What is your goal in service of?

I love to read. My family will tell you that I’ve always got at least two books going, and I keep a running list of what I’ve read.

I met a woman yesterday who set herself a goal last August to read 100 books in a year, and she is up to 95 now. I asked her what it was like, imagining long afternoons sitting blissfully with a stack of novels. She responded that she wouldn’t do it again. “I feel like the goal to get through the books got in the way of what I really love, which is reading.”

Such a great insight. Now she knows she can do it, which is cool. But she also has a clearer sense of what’s important to her—the reading, not the number of books she consumes.