Many of us set out to make a goal of reading more. So we use habit trackers to build up a habit without addressing the real goal.

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In January, I set a goal to read 26 books in 2022. That number is mostly arbitrary. 52 weeks in the year. So 26 is one every other week.

Goals like this are pretty good inspiration. As long as we know why we set them. [Be specific.] We set them to read more. Setting an arbitrary goal can be useful in helping the real goal…as long as we’re honest about the real goal.

But what keeps us from reading?

Besides inertia, what is the oppositional force to reading more?

For me, it is what Stephen Pressfield calls “The Resistance”: that internal obstacle which convinces me to think I can’t do something.

The Resistance presents itself in me as the belief that I’m a slow, distractible reader. An idea that is far less objectively true than perceived as relatablely true.

So what keeps me from reading as much as I’d like is actually two things.

1. A real issue with concentration that makes reading more difficult and
2. A perceived issue that I am less able than the people I compare myself to to read as quickly “as I should”.

Which of the two do you think is the bigger influence on my behavior?

Sometimes setting achievable reading goals can help overcome both of these concerns. But they don’t address the underlying conditions. Nor do they necessarily facilitate the achievement of the underlying goals.

What are the real goals?

I have been able to trick myself into reading more. Which is great.

But I also feel terrible when people tell me their goals. Or when I watch others plow through novels. Tricking the Resistance isn’t the same as overcoming the Resistance.

Overcoming it means acknowledging it is there. That it comes out in jealousy and self-loathing. And that it is irrational and dubious.

Here are a few things I’m doing now:

• I have real struggles with reading for sustained periods of time. So I read in shorter bursts.
• I also recognize that there are things I really can’t read. Not because I lack the ability, as if my brain can’t understand it, but because I can’t sustain the attention. And that is OK.
• I’m reading comic books again—and I can read those for hours.
• Audio books are a huge help because I can sustain my attention far longer when I listen than when I read.

I don’t have to measure the data to know that I’ve read more this year than last. And that I read more last year than the year before.

But the goal of “reading more” is just as relative.

My real goal is to read. Just read. And these days, I am.