This is one of my favorite topics. I love to set reading goals, and I usually set a few each year. It has taken me a while to get comfortable about sometimes not meeting a goal and not adjusting my goal if I exceed it. I make more progress when I have goals and I celebrate all progress, not just the finish line. When I don't meet my goal I take some time to think about what obstacles got in my way and adjust for next year, either adjusting my goal or making a plan to remove obstacles.

I'm recently retired and I have a lot more time to read these days. Just to keep things in perspective, my # of books per year goals were not met in either 2019 (24) or 2020 (12) for 2 very different reasons, even though I thought I set very easy goals.

This year I set a big # of books to read, I wasn't sure if I'd get there, and I was ok with not reaching it but I did, I read my 100th book in August. I didn't adjust my goal, I just kept logging books. I set another goal to help me read other genres that I don't usually put on my reading list. I selected 6 fiction and 6 nonfiction genres with the goal to read 2 books from each genre. I'll start my final book to complete this goal next week. In the spirit of exploring other genres, I also joined a book club on GoodReads that has a Genre of the Month Challenge, each month we get a new genre and 4 challenges to find books that will complete them. They need to be read in that month to count, and I've completed all 4 challenges this whole year.

I'm starting a new long-term reading goal. I want to explore authors from around the world, so my goal is to read books by authors from 195 countries. I plan to read nonfiction and fiction from each country, so 390 books will take me a few years.

Also for next year, I'm setting a goal to read or purge the last 20+ books I brought with me when we moved 3 years ago and to finish 3 series that I've been working my way through. I will likely keep my 100 books for the year goal and just hope I exceed it again.

There are lots of goals you can choose that aren't just how many books you can get through each year. I don't ever want to feel like I'm rushing through books or selecting books based on how quickly I can read them. Think about what you really want out of reading books and set your goals to reflect that.