Are You Reading Enough?
19 Comments October 27, 2008 / Posted in Personal Development
Image courtesy of moriza
According to statistics, 42% of the people who left college never pick up another book again. This is an alarming statistic. Where do we learn from when we are young? We learn from listening to what are around us, learning from the role models and we learn from reading books too.
Why read a book?
“No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu”
We have only a finite amount of time in our life. Much about learning is through trial and error and if we are trying to learn everything by ourselves, it is going to take much more than a life time to learn it. In short, reading is a short cut to success.
What do I mean? Books are written by people who want to share their expertise or experience and there are millions or billions of books out there written by people who have went through the scenarios that we are facing and they have provided the resources to help us. So why not use them?
Those are the people who have already been there and done that. With them teaching you and acting as mentor, you will only accelerate your growth much more faster than walking the path on your own.
Lets take an example. If you want to learn how to cook a delicious steak, it is possible to try to perfect the recipe by trial and error and end up wasting several pieces of the expensive steak due to some failure. What if you choose to learn from the recipes found in the book written by a world renown chef? You cut back the trying time and gain the expected results faster.
What are the other benefits of reading? It is affordable and you can be entertained for a long time!
Kick start your reading now
Find the places where the books are – You can always visit your local book stores or if you want the books to be delivered to you, you can always try visiting Amazon. They have a huge collection there and one thing I like about buying at Amazon is the huge collection of books they have and the books are relatively cheaper than my local bookstores. You can always visit a library for free resources too.
Once you have determined where you would like to pick up your book. I recommend that you pick up a small book if you have not been reading for years. Pick up a small book rather then a book with 500 pages with a font like identical to the size of an ant, or else the book is going to end up in the shelf sooner then later. You can read all the Harry Potter books you want (The book is good), but make sure that you include some personal development books or technical books that you can learn something from.
5 Tips on reading.
1. Read with an open mind - When you are learning or reading, it is important that you do not assume that you know everything. Such a mindset can only help to close the doors for learning. Read with an open mind and you will find that there are a lot more lessons you can pick up from books that will enhance your life.
2. Taking action - If you read books and place it back to the shelf without applying the new knowledge available to you. You have wasted the amount of time you spent on the book. I believe lots of people are guilty of reading and reading but taking no action to implement what they learned. Make it a point to apply at least 1 one thing you had picked up from the book into your life and you will start to see gradual changes into your life.
3. Worrying - Don’t ever worry about how others are thinking about what you read. I personally faced this problem before. When I was reading personal development or success books, one of my friends will question me whether reading those books will help and laughed at me for reading those books. I was disturbed by his reaction but I got over it soon as I believe in the benefits of reading those books. Don’t ever worry about how others are thinking about what you are reading. It is your interest and your desire to be better and they don’t understand it.
**Note** The last time I saw that friend of mine, he was reading personal development books too. *Shrug*
4. Reading time – Read at the speed you are capable of. Don’t ever say you have not enough time to read a book. Everybody have 24 hours a day and why some people can find the time to read and why can’t you? You can wake up 30 minutes earlier to read the book or read the book during traveling. Pick up books on speed reading and learn to read faster to save up more time.
5. Finish the book – Don’t ever put the book back to the shelf without finishing it. How do you reach the finishing line at the 100 meter mark if you are always giving up after a few steps? Some people have make it a habit to read only the first few chapters of the book and putting it back to the shelf only to not touch it again. This is not the habit you want. Choose to finish the book.
Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body
Sir Richard Steele”
So exercise your mind now and enjoy your journey towards success. Here are some good personal development books that I recommend, Unlimited Power by Anthony Robbins, First Things First and 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R.Covey. Happy reading.
Cheers
Vincent
Infinite Reading Blogger
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Hi guys, for those who subscribed to my RSS feed or email updates, I apologize for the typo on the title of the post.
Vincent
Personal Development Blogger
This is so true. You need books to keep feeding your brain. If you do not give it the nutrition it needs it will starve to death.
Ever wondered why so many people suffer from mental illnesses at an old age? Could it be coincidence that among the active reader group there is a much lower mental disorder rate?
Something to think about…
Hi Carlos,
I believe that the lack of learning and utilizing the brain is one of the cause of old age related brain disease. Research has show that people who actively train their mind have a lower rate of having dementia.
Cheers
Vincent
Personal Development Blogger
[...] Invest in yourself – Keep learning and always be willing to invest in yourself. Only by keep on learning and improving, you can then provide more value which means getting better money. Why the master always earn more [...]
[...] – Who are your role models or do you even have one? If you do not have one I suggest you better read up more books and know who and where you want to be in the next 10 years. Find someone that you want to be like [...]
Hello Vincent. This is a great site. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. I found your blog while searching web for sample BLOG websites. I am glad I found this site! All your topics are very inspiring.
You are very true here. I have never been to a library after my university! It’s more than one and a half decades!
I am going to start and enjoy reading now. Thank you once again for sharing your valuable thoughts
Tony Sebastian
Hi Tony,
I am happy to see that you have benefited from this blog and yes, it is time to start visiting the library soon =)
Be sure to check back often or subscribe to my rss feeds or email updates to receive my free articles in your inbox.
Cheers
Vincent
Personal Development Blogger
Now with the Internet, I bet a lot of the people who are not reading books and reading a lot using the Internet. I’ve been blind since birth and in 2004 became a quadriplegic. I use to read braille books, but never did like books on tape. Now that I can’t read braille anymore I use the Internet a lot! I’ve learned a lot more from it than I have ever learned from books. I guess as technology advances it is replacing books to a certain extent.
Hi Kimberley,
Despite the obstacles you still strive to achieve an education, this is definitely praise worthy. The internet has change the way we learn, everything that we want to learn can be achieve by a click of the mouse and the amount of knowledge we can get from the internet is limitless.
Vincent
Personal Development Blogger
[...] your knowledge of public speaking but not necessary increase your skill of presentation because reading and doing is totally different. It will be great if video conferencing is included for members so [...]
Hi Vincent,
I caught on to your site through lifehack.org and thanks so much for the articles provided here. What makes your work even more retable to me is that you’re so young and your advices are down-right practical.
Keep it up,
-Long
Hi Long,
Thanks for your compliment Long. I will need to work harder in producing quality articles after hearing this from you
Cheers
Vincent
Personal Development Blogger
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Hi!
I found your site recently and while browsing a few articles I came across this one. I like it and I do agree with most of its points, we need to read and learn more. Not only non-fiction books but good fiction is basic, imo.
I do take issue with this, though: “5. Finish the book”. Not for me. Imho, if you like the book, yes, finish it. If you don’t like it for wathever reason (it’s badly written, you don’t agree with the author in most points…) don’t finish it. That’s only a waste of time. It took me way too many books to learn that (I used to finish everything that fell into my hands) but now, if I don’t like what I’m reading it goes back to the shelf. I can always go back to it in a few years (that’s happened with a newly favourite of mine) and in the meantime I’ll read something that I enjoy.
Reading should not be a chore: you wouldn’t learn anything otherwise.
Besides that, I do like the article and I will be reading more of your site.
Thanks!
No matter how busy I am,
I read at least a book a week
I spend too much on books nowadays until it affects my monthly cashflow
Thanks for the tips!!
your friend Relax ~
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Great information.