creating a goal list
week 6 of the "become a close(r) reader" series: revisiting last week's brainstorm and week one's reading reflection
Happy holidays and welcome to week 6!
We are in the home stretch of our “become a close(r) reader” series and today’s post is all about creating a goal list for yourself based on last week’s brainstorm along with all those other amazing observations you’ve made over the last five weeks.
If you’re getting caught up:
Week 1 was all about exploring your reading habits
Week 2 was all about discovering what you need from your reading environment
Week 3 was all about literary theories and different lenses that we can use to understand or unpack the stories we read (and tell!)
Week 4 was all about identifying which lenses are most interesting to you
And Week 5 was about getting all the fodder of your mind onto the page and listing out all kinds of different reading goals and ambitions for 2025
Bookmark this page if you want to come back to any of these exercises another day.
Join Closely Reading as a paid subscriber and receive 25% off the annual price. This deal runs through the end of December, so don’t miss out! (Prices go up next year!)
During Week 1 of our series, I asked you to sit down and spend about twenty minutes thinking about reading: as a concept, as a habit, as a process. I also asked you to think about how you’d describe reading to an alien who doesn’t know what “reading” is—and this week, you’re going to revisit these thoughts.
Step 1: Think back to week 1
Now that you’ve had your brain marinating in thoughts of reading and goals and deep consideration of what reading is and why it matters to you, I invite you to repeat the central question from week one — but we’ll spend more time with our free write this time. (You’ve been building up that endurance!)
Set a twenty-minute timer.
Get out a pen/cil and paper, or whatever writing tool you’d like to use today. Read the prompt below and start your timer. Write, as you’ve been doing for weeks now, without stopping the entire time the clock ticks down.
Question: What is “reading”? Why does “reading” matter to you?
When your timer goes off, stop writing and take a deep breath.
Step 2: Observe
Reflect on what rose to the surface as you completed step one today. What topics or ideas or perspectives came up again, or repeated from Week 1’s free write?
Has your definition of reading changed, evolved, simplified, or become more complex over the last few weeks of reflection?
How has your definition of reading and why it matters to you changed?
Step 3: Write down your observations
Again, like in Week 1, I invite you in this next step to make another mind map.
On a fresh sheet of paper, write “WHAT READING MEANS TO ME” in the center and put a shape around it (a circle, a star, a square, whatever you like).
Then, using lines (squiggly, straight, dotted, or otherwise) surround this central phrase with some of the key words from your writing today. Look back at what you’ve written and find words that repeat often in your writing, or words that feel particularly charged or meaningful to you.
Use the page to create a mind map of your personal thoughts, definitions, and meanings about “reading” and why it matters to you.
What surprises you? What feels truest? Does anything feel false or flat? Take note of your findings, however you’d like to, and then, complete the following sentence:
I believe reading is ________________________.
Step 4: Your North Star
Once you’ve found a belief statement about reading that feels true and motivating to you, make it your North Star.
By this, I mean: make this statement the centerpiece of your goals for 2025.
Take your sentence and put it at the center of a new sheet of paper — and then take your list of reading goals and test them against your statement. Which goals are aligned with your personal belief(s) about reading? Which are not?
Use your core belief statement to find the goals on your list that are most meaningful to you and are most motivating as you consider the year ahead.
For example:
Say your “belief statement” is something like this —
“I believe reading is a way to explore deep emotions and ideas.”
And say your goal list includes things like —
Read 150 books in 2025
Spend at least 1 hour a day reading
Read something by an author I’ve never heard of before
As you test these goals against your belief statement, you may decide that because reading is something you do to explore and go into greater depths of your mind, that 150 books is too much. It won’t give you time to explore like you want to, and may rush you through experiencing the deeper emotional connection you’d like to foster.
You might consider adapting your goal to a new number that feels more aligned with your goal. (Maybe you want to create categories for yourself, like “deep reads” that take longer and “quick reads” that don’t require the same energy or time from you?)
Or, you might consider crossing that goal out altogether and creating a new one in its place —
Read 150 books in 2025Start a reading journal I can use to record the emotions and ideas I feel while reading
The idea is to use your truest and most motivating core belief about reading to fuel your inspiration for your 2025 reading goals.
Consider:
What new habits do I want to integrate into my reading practice?
What skills am I hoping to develop more deeply? Why do I want to develop these skills?
What kinds of record-keeping about my reading do I want to do? Why?
When I look back at my year, in December 2025, what will make me feel the most proud? What will make me smile? (And, perhaps inversely, what might cause sadness or shame—can you adapt your goals to inspire you, rather than scare you, into compliance?)
Step 5: Revisit, review, and revise your goals as necessary
Spend the rest of the week checking in with yourself.
Is your North Star still true after a night’s sleep? Could it be made stronger or more true in any way?
Do your reading goals feel motivating? Do you feel excited when you think about them? (Do you feel dread? Overwhelm? It may be time to revisit your list and reset some expectations…)
There’s really no right or wrong answer to how many reading goals you should make, or how many books you “should” read, or how many pages or which genres or the number of authors — all of that is so deeply subjective.
As you hone your final reading goal list for 2025, consider the element of joy. What reading goals will bring energy and happiness into your routines? What new skills or practices make you feel excited and eager?
A reading goal shouldn’t feel like a punishment or an indictment of your past self.
Use the time you devote to this exercise this week to uncover your deeper feelings about reading—and to form your goals from a place of joy and eagerness.
Next week
With just two weeks left in our series, I’ll be shifting gears next week to share some best practices for annotating, planning your reading list, and shaping your reading goals even further.
To be best prepared, come next week with a clear and tight “I believe” statement about reading and a carefully honed list of your goals for 2025. We’ll use that to push toward a final list of action items that will propel you into January.
This series has been so much fun to share with you all—and I sincerely hope you’re feeling inspired for a great year of reading ahead. If you’ve benefitted from today’s exercise, consider upgrading to a paid subscription. Or, you can buy me a coffee!