Book Blogger Hop :: Reading Challenges

The Book Blogger Hop is a weekly event created by Jennifer of Crazy-for-Books. It is currently hosted by Billy of Coffee Addicted Writer. Every week, a question related to books and book blogging is posed; this week (August 11th, 2017 through August 17th, 2017), the question (proposed by Kristin @ Lukten av Trykksverte) is:

Do you participate in readathons and/or reading challenges?
I used to! Back in 2013, I dove headfirst into reading challenges... and learned why exactly you shouldn't dive headfirst into the deep end of the metaphorical pool! I absolutely drowned that first year. While I don't still have the original post(s) where I announced my intent to participate in tons of year-long reading challenges, if fully completed, it would have meant reading multiple hundreds of books in a year, all of which were chosen to fulfill challenges rather than to, you know, actually entertain me. In other words, it was nonsense.
After I recovered from that spectacularly catastrophic case of "biting off more than one can chew", I tried again in 2014 with a much more realistic list of challenges. I still didn't do spectacularly, but I did much better. I at least got something read that year! And in 2015, I signed up for some more and even joined in on a few readathons.
In 2016, I parsed down my list of challenges again, and while I did fairly well in my efforts to complete them, I was finally at the point where I was kind of done with the whole thing. They felt less like challenging fun and more like trying to force myself into obligation, and so this year I just decided to give myself permission to forget the whole thing. I love the idea of challenges, but I tend to overestimate what I can actually accomplish... which inevitably leads to discouragement that makes the whole thing super not fun.
So right now, I'm not doing any challenges or readathons. I'd love to get back into them at some point in the future, but I think that when I do, I might focus on self-defined challenges rather than public, group participation challenges. That way, I can tweak things in such a way that my goals will actually serve to inspire me as well as challenge me!
So what about you? Do you participate in readathons and challenges? Love 'em? Hate 'em? Tell me all about it in the comments below, and if you'd like to participate in the Book Blogger Hop, you can find information about its schedule and future questions here at Coffee Addicted Writer.