Reading Challenges: Do or Don't?

For the past couple of years I have been participating in the Goodreads reading challenges. Each year you are able to set a goal of how many books you'd like to read and as you read them, it tracks your progress telling you whether you're on track or not. After having completed some reading challenges and signing up for this year's challenge, I all of a sudden decided that these challenges were taking the fun out of reading. For me, reading is about getting lost in a good story. It's about escaping from the daily stresses and entering into a new world. I lost sight of that. My goal was to try to reach that magical number that I had set at the beginning of the year. I would pick books that were shorter so I could finish them quickly. And all of a sudden I found that reading didn't have that same appeal that it used to because I was too focused on challenging myself to read more and to read quicker. This may be what caused my reading slump. So I took down my reading challenge and have decided that I am going to read at my own pace and enjoy each story I pick up.