As always, a new year brings on new hopes and wishes, and an abundance of New Year resolutions. This year is no different, except that I’ve decided to challenge myself as far as reading is concerned. As I’ve said a few times before, I did not read as much as I wanted to last year (especially things that weren’t course related). I’m going to make up for this failure by branching out of my usual go-to crime/thriller novels and pick new genres of books every month. So, I thought I’d share how I’m hoping to achieve this goal. This post is not only a guide on how to challenge your reading self but, if you’re someone who doesn’t read at all, I want to show how you can make reading become a more enjoyable habit in 2020.
Motivation
If you’re someone who doesn’t enjoy reading, then motivation is probably the most important thing if reading more is part of your resolution. My tool for this is to download an app such as Goodreads. At the start of every year, you can join the Goodreads Reading Challenge, where you select your own goal of how many books you want to read. You can update each book you read, and the challenge tracker will show how much progress you’ve made. Your goal can be as big or small as you want it to be – this year I’ve set my goal to 20 books. This doesn’t seem like much, but because I’m trying to branch out of my reading comfort zone, I think it might be harder than I initially thought.
You can also join different online book clubs on Goodreads. This might be especially helpful if you’re someone who likes discussing and reviewing books with others, or simply need the motivation of other people to read.
What to read?
Now that you’ve got the motivation, picking what books to read can come as another challenge, particularly as there are so many incredible books that are published each year. Goodreads is another great tool for narrowing down this search, as it gives you recommendations based on what you’ve read in the past. If that’s still too much choice for you, then I’d recommend signing up to Penguin’s Reading Challenge.* All you have to do is provide an email address, and answer a question on what you want to achieve out of this challenge (and it’s free!). They’ll then send you monthly book recommendations straight to your email, so no need to search through hundreds of websites and reviews. Easy! I’ve just signed up, and I’m looking forward to seeing what they suggest.
Don’t force it…
Of course, these resolutions are meant to be challenging, but that doesn’t mean you have to force yourself to complete them. Reading, in particular, is meant to be an enjoyable process, so if you’re reading a book that you really just can’t get into, then stop reading it. Author Wendy Wood advised that if you're 50 pages in and still not gripped, then, by all means, drop it.** Finding a different book to read will not only improve your motivation, but it will help to keep reading an enjoyable process.
These are the main things I will be following to make 2020 a great year of reading and learning. These points might seem obvious, and they probably are, but I’ve found them extremely helpful so far. If one of your resolutions is to read more, or if you have any other tips on how to challenge yourself this year (does not even have to be book-related), feel free to share them!
*Sign up to the Penguin Reading Challenge here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2020/the-penguin-reading-challenge.html
**Wendy Wood quoted in this blog post https://www.panmacmillan.com/blogs/lifestyle-wellbeing/how-to-read-more-wendy-wood