BOOK READING- HOW I DEVELOPED THIS HABBIT?

I never liked reading books, I didn’t read a single book outside the class textbook until I was 25. The main reason was that I didn’t understand the benefits and nobody could explain them to me. Finally, once I understood I couldn’t stop. I went from zero books per week to sometimes finishing even two books. So far I’ve read around 350 books in the last 7 years. Here are three benefits I discovered:
first benefit: reading is like exercise as it improves all areas of your life and all you need is 2 minutes a day. Many people think that making significant changes in life requires big decisions or actions but this isn’t true. If you wait for the right time to make that big decision, it might never come. For example: when I was studying at the university I always said I can’t exercise now because I have so many classes, plus I have a full-time job. But you know what, once I graduate I will do it. I will go to the gym, regularly eat healthily and read books. Guess what happened? Once I graduated, I found another excuse.
If something is important to you right now but you’re waiting for the right time or completion of something so that you can start doing it then you might never do it the paradox here is that even if right time comes to take those massive actions, you’ll still need to start small anyway. If you have read atomic habits, you already know that to build a long-term habit. You start doing it for just 2 minutes a day, not to hours. Whatever habit you want to build, you have to shrink it its tiniest form and start from there. This applies to everything in life, not just reading books.
You get in shape by doing 10 push-ups every day, you change your diet by choosing simple water instead of cola, you learn to meditate regularly by taking one conscious breath each day. Therefore, find small gaps in your day where you can incorporate reading into your life. Find a routine you repeat often and use it as a trigger. For example: I used public transport almost every day so that was my trigger. I said to myself that every time I’m on public transport I’ll listen to an audiobook just for 2 minutes. If you choose to read for a few minutes instead of scrolling online, it isn’t like you’ll be smart it’s so small. But on the other hand, success doesn’t come from big transformative actions but from small seemingly insignificant repeated daily choices. These choices compound and lead to significant results.
We have another big paradox, where on the one hand small choices don’t matter much but on the other hand, small choices repeated daily are the only things that matter. Here is an interesting fact about those small daily decisions and choices. They’re easy to do and when something is easy to do, it’s also easy not to. When waiting for someone, it’s easy to pull out your book instead of your phone. Since it’s easy to do, most likely you will not do it but for a moment let’s assume you do the right thing, whenever you’re on public transport you pull out your phone and listen to an audio book instead of music or read your physical book. What would happen? If you did this 100 seconds a day and kept improving by just 1%, you would finish 20 books in one year. Imagine doing this for 5 years straight, that’s 100 books.
Reading business books is like spending time with the 100 smartest business Minds on the planet and learning everything they know about business. Imagine how much more money you would earn compared to your friends; imagine how many more employment or business opportunities you would have, how fit you would look, both mentally and physically. Again, it is easy to ignore those small daily choices but your life in a year will be the compounded result of those small choices you make every day. Success is built through seemingly boring and small daily choices, not through massive actions.
To recap, waiting for the right time is wasting time. Don’t wait for the graduation, promotion or the kids to grow so that you can finally start reading or doing the things that are important to you. Pay attention to your daily choices and find small two-minute gaps in your day to read and see how all areas of your life improve. The second benefit is that books are the solution to your problems. Do you want to create your own business? Do you want to be able to have small talk? Do you want to be more confident? Do you want stop negative thoughts? Guess what, there’s a book for each of these problems. This sounds so simple, but nobody explained the benefit of books to me this way growing up.
I only started to show interest when books were introduced as solutions to my problems. I started picking up books for every single problem I had. Even now, whenever I have a problem, the first thing I do is pick up a book on that problem. Change your perspective on what reading a book is, imagine you are walking in the park and listening to a really smart friend. Pick a book that is in story format or at least not too complex to understand.

Most self-help books are quite easy to understand anyway.