you also have to make choices about what you’ll read. You may balk at Brandon Sanderson’s latest book because it’s 1300 pages and instead pick a 600 page book because it’s better for your numbers. You may decide it’s not worth reading that hard non-fiction book because you’ll have to be purposeful about your notes to dig into it and that’s going to slow down your reading thus make it harder to achieve the arbitrary number you wrote down as your goal in the beginning of the year.

The most insidious aspect of a reading goal is the performative aspect of it for some. I say I read 52 books a year and they say they read 100 books a year. Even if we’re both talking about non-fiction books1, whose to say who got the most out of the books read. Skimming 100 books a year isn’t that useful if you want to take good notes on them. If we’re measuring depth then maybe 12 books a year will yield more understanding of the content.

My final issue with a specific number of books read, or any specific number in relation to your book consumption, is that there is an easy failure state. Say one year you read 12 books and then set a goal the next year of 24 books but in the end only read 20 books. In theory you failed at your goal because you didn’t hit your numbers. I wouldn’t count that year as a failure though because you read more than the year previous. This is why I like yearly themes where you can say you want to read “more” and then anything above 12 books is a win.

Book Number Goal Alternative

Since the goal isn’t to read a specific number of books, and recognising that long books will skew your numbers there are other options to help you read more. But first you need to remember what stage in life you’re at. If all your kids are little your time is limited and you need to give yourself a break because your time isn’t yours.

To start, you could set aside some time each day to read and make your goal 30 minutes of reading a day without distraction 5 days a week. I find this fairly easy to accomplish early in the morning before I start my work day, and even have time at the end of most days to read a bit more. I exclude weekends from this because my kids are home and that often means I don’t have time to sit and read 30 minutes without interruptions.

My two youngest are 8 and 11 so I see an end to this as my 14-year-old almost never emerges from her room. At some point the others will be in a similar stage and I’ll have time to read on the weekends again, but I’ll also miss these years when they needed me and wanted to spend time with me.

Another goal could be to read a specific number of pages in the day. 10 pages a day 5 days a week 52 weeks a year adds up to 2600 pages which is around 4 – 5 books depending on what you read. No it’s not the book a week you often seen thrown around, but it’s progress and progress is better than a goal you’ll beat yourself up over.

A quick personal note about reading goals: I’m not a fan of overly ambitious goals. There’s a growing trend of people trying to read one book every week. I admire the intention behind this (wanting to read more books), but reading at such a fast pace can have its downsides. Reading should be a mindful and present experience, allowing us to unplug. Reading goals can be a great motivator, but they shouldn’t be making our reading habit more stressful. – Supercharge Your Reading

I’m lucky working for myself at home. I have no commute and I have huge time freedom in my days, so if you’re going to set a yearly book reading goal don’t compare yourself to me. Take Maneetpaul’s advice above and set a goal that helps you focus on reading more while also leaving space to get into a story or do extra research on a topic. Reading books should be an enjoyable activity, even if the material you’re reading challenges you.

Finally you could let your reading fuel your writing. Read enough that you can write something weekly using the insights you get from your reading during the week. Sure track the books you read, but measure the output instead of the input of the creative process.

Personal Joy and Betterment

At the end of it all reading should be about finding joy in an activity, enjoying stories and making yourself a better person when you read challenging books. Books have an unending ability to let us see the life of others. I’ve never lived on an isolated island but I’ve read a powerful story about choosing that life in the face of addiction and recovery. I’m not a woman but I have a better understanding about income inequality starting in the teen years for women and how the choices in society minimize women and how terrible misogyny is.

Reading can take you places you are unable to inhabit on your own. So whatever your goal for the year, find joy in your reading and use it to enlarge your circle of moral concern.

  1. I read non-fiction and fiction in fairly equal measures ↩︎

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2 responses to “Performative Reading Goals”

  1. Natasha Avatar
    Natasha

    I love reading. I feel guilty doing it sometimes because there’s so much more to be done, and that’s the mindset I have to overcome, often.
    I follow an author’s blog that does a Good Book Thursday, and many of her followers list off the five books they read that week, every week it seems. I struggle to get through one, and have to remind myself that a lot of these people may be retired, have no kids/grown kids, or maybe don’t spend their work lunch breaks in the gym.
    I am making a conscious effort to reading more than doom-scrolling and watching less TV, which helps get through the books.

    1. Curtis McHale Avatar
      Curtis McHale

      I have the same struggle. In the summer there are lawns to be cut, things to be done around the house. Winter brings snow, and then there is the ever present laundry. My wife regularly reminds me that it’s not a bad thing to leave some tasks and just relax in the hammock and do nothing, or read.

      Doesn’t make it easier much of the time, but at least I know I have her support.

      I am lucky that with my youngest being 8 we are at least getting all the kids more involved in keeping the house clean and helping with laundry so I don’t have to do everything.