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Musing Mondays (Dec 7): Reading Challenges: Yes or No?

 
Musing Mondays is a weekly meme created by Jenn @ A Daily Rhythm
 
 
This week's question: Are you going to participate in the Goodreads Reading Challenge next year?

 
What better way to add unnecessary stress and anxiety to your everyday life than to take part in a reading challenge? And yet, the promise of personal satisfaction and new-found friendship with other participants is tempting.
 
 
I have been participating in the Goodreads Reading Challenge for two years now. In 2014, I set a goal to fifty books. I think it was in November that it became evident, that I wouldn't win. So, what does a person do when faced with such a "devastating" defeat? Well, I don't know what others would do, but I simply went in and changed my goal to forty books, instead of fifty. And I "won".
 
When 2015 happened, I was feeling uncharacteristically optimistic, and set my goal to one hundred books. I don't know what I was thinking, it must have been all the champagne I had on the New Year's Eve. 
 
 
 
 
As you may have guessed, it wasn't going too well. A hundred books is a lot of words. It's also a lot of time, and lot of will power. Somewhere along the way, I changed the goal to fifty titles. Right now, I'm behind by six titles, and I don't care anymore. I can change it back to one hundred, and it won't matter.
 
Is changing the goal for your challenge cheating? And why was it so important for me to win? I think somewhere along the line, the challenge stopped being fun, and became work. And if that happens to you, do the smart thing and just stop.
 
It all comes down to having the right priorities. And winning a challenge on social media is not exactly the right priority.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


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