Last December I set a goal to read 30 books in 2019.

I also gave birth to a baby girl, my third child in under four years. 

To some, these two activities might seem to conflict. When my other two children were born, I bemoaned the fact that I no longer had time to read for pleasure. 

In fact I think I could probably count on one hand the number of books I read in 2015-2017. Toward the end of 2017, my thinking began to shift as I began to explore all the ways I had lost my sense of identity.

In 2018 I set a goal to read 12 books. I read 27.

But as December 2018 loomed, I knew my life was about to dramatically change with the birth of another baby. And I had lots of questions. Could I keep reading? Would I still have time? Would things return to the way they had been before? Would I regress back to that place of feeling like I had no idea who I was?

I thought back to life when my older two as infants. Yes, with each of them I had a baby that needed me 24/7. I was exhausted. Overwhelmed.

But…I also had time to watch an entire tv show series. And I had spent hours scrolling Facebook.

What if this time I made a change? What if, instead of using my nursing time to watch tv or scroll through Facebook, what if I used that time to read?

Yes, holding a baby and a book is not a simple thing, but I had no problem holding a baby and my phone. I could read through my Kindle app.

And so I set an ambitious reading goal: 30 books in 2019. 

The first few months were fairly easy. There were plenty of hours spent nursing and I eventually got in the habit of picking up my phone and tapping the Kindle app rather than the Facebook app. 

But then life got a little more challenging. I started working part time. Baby girl nursed more efficiently. Life got busy.

I carried on, finding free moments when I could. But by mid October I began to doubt whether I would hit my goal. I was roughly seven books short, I was in the middle of planning a family trip to Disney world, and we were about to launch into the craziness of the holidays. 

Could I still pull it off? Perhaps the better question was, did I really want to hit my goal? Was I willing to do the work to prioritize reading over Facebook and all the other distractions out there?

The answer was yes. And so I got to work and I’m happy to report that I met my goal! I read a total of 30 books – including some fiction, memoir and nonfiction.

In my next post, I’ll be sharing my top 10 books of 2019. But for now I just want to say how good it feels to look back on 2019 and know that I completed a goal. There were many areas that didn’t go as planned, but this was definitely a win for me.

I realized that reading fills me with life and helps me grow. When I look back at all I read and thought about and learned this year, I am so thankful that I challenged myself to do it.

If you haven’t yet done so, I would encourage you to find some way to challenge yourself in 2020. It doesn’t have to be anything big, but set a goal that helps you become a better version of yourself.

Choose something that fuels you and fills you with life. It could be reading. Or it might be a choice to spend a certain number of hours outside. Or a goal of taking a certain number of baths this year. Or you might choose to sign up for a course to learn a new skill. Or you might focus on drinking a certain amount of water or completing a certain number of workouts.

Choose the right level of difficulty. How challenging should it be? If you really want to grow, it’s probably going to take some effort. But my suggestion is to keep it achievable. In the book Atomic Habits, the author encourages us to work on tasks of “just manageable difficulty.” What is that? According to research, the ideal level of difficulty is 4% beyond our current ability.

This same concept applies to the goals we set. It should take us out of our comfort zone, but it shouldn’t be a huge stretch for us to get there. I read 30 books this year. But two years ago I set a goal to read 12…one per month. That seemed doable.

Figure out how to make it happen. I used my Kindle app, along with my free library digital loan program, to read books electronically…with three kids under the age of four. I have one friend that listens to audio books while she cleans her house. Maybe you want to get in shape and going to the gym isn’t an option for you, but you can work out from home. Think outside the box and figure out how to accomplish what you want.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been diving deep into the idea of building habits that help us fulfill our potential. I’ll share more about this in another post, but for now I’ll just say that setting growth goals is healthy – for our mind, body and soul.

So what is your goal? Is it measurable? Is it achievable? Is it realistic? Do you need to make any shifts in your schedule to make it happen? When do you plan to accomplish it? Okay, now go for it!

What fuels you and fills you with life? Drop me a comment below and let me know what you are working towards in 2020!