How to create a reading life you love

Do you have any reading goals for 2023? I chose not to set specific goals, but I knew I wanted to get more enjoyment from my reading life. The problem was – I didn’t know how to achieve it. I spent quite a bit of time fleshing out what a happy reading life meant to me, and I thought I’d share my process and findings in case it helps you on your reading journey.

Anne Bogel of Modern Mrs. Darcy’s has a Reading Life Challenge Kit you can request via email with some excellent questions to get you thinking about your reading life and how to tailor it to your current wants and needs. She lists 21 words to help you decide what you want more of to make your reading life vibrant and fulfilling. I whittled the list down to four words I chose to use as my guiding words for the year. They are:

• Escape
• Replenishment
• Learning
• Enjoyment

I then looked at each word and figured out what actions to take to have more of it in my life. What does “escape” in my reading life look like? For me, it’s reading fantasy. I want to immerse myself in magical worlds and go on adventures, quests, and journeys, unlike anything I’d experience in real life. But a necessary part of escape is staying immersed in that world, so I need to find ways to limit distractions that pull me out of the story. Escape happens best when I have a chunk of uninterrupted time alone or wearing noise-blocking headphones.

After reflecting on all four words, I discovered my vibrant reading life looks like this:

This is my map to keep leading me back to the reading life I want, a balance of all four intentions. When I do my reading reflection at the end of each week, I want to see that what I read falls into one of these categories. Looking back at the books I’ve read in 2023, the titles I didn’t enjoy were ones I knew early on that I should DNF but stuck with anyway. These guiding words remind me to abandon what isn’t working and move on to something else because life is too short to spend time reading books we don’t enjoy!

I’d love to know – what does a vibrant reading life mean for you?