What Reading Self Help Books For 7 Years Did For Me
Just for clarity, that’s 2555 days
I used to be a really awkward kid.
It was just that phase in my life. I used to wear braces, was unusually tall for my age and was a nerd by choice. Since I naturally didn’t fit in with what the ‘cool’ kids were doing, I was often picked on.
I used to often question my parents, life, even God, as to what had I done wrong. I just wanted to get by and be normal. Have nothing more, nothing less. You could say that was a rather turbulent phase in my life.
But that’s a part of growing up and I digress.
The Beginning
My grandmother, an amazing woman, had this entire room in her house which was a makeshift library of sorts. It had no less than 3000 books. As I was looking at the titles as an insecure 15-year-old, One book caught my eye.
You may know it very well:
‘Archies’
I jest, that too caught my eye but the original book was:
‘The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari’ by Robin Sharma
I picked it up and turned it over, intrigued by the title and cover picture. As I glanced at the summary, I became sure of one thing.
This book would change my life in some way.
7 years later, I can safely say it did
Progression
That initial book changed my entire perception of self-help books. I used to think self-help was for dummies and that they would be large volumes of academic and medical constipation.
How glad was I to be proven wrong.
Even that Archies comic taught me something. Friends are important and life isn’t perfect, but if you keep pushing, you’ll eventually live in your Riverdale.
These books were in fact very useful since they helped me focus on quelling the negative thoughts that arose in my head often. Albeit not completely, though I am more mindful of them now.
Hungry for more, I devoured additional self-help literature. From Tony Robbins to Brian Tracy to Jim Rohn, I covered them all.
And, Here’s what I learned:
You don’t need to read self-help books for 7 years in order to change your life. You just need to read one and implement it.
Learnings
Reading these books covering a wide gamut of topics from psychology to habit modification to life blueprinting helped me in various ways:
(1) It made me curb my short temper and realize that the way you think and respond to situations is what shapes the quality of your life.
(2) It made me realize that I don’t want to get rich doing something that I abhor
(3) It also made me realize that It’s not bad to want to get rich and have financial abundance. Just have other goals as well.
(4) It made me have gratitude for the simplest things like 3 square meals a day. Which is such a gift!
(5) It made me realize that by reading for 7 years, I am no better than anyone else. Because we are not meant to be better than anyone else. We are meant to be better than ourselves, bigger than ourselves.
Most importantly, It helped me go from this shy person who felt he didn’t know anything to still a shy person, who at least felt he knew something.
Even the wisest mind has something yet to learn. Pain can teach you, so can pleasure but the key thing is to always keep learning.
Correction, the key thing is to practice what you always keep learning.
Reflections
In hindsight, I feel that I should have probably attempted to achieve a more balanced lifestyle. Where reading was accompanied by equal parts implementation.
Well, It’s never too late to start something. Medium was something I discovered only a short while back.
Talking about Medium, journalling, writing, anything creative is a gift that you are giving to yourself. All the books that I read in those 7 years advocated indulging in some form of creative expression or nourishing activity.
I believe writing for many of us is that activity.
And please, when you do so, Don’t hold back your feelings, emotions, and thoughts. Let it all out.
So go ahead, fire up your favorite playlist, find a quiet place, sip that hot cuppa of java and knock out your inner genius on Medium.
And when you do, let me know, Because I will be there to read it. Applauding you for your courage and hungry to learn.
