Success in a Fail: Bookworm 2012

Friends, Monday greetings out to you.

Let's jump right in and put you out of such great suspense...For an entire year, the year of 2012 to be more specific, I was working towards a book reading goal. It was a very ambitious goal.

That goal was to read 78 books in 2012.

Why 78 books? Let me show you...

January (month 1): 1 book
February (month 2): 2 books
March (month 3): 3 books
Getting the pattern? and this went all the way down until:
December (month 12): 12 books!

And when you add all those books together you get a grand total of 78 books. Now, perhaps you are thinking "well that's not that many books" or perhaps you are thinking "what!! No human can achieve that!", but hopefully your thoughts have moved on to the next question "Did you actually achieve your goal?"

And the answer is.... No. I totally didn't make my goal but I loved every minute of it! My end total was 54 books read for 2012. So I was short by about 25 books. Can you imagine how many books I might have read if I had made my goal to read 100 books!!
You see, even though I didn't hit my goal, I started the year knowing that I had the potential to do it. But whether I hit my exact goal or not, I read 53 books last year, and that's a great accomplishment in itself. I can sit around and boohoo that I technically failed since I didn't hit 78 books, but that's crazy. I'm a whole lot closer to reading 78 books than if I had never tried to challenge myself in the first place out of fear or laziness that I might not accomplish my goal. Unfortunately, I do not have this life changing quote by Mark Gorman for you at this moment but it goes something along the lines of this:

If you work towards a goal and fail you were a whole lot closer to accomplishing that goal than those who almost, sort of, maybe, were close to, came within the vicinity of possibly, maybe one day, might have, maybe, some day, setting a goal.

Friends, be wild and set goals for yourself on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis, throwing aside procrastination and or fear of failing that goal. Failing at a goal will always bring you a small success closer to that big success. I didn't read 78 books, but I did read 54 and that's an awesome success. This is what 54 books looks like...

That's a lot of books. I even impressed myself when I stacked those all up.
Lastly, for all you curious minds... here is the complete list of all books read in 2012:

1 - The Secret Life of Bees
2 - Book of Negroes
3 - Nazi Officer's Wife
4 - Heaven is for Real
5 - Epic
6 - Left Neglected
7 - Hunger Games
8 - Catching Fire
9 - Mocking Jay
10 - The Last Lecture
11 - Redeeming Love
12 - For One More Day
13 - Crazy Love
14 - Power of a Praying Woman
15 - The Compound Effect
16 - She said Yes
17 - God's Plan for Prosperity
18 - The First Day of the Rest of my Life
19 - The Guinea Pig Diaries
20 - Comic Bible
21 - Miracle for Jen
22 - Beyond the Blue
23 - Skill with People
24 - The Book of Holiday Awesome
25 - The Tears of My Soul
26 - Tramp for the Lord
27 - Don't Follow Me, I'm the Leader
28 - Nehemiah: A Heart that Breaks
29 - Momma Married a Man
30 - The Cross and a Switchblade
31 - Leadership Pill
32 - A Complicated Kindness
33 - Jacob I have Loved
34 - Sheet Music
35 - Common Sense not Needed
36 - Defeated Enemy
37 - Amazing Love
38 - The Memory Keeper's Daughter
39 - The Hiding Place
40 - Shadows of Promise
41 - Trapped in Hitler's Hell
42 - Autobiography of a One Year Old
43 - Don't Sweat the Small Stuff
44 - As Nature Made Him
45 - Bullets on the Water
46 - The Screwtape Letters
47 - The Long Walk
48 - The Wizard of Oz
49 - Anne of Green Gables
50 - Beatrice & Virgil
51 - The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven
52 - Animal Farm
53 - Ms. Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
54 - Hannah's Hope

I have also set a new goal for myself in 2013, so if you have any book suggestions feel free to send them my way, many thanks! :)