How To Finish The Book You Bought
I see a lot of people beginning to buy more books.
They see other people read books, maybe on social media, etc. They want to do the same. They want to read a lot of books and feel the accomplishment of finishing a book.
They open up their online shop application and buy many books.
Well, it’s still running smoothly now, but what happens next?
The books they ordered arrive, and they start unboxing the package and opening their books. They look at it for five minutes and then close the book. They put it on their desk and never opened it again.
At the end, they choose smartphones over reading the books they have bought.
Why did it happen?
We all have the motivation to buy books but no motivation to finish them.
Why is it so hard to read a book? Why do we tend to choose smartphones over reading? Am I don’t really like books? The problem isn’t that you don’t like books.
You just don’t have the habit yet. You don’t have the habit of reading. You don’t have enough focus to read the books you just bought. If you have the habit, I’m sure you will begin to read more in the future.
Reading is not easy.
Even though it’s hard, it’s so beneficial, not just for our brain but for our mental health too.
Benefit of reading
According to Piedmont.org, studies have shown reading helps reduce stress, likely because it requires concentration and focus.
Researchers at the University of Sussex found that participants who read for just six minutes experienced reduced muscle tension and a slower heart rate.
The more you read, the calmer you became.
It’s part of reducing stress. Reading before sleep can protect your eyes from blue light because you’re not using your smartphone until you go to sleep.
It’s a pretty good habit too, but the question still remains.
Why is it hard to read?
Reading is hard because it requires focus and concentration.
You need a good environment to help you become more focused on what you read. Sometimes the book that you bought could be difficult. You may find a book that uses a lot of complex words.
The more complex the words are, the more focus you will need, because if not, you may not get what you read.
We don’t want that, right?
“I want to read and then understand what I just read. I don’t want to waste my time sitting down and reading something I don’t understand.”
Sometimes understanding needs repetition. The more you repeat, the more you will understand.
It’s the same as reading.
You need to have the humility to not understand what you just read. It’s okay to not understand what you just read. It’s part of understanding. We learn mathematics and other stuff that we don’t understand at first.
Even though we have spent 3 hours in the class learning mathematics, we still don’t understand. It’s okay because it’s part of learning.
Nothing is perfect. Don’t be trapped by the illusion of understanding what you learn the first time.
Practice makes perfect. Well, it’s not entirely perfect; you just get closer to it.
Habit
It’s the same principle in reading.
The more you read, the more you will understand, and eventually you will finish the book you read. The more you read in the morning, the more likely you are to grab your book and read in the morning. It’s just habit. We are built by our habits.
What we do is what we repeat every day, right?
If you tend to pick up your smartphone in the morning rather than your books, it could be that in the past, you picked up your smartphone much more than your books. It’s just habit.
You are what you do every day.
Practical ways
So, the practical ways that I can give you to read more are:
1. Start grabbing your book at the time you want to read every day.
If you want to read in the morning at 8 a.m. (you need to be precise on what time you want to read), then start putting your book on your desk at 8 a.m. or in the places that you would likely see at 8 a.m.
2. Focus on building the habit of reading.
It’s not about how many pages you can read; it’s about how many times you sit yourself down to read.
The more you repeat, the more likely you are to read. Depending on how many pages you want to read every day, you could plan it in the future.
For now, have the humility to start small and build the foundation of reading.
3. Increase the difficulty.
You may start to read comfortably for 5 minutes.
That’s great! Now, increase your difficulty level to 10 minutes every morning. Then gradually increase until you reach the length you want to read every day.
At the end
We may like to imagine ourselves reading a lot of books and becoming successful one day.
Even so, one day we’ll repent of what we do every day. Having the foundation of reading, or the habit of reading, can make us read more in the future.
Having the humility to start can help us become successful in the future.
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