Have you heard the buzz recently about reading goals? These days, it seems like everyone is talking about it—and that’s awesome, because having a reading goal is a great reading habit to cultivate. But what are reading goals? What can they do for you and why should you choose one? Here’s what you need to know!
What Are Reading Goals?
So what is a reading goal? Reading goals are targets you set for yourself related to reading life. What does this mean? There’s a huge range of things that could be reading goals, depending on your own personal goals for your reading!
Perhaps you want to try to read more. Well, there are reading habits for that! You could set a yearly target of X number of books to read, or you could set yourself a goal to read for X number of minutes each day. Or maybe you feel like you’ve got the reading thing on lock, but you want to be more organized with your reading life…so you could set a goal to track your reading or to organize your bookshelves. Whatever you want to do and set as your personal target, that’s the reading goal for you!
The purpose for setting reading goals varies person to person as well. Maybe you want to set reading goals so you can finally become a bookworm, maybe you want to set goals so you can start enjoying reading again, or maybe you want to set reading goals to help you kick your bad reading habits. There can be any number of reasons motivating you to set some reading goals for yourself, but no matter your reason and no matter the goal you end up choosing, you can be sure it will be a good thing for your reading life!
After all, when you challenge yourself and stick to it, you’re going to see results—both in your reading life and in the personal growth you experience along the way.
Why Are Reading Goals Important?
Why should you set reading goals? Reading goals are important to have because they can help you focus on your reading and give you something to work towards…and in turn, give you feelings of success and achievement when you reach your reading goals! The dopamine that comes from achieving your goals will in turn help spur you on to read more and continue reaching toward new goals.
Reading goals also make the process of reading more engaging, because now you know exactly what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. You have a reason, and you have something to look forward to. And you have a reason to keep reading even when life gets busy or you don’t feel like it.
There are so many benefits to reading, so giving yourself even more incentive to keep reading by setting goals for yourself can only be a good thing!
What Are the Best Reading Goals?
The best reading goals are ones that fit with your personal desires and interests, will stretch you a little, but will still be achieveable.
I also like to think of reading goals using the SMART acronym: make sure your goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. What does this mean? Essentially, a goal like “I will read X pages every day this year” is better than “I’ll read more” because it is specific (narrow and relates specifically to reading), measurable (you have a specific number goal that you can measure), achievable (assuming you set it at something you actually think you can do…like 50 pages a day instead of 500), relevant (you have a reason or a “why” you want to do this goal), and Time-Bound (for one year).
So with that in mind, there are still so many variations of reading goals you could choose. But if you need some ideas to get you started, here are a few of the best reading goals for adults to try:
- Read more books (be sure to make this one specific and measurable for your particular circumstances!)
- Read more genres
- Read more diverse books
- Read all the books on your TBR list
- Keep a reading journal
- And more ideas here!
Now that you know what reading goals are and have ideas for choosing a good reading goal, it’s time to get started with setting your own so you too can experience how having a reading goal will improve your reading life. If you need help getting started, check out this step-by-step guide to creating the perfect reading goal for you!
Struggling to reach your reading goal? Check out these tips for how to reach your reading goals!