Every New Year, since I moved to Big Sandy, I have written a couple of columns about making and keeping New Year’s resolutions. Last year, I realized that I had never made or kept one. So, last January, I made a half-dozen resolutions, which I set out to achieve. There were a couple that I managed to achieve, but the one that was most successful for me was my resolution to read more books. Actually, though I set out to read more books, within a few weeks I realized that the lack of specificity was a problem. In order to hit a target, it has to be specific enough to know that you have managed to hit it. This prompted me to adjust my target. I resolved to read 52 books in 2016. It is December and I have finished 112 books. About 30 of them were novels, the rest were non-fiction works on various topics. Along the way, I learned a handful of things about achieving goals.
The first thing I learned was that the larger goal felt insurmountable, so to keep motivated I had to set smaller goals daily. This way, I felt like I was accomplishing something. I changed these goals regularly, so I wouldn’t get bored. Sometimes, this involved setting a goal for how many pages to read a day, like 25 or 50. Other times, this involved trying to read a set number of chapters a day or a number of minutes reading. This way, I would feel like I was accomplishing something when I finished my day.
I also found that rewarding myself in small ways when I reached a goal. For example, there were several times when I found novels I really enjoyed. I would read a chapter or two from them at the end of the day if I reached my daily goal. Another reward I used was taking a day off from reading at the end of the week or watching television for an hour or two in the evening. Beyond using rewards as a motivator, I also regularly reminded myself as to why I wanted to read more: I want to be more educated and well-rounded. This desire helped me remain motivated.
The last thing that I learned, that I think made a huge difference in my efforts, was that telling people around me what my goal was and how much progress I was making every day, and it made it easier to stay on task. I did this by posting about my efforts on Facebook or Twitter regularly. Whenever I reached a new milestone or finished a book, I really enjoyed the responses from my friends and family. People would offer praise or share thoughts on whatever books I had just finished. This accountability and encouragement felt great and helped to keep me motived through positive reinforcement. It also built in a degree of accountability. All sorts of people knew what I was working on and I didn’t want to fail in front of so many people, so I worked hard to achieve my goal.
