Every year, Goodreads hosts a reading challenge, and since 2015, I have participated (and completed) my challenge. When you add a new baby to the mix, and a host of new appointments and chores, reading time gets harder and harder to come by… and the reading challenge gets harder and harder to complete.
What’s a (determined) girl to do to complete the challenge? Magically adding more time to each day isn’t likely to happen any time soon… although if you know how, please let me know!
Reading Challenge Goals
Enter: resetting my reading goal to something more realistic.
For those of you who are mentally spazzing, thinking how could I possibly reduce the number of books… remember, the number is a GOAL. I keep it above the number of books I’ve already read, so it remains challenging, but once I know how the year has shaped out a bit, it makes actually completing that goal a more doable task.
Pssst! If life has made reading more difficult than usual in recent days, see Reintroducing a Reading Habit for ideas on reading more, even with limited time. It’s my plan to start reading again, even with a new baby (and a second baby on the way)!
Is it Cheating?
Everyone tends to play by their own rules, and I would say no, it’s not cheating.. unless you reduce the number to at or below what you have already finished reading.
If reducing the reading challenge number were cheating, why would we be offered the ability to change our goal? Regardless, it is definitely a question of personal standards – and an ability to estimate how timing during the year will go!
If you participate in the Goodreads challenge, do you ever change or reduce your goal? Do you consider it cheating? Let me know in the comments below!
Christian, wife, “hybrid” mama, I run the site All Behind A Smile to help others like me.
[…] Curious about how and why I *might* reduce my Goodreads reading goal? I wrote an article about it! Find it at Reducing my Reading Challenge. […]