How To Stick To Your Reading Goals For 2023

"If you’re looking to make a wholesome, resolving to read more is a good move to make in 2023.

Not only does it broaden your mind, but it’s also good for your body. Research has found that reading not only strengthens pathways in your brain, it also lowers blood pressure, heart rate and feelings of psychological distress. So fitting in as much of it as you can, or prioritizing it over other activities, seems like a no-brainer.

But due to the amount of (mostly digital) distractions in our daily lives, it can feel impossible to carve the time out for reading, even if we really enjoy it.

Consider changing up your medium

If you’re struggling to interact with reading, it might be that you need to switch up the way you’re doing it. Try audiobooks, especially if you’re active and always moving around. Switch to an e-reader, such as a Kindle, if you find paperbacks and hardbacks cumbersome. If you’re tactile and love the feel of the pages, priorities this form as it’ll feed into your reading experience.

It might be that certain genres suit certain mediums, so mix it up and see what happens.

Allocate reading time for you to take a break from ‘the real world’

Viewing reading as an opportunity to escape from reality works. It’s a sacred time slot for you to cultivate, freeing you from all the mundane responsibilities of adult life.

Try substituting a social media scroll with reading

The next time you feel the impulse – whatever time of day – pick up a book (digital or analogue) instead.

Considering we spend an average of 2.5 hours of our day on social media, that’s a lot of pages you could be reading instead.

If a book isn’t working for you, drop it and move on

We’ve been socialized to put pressure on ourselves to finish all the books we start, even if we’re not enjoying them. If you think about it, this is productivity for productivity’s sake and just isn’t a good enough reason to waste your precious time when you could be starting the best book you’ve ever read.

Build reading into your commute time

This can apply to whether you actually commute to work or not – even if you work from home, make space for a 20-minute reading window to emulate a train or car journey to work. If you do actively commute, it’s an excellent way to lose yourself during a relatively ‘empty’ part of your day. Experiment with which medium might suit a crowded train; is it an audiobook or perhaps a Kindle?

Join a community for recommendations

Whether this is following a few Bookstagrammers or joining an IRL book club, meeting likeminded people who will either have the same tastes as you and make brilliant recommendations, or completely different tastes and introduce you to completely different authors, writing styles and genres, cultivating a reading community will only increase your love for reading, and how much time you spend devoted to it.

Take yourself out on reading dates

Dates don’t have to be for socializing, they can be about connecting with yourself and your latest read.

Read what speaks to you

No, not everyone wants to read the classics. They have their place, for sure, but the pressure to read something bestselling or a ‘classic’ can hold us back from reading as much as we’d like, if we can’t get into something, and take the enjoyment out of it."

Read the full article on Stylist

✨Takeaway: A new year can be a good opportunity for some people to set a reading goal. Perhaps it's a certain amount of books you want to read, a genre you want to try, or something else entirely.

✨Reflection: What are your reading goals for 2023?

(I'd like to read and finish one book a month!)

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