You should never feel ashamed of “only” reading what you read
Today’s post is sponsored by self love and taking care of yourself.
Inspired by quite a lot of tweets and (not really) failed reading goals.
Do you feel like you should be reading way more books? Have you felt the crushing pressure of not reading enough? Then let me tell you some things-
I’ve personally been guilty of this quite a few times, even now I’ll sometimes look at the books I’ve read and feel like I should be doing more. I get it. However, we all have to try and erase that kind of mentality.
At the beginning of the year there’s a lot of people making a resolution to read X quantity of books (especially on goodreads with the yearly goal) but remember: quantity is NOT quality.
This year I’ve only read 17 books so far and a lot of them are graphic novels or comic books, others are novellas. Almost all of them are 4 to 5 stars, I’ve never had such a good reading year. I achieved this by only reading books I was highly anticipating and (most importantly) not forcing myself to read when I didn’t feel like it.
Sometimes your brain is tired of processing words and whatever you are reading will feel like a chore, meaning you won’t enjoy doing it. Other times you just can’t find a moment to sit down and read, which may stress you out because you aren’t meeting an arbitrary number you set for yourself.
Life is hard and sometimes it gets in the way of your reading, this is a normal thing that happens and you should give yourself the space to work through whatever is troubling you without adding the feeling of failing at being a reader. A reader is someone who reads when they can, if you can’t read that doesn’t mean you stop loving books, or that you are no longer part of the reading community.
We all have giant TBRs and, no matter how much you read, they will only get bigger..
I so needed this post, thank you !
I feel like that quite alot of times.. I did succeeded my reading goal already, but I’ve only read a total of 18 books this year. then you see people who can read up to 5 books a WEEK (while my max. per month is 4..) – you see that and it’s like DAMN! xD I feel like specially being a book blogger it makes us under the pressure of reading alot like our peers..
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s my point! We love to talk about all the books we read but most of us CAN’T read 5 a week, and we make ourselves feel bad about it when there’s no reason to.
I needed this post myself and that’s why I wrote it, especially after doing the midyear check i. I’m glad you liked it 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you for writing this post! ❤️ Honestly I feel like so many people need to read this (I certainly do!). It’s really easy to pressure yourself, and compare yourself to others, especially online. But each person’s reading should be personal to them, and you’re right, quality is definitely more important than quantity 😊
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you ❤️❤️❤️ you are so right! I hope more people can get into that way of thinking
LikeLiked by 1 person
I love that – ‘the books aren’t going anywhere’ is so true!
One thing I have found that has helped me lower my stress is putting my targets very low. My GR challenge is 5 books, which I have already hit, and I just get happy when I get ‘you are X number of books above your target’ notifications. Lol.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s a great idea! I set it to 12 so I had a minimum of one book a month kinda low pressure too
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is perfect! I actually really needed to hear this 🙂 for me not so much for the book reading part, but it applies to blogging too. (I’m already resigned to the fact that I have barely read anything the last two months) Yesterday I was really needing to write a post but couldn’t find anything I wanted to write about and then I saw your post and decided it was ok to just write a post saying Hi haha 🙂 so thank you!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh my gooood, you are too sweet! I’m glad this post helped you even a little, and seriously you don’t need to feel bad about not erading, sometimes we just need to take a break
LikeLiked by 1 person
Great post! I always say read at your own pace. Mine is frantic these days, but there are times when I need a break too. There was one year I only read about 5 books the entire year. 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you!! Mine is really slow this year but I’ve decided not to stress over it and share the feeling
LikeLiked by 1 person