Why Reading Self-Improvement Books Won’t Help You Improve
An article about why reading self-help books will not help you succeed in your goals and what will
Introduction
If you believe you are improving by only reading self-improvement books, you are wrong.
The purpose of self-help books is to instruct the reader to solve their problems or improve their skills. These skills can range from mental, physical, and spiritual.
This is why binge-reading these books for hours at a time almost every day will not help you improve. To see a change in yourself, you need to apply the information you learn from these books. Spending most of your time reading is not productive if you are not using the knowledge in your day-to-day life.
For example, say that you are reading How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie; the author stated that his book is an ACTION book. The same goes for all the self-help books out there; they are action books.
Knowing how to improve yourself is great, but you need to take action to do so.
Self-help books give us the motivation, the spark, and the drive to start achieving our goals, but most of us ignore that drive. We believe that we are achieving something by only reading these books. Do not get caught in this trap.
We already think that we are being productive with our time by reading about self-improvement. We believe that we are already taking action towards our goals when we read a piece of paper.
I am not saying that you should avoid reading self-improvement books; there is significant advice in these books. Think about it, for $15 or even less, you get access to life-changing information. To me, that is an absolute steal!
If you want to benefit and improve from reading these books, consider implementing this one tip I will discuss.
And that is note-taking.
The art of note-taking is crucial if you want to understand a book, especially self-help literature. Once you read an important and useful piece of text, highlight it. This is so that you can come back to it later and dive deeper into the meaning of that text. This allows you to stay engaged while reading and pay attention to what is being said.
After finishing that chapter, go back to the pieces of text you highlighted and write them down on paper. Do not stash them in your notes app where you will barely see them; write them down on paper. Writing something down helps you memorize the text better than typing it online.
After writing your notes down, review them over and over again; this information is valuable and can change your life. Once you memorize the information you read, you will have the drive to work towards your goals.
That is the art of note-taking. It is such a convenient practice that encourages you to achieve your goals.
Conclusion
Reading self-help books without applying the information is a waste of time. To succeed and improve yourself, you must take action immediately after learning the advice.
Knowledge is useless until we put it into practice.
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