what are your goals?
week 5 in the "become a close(r) reader" series: a brainstorm exercise to get *all* your reading ideas and ideals on the page before you commit to anything
Welcome to week 5!
This week, we’ll be writing about our closely reading goals for 2025 with—you guessed it—another guided free write exercise!
If you’re just joining us or getting caught up:
Week 1 was all about exploring your reading habits and history
Week 2 was all about your reading environment
Week 3 was all about literary theories and different lenses you can use to analyze readings
Week 4 was all about starting to identify which angles and lenses you’re most interested in exploring
If you’re enjoying this series and learning something new each week, consider upgrading to a paid subscription — you’ll get access to the full archive plus all the new essays, reading guides, and writing exercises in 2025!
Step 1: Clear your mind
Your first step today is to get the fog and noise and clutter of your mind out of the way—because if we’re going to explore our goals, we need the goals of the day (like the laundry pile, the grocery list, the trash cans) outta the way!
This could mean many different things for you. You might want to wash a few dishes or walk around the block or do a couple of yoga poses. You might clear off your desk or a space at your kitchen table and light a candle. You might close your eyes and take a few super slow, deep breaths.
Then, spend a minute or two looking at your books. Do you have a small library? A “TBR” (to be read) pile? A stack of library books? An ereader filled with potential? Look at your books. Notice the ones you’re excited about.
Your goal here is to pause the noise of the day and get books on your mind.
If you feel extra bogged down, consider trying this Yoga with Adriene flow “Let it Go Yoga Flow.” It’ll take you a bit more time for this week, and it may be well worth it. This is a go-to for me!
When you feel a few degrees calmer and quieter, and are ready to focus for today’s writing, gather your materials.
You need:
Your notes and writings from the past four weeks
More paper for writing
A favorite pen or pencil
A timer
~1 hour of time
Ready? Move to step 2.
Step 2: Lay it all out
Set a 5-minute timer.
For the entire time, make a list of all of your different reading goals for 2025.
These could be:
Real goals
Wildly over ambitious goals
Based on a number of pages or books you want to read
A list of specific books or authors you want to read
An amount of daily time you want to spend reading
Literally anything
The time will go fast!
When your timer goes off, put your pen/pencil down and stand up or stretch your arms. Move your energy around. (Maybe pull up that yoga video again!)
Then move to step 3.
Step 3: Repeat step 2.
Set a 5-minute timer, again.
Continue your list of reading goals. Reach big this time—get more ambitious in your ideas, push the boundaries out around you to see what kinds of goals sound exciting or fun.
This isn’t about being realistic. This is about letting yourself really imagine and place and explore the kinds of reading and thinking and analyzing and learning you want to do.
When your timer goes off, stop writing.
Step 4: Review and add
Great job!
Now: set a 10-minute timer.
Review your list of goals and reading ideas.
Add new ideas as they occur to you.
Spend the entire 10 minutes reviewing and adding, so by the time your timer goes off, you’ve got a hearty list of ideas to consider and take to step 5.
Step 5: Free write
Okay. Now that you have your list, you’re going to write about your list.
Read the prompts below, then start a fifteen-minute timer. As soon as it starts ticking, write—without stopping—for the entire time.
Prompt: Describe the type of person who could achieve the goals you’ve written down.
What do they do each day?
What kinds of non-reading habits do they have?
How often do they read?
Where do they read?
What kinds of books do they read?
Picture this “goal achieving person” in your mind and write all about them.
You might even get into a deeper character sketch and think about their quirks or their reasons or their hopes and dreams more broadly. You might be able to picture them in your mind; write down what you see.
Write until your timer goes off.
Step 6: Close the gap
Who did you write about? Who is this person who can achieve all these ambitious goals?
Set a ten-minute timer.
Prompt: write about what you have in common with this amazing person who can achieve all your reading goals.
How does this person inspire you?
What do they do that you want to try?
What do they have access to (extra time, more book funds, more practice) that you might want to cultivate for yourself)?
Is it possible for you to “close the gap” between what they’e capable of and what you believe you’re capable of?
What you’re doing here is attempting to close the gap between the ideals and ambitions of your goals for reading and what is actually realistic or possible or within reach for you.
Some of your most ambitious-feeling goals might be readily possible in 2025. Some may be something you build up over time, as you develop habits over the next few months or years.
Step 7: What kind of writer do you want to be?
You’ve listed all these ambitious goals. You’ve explored some of the traits and habits of a person who could achieve those goals. And you’ve started to close the gap.
With your final 10 minutes today, write about the readerly traits you want to intentionally cultivate next year.
Food for thought:
You might want develop a personal closely reading style.
You may dream of becoming a more focused and aesthetic note taker.
Maybe you want to spend more time learning about books and authors and new genres than actually reading them for a few months or even for most of 2025.
Write until your timer goes off.
And then, take a huge breath! You did it!
You are a rockstar.
My pottery teacher tells me that showing up and being willing to try is the hardest part. Every time you sit down to explore your ideas and take notes and think about you personal reading goals and history, you have already done the hardest part.
Keep up the amazing work! And hold onto your ideas for next week, when we’ll work on honing our reading list.
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‘Til next time, happy reading!
This has been my favorite exercise thus far, although each has been beneficial. I'm realizing how the genres I love and gravitate toward play a role in my life and how to best set up my reading year for what I truly want vs the popular books everyone is talking about. I'm seeing a much more relaxed, joyful year ahead and am able to set my reading goals and lists from that place of abundance. Thank you as always for these exercises!
This is such a helpful framework, Haley! Thank you so much for sharing. I think it would work well for academic reading lists/goals as well as personal ones.