It is officially that time of the year where we get to set up our challenges for the next twelve months. One big recurring goal of mine is to read more. For the past few years, I have chosen a certain number of books to read throughout the year and I have reached that goal by the 31st December. I decided I would share this year’s goals with you. So, here is my 2025 reading challenge!
Why set a reading goal?
I love a challenge. I also love having a tangible goal to work towards. So for me, choosing how many books I want to read in a year is really motivating. I find that it makes me want to read more and therefore spend less time on social media.
Setting a goal can be a way for you to easily track progress which can increase motivation. It also means that you can personalise your goal to help you improve on or evolve certain aspects of reading. For example, you could choose to read 10 non-fiction books in 2025 or try 5 audio-books.
It equally can be a constantly growing goal depending on how much progress you make. One year, my goal was to read 20 books but I hit that quite early on and so I increased my goal to 25. At the end of the year, I was even happier with my achievement because I proved to myself that I could commit to something. And in the end I achieved my goal twice!
I like to share my goal with friends on Goodreads, for example. This helps me stay accountable because they can see how many books I’ve read compared with my goal. My friends can also interact on my posts and reviews which is fun and their own reading lists inspire mine.
My 2025 Reading Challenge
For 2025, I have decided to set my reading challenge to 30 books.
I had the same goal for 2024 and I managed to reach it fairly easily. Although, my 30th book was finished only a couple of days before the 31st December!
30 books last year was already an increase of my previous goals in 2022 and 2023. Therefore, in 2025 I secretly would like to be able to aim more towards 35 books.
However, this year is going to be full of big life changes for me so I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself. I love reading and find it relaxing but I also have a busy life. Sometimes, I’m simply too tired to pick up a book or I don’t have time to read more than a couple of pages every few days.
I tend to either read a whole book in a day or two or in two to three months. There doesn’t seem to be much in-between. But either way, I am fully committed to reaching my goal this year.
How to make reading easier
There are a couple of things that I do now to make reading easier and more enjoyable.
Firstly, I bought a Kindle. I never thought that I would buy one since I love physical books too much. But buying a Kindle has been the best decision ever. I am now able to read on all forms of public transport wherever I’m going because I can fit my Kindle in my small handbag.
Secondly, I only choose books that I want to read. I did a degree in English Literature and so I have been forced to read many books that I didn’t want to read for the purpose of my studies. It’s so demotivating and frustrating when you don’t enjoy a book. I now only read things that appeal to me or interest me.
Thirdly, I try to reach for a book when I’m bored rather than my phone. I tend to automatically reach for social media when I’ve got nothing to do which is a bad habit to have. Part of my 2025 goals is also to change some of my habits. So reading a page or two when bored rather than scrolling TikTok is a better alternative.
Lastly, I don’t pressurise myself to read really big, long books. I count short books or even poetry books as part of my reading count. Whether it be non-fiction, fiction, or educational, reading is reading to me and so I count it towards my goal.
I’m actually really excited to get reading this year. My aim is to try and read all of the books I’ve had on my bookshelf for ages that I’ve never got round to reading.
I’d also like to tackle some of my TBR list as it’s getting quite long now!
I hope to be able to do a follow-up post to this one at the end of 2025 to update you all on my 2025 Reading Challenge.
Let me know in the comments what your favourite book of 2024 was and why! And let me know what your reading challenge is for 2025 if you have one.