How Goodreads Reading Challenges Keep Me On Track
I don't know about you, but setting a Goodreads Reading Challenge is tough for me. One year, I set it to 12 and easily sailed past that. The next, I upped it to 25 and felt pressured the entire year to reach my goal.
“You’re 2 books behind schedule,” the progress indicator on the Goodreads Home page noted whenever I logged in—as if my life wasn’t stressful enough already.
I might as well add that dismal statistic to the list:
- You’re 10 pounds above goal weight.
- Your department is over-budget.
- The average bounce rate for your website is above 70%, which is officially classified as ‘disappointing’.
Good grief, who wouldn’t want to just turn on Netflix and binge for the next twenty years?
I have friends on Goodreads who are reading machines. They must be professionals or something. One woman had a Reading Challenge of 150 books, and she sailed past that with more than 200 before the year ended. She wasn’t alone with this kind of goal and outcome either. Compared to those readers, I felt like a total failure with my measley 25-book goal.
The thing is—I love reading. When I go on vacation, I take at least 4 novels and devour all of them, often while in transit. It’s not unusual to arrive at my destination with half of my books already consumed. Reading is a joy, not a chore. It’s a guilty pleasure. If anything, I put it off until all my other must-do activities are done for the day, so that by the time I finally sit down to read, I often fall asleep within 10 pages.
So how does a Goodreads Reading Challenge help me stay on track?
1. Competition
I’m a competitive person. If I set a goal, I’ll pour everything into achieving it. This hyper-drive competitive force is a recurring theme in the characters of my own YA novels. A girl decides she wants to be Valedictorian of her class, and nothing will stop her. A girl decides she’s going to lose weight for the prom, and nothing will stop her. A girl decides she has to attend MIT, and nothing will stop her—including an unplanned pregnancy.
If my Goodreads friends can meet their goals of reading 150 books in a year, I can meet my modest challenge of 25. Nothing will stop me. I will not sleep until the work is done. Please pass the caffeine.
2. Visual progress reminder
I’ve made a habit to check Goodreads daily to update progress on my book, so the Reading Challenge progress indicator is right there for me to see. Either I’m “on track” or behind schedule. When I’m racing against a clock, there’s nothing like a stopwatch to kick me into high gear.
The Reading Challenge progress indicator lets me know every day whether I’m still on target to meet my goal—or I’m behind.
3. Congratulations for Success
To motivate me further, when someone else meets their goal, Goodreads posts a banner in my feed so I can celebrate with them.
I celebrate with Jennifer and am simultaneously humiliated by my pittiful progress on 25 books—which I still have not yet completed.
Plus, Goodreads celebrates everyone. Dave isn’t even my friend, but Goodreads is kind enough to show me when HE is done.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m happy for Dave. Yeah Dave, congratulations! He’s amazing. But his celebration only serves to remind me that I’m still not at goal—and the clock is ticking down to the end of the year.
I need to pick up the pace.
If I wasn’t overwhelmed for being behind in my Reading Challenge before, when I start seeing other people complete Reading Challenges with 5 times more books, I definitely start feeling the heat to complete my own goal.
Parting Thoughts
While setting a reading goal and tracking progress on Goodreads is great, I also see how the Reading Challenge can distort something lovely into a thing of pain. Reading is meant to be a joy to be savored, not a checklist to be rushed and forgotten. Reading is that pleasure best enjoyed on a rainy afternoon with a warm cup of tea or on a beach lounge chair with a cool drink. A good book is as wonderful the second or third time time through as it was on the first.
I never want the challenge to create such anxiety that I dread reading; a 150 book challenge would do that to me. In fact, my challenge for next year will be fewer books.
I’m already excited about my reading list for this year. There are several titles I’m eager to pick up, and this means a trip to the bookstore to wander the shelves for an hour or so—another guilty pleasure of mine.
What about you? What are your goals for next year’s Reading Challenge? Are you going to cover the classics or explore some new authors?
“You’re 2 books behind schedule,” the progress indicator on the Goodreads Home page noted whenever I logged in—as if my life wasn’t stressful enough already.
I might as well add that dismal statistic to the list:
- You’re 10 pounds above goal weight.
- Your department is over-budget.
- The average bounce rate for your website is above 70%, which is officially classified as ‘disappointing’.
Good grief, who wouldn’t want to just turn on Netflix and binge for the next twenty years?
I have friends on Goodreads who are reading machines. They must be professionals or something. One woman had a Reading Challenge of 150 books, and she sailed past that with more than 200 before the year ended. She wasn’t alone with this kind of goal and outcome either. Compared to those readers, I felt like a total failure with my measley 25-book goal.
The thing is—I love reading. When I go on vacation, I take at least 4 novels and devour all of them, often while in transit. It’s not unusual to arrive at my destination with half of my books already consumed. Reading is a joy, not a chore. It’s a guilty pleasure. If anything, I put it off until all my other must-do activities are done for the day, so that by the time I finally sit down to read, I often fall asleep within 10 pages.
So how does a Goodreads Reading Challenge help me stay on track?
1. Competition
I’m a competitive person. If I set a goal, I’ll pour everything into achieving it. This hyper-drive competitive force is a recurring theme in the characters of my own YA novels. A girl decides she wants to be Valedictorian of her class, and nothing will stop her. A girl decides she’s going to lose weight for the prom, and nothing will stop her. A girl decides she has to attend MIT, and nothing will stop her—including an unplanned pregnancy.
If my Goodreads friends can meet their goals of reading 150 books in a year, I can meet my modest challenge of 25. Nothing will stop me. I will not sleep until the work is done. Please pass the caffeine.
2. Visual progress reminder
I’ve made a habit to check Goodreads daily to update progress on my book, so the Reading Challenge progress indicator is right there for me to see. Either I’m “on track” or behind schedule. When I’m racing against a clock, there’s nothing like a stopwatch to kick me into high gear.
The Reading Challenge progress indicator lets me know every day whether I’m still on target to meet my goal—or I’m behind.
3. Congratulations for Success
To motivate me further, when someone else meets their goal, Goodreads posts a banner in my feed so I can celebrate with them.
I celebrate with Jennifer and am simultaneously humiliated by my pittiful progress on 25 books—which I still have not yet completed.
Plus, Goodreads celebrates everyone. Dave isn’t even my friend, but Goodreads is kind enough to show me when HE is done.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m happy for Dave. Yeah Dave, congratulations! He’s amazing. But his celebration only serves to remind me that I’m still not at goal—and the clock is ticking down to the end of the year.
I need to pick up the pace.
If I wasn’t overwhelmed for being behind in my Reading Challenge before, when I start seeing other people complete Reading Challenges with 5 times more books, I definitely start feeling the heat to complete my own goal.
Parting Thoughts
While setting a reading goal and tracking progress on Goodreads is great, I also see how the Reading Challenge can distort something lovely into a thing of pain. Reading is meant to be a joy to be savored, not a checklist to be rushed and forgotten. Reading is that pleasure best enjoyed on a rainy afternoon with a warm cup of tea or on a beach lounge chair with a cool drink. A good book is as wonderful the second or third time time through as it was on the first.
I never want the challenge to create such anxiety that I dread reading; a 150 book challenge would do that to me. In fact, my challenge for next year will be fewer books.
I’m already excited about my reading list for this year. There are several titles I’m eager to pick up, and this means a trip to the bookstore to wander the shelves for an hour or so—another guilty pleasure of mine.
What about you? What are your goals for next year’s Reading Challenge? Are you going to cover the classics or explore some new authors?
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