How to Find the Motivation to Read
It can be hard to pick up a book. There is so much else you could do with your time. And sometimes reading can be very boring and you find yourself lost in different thoughts every 5 minutes – having no idea what you just read. I know the feeling, but we can do better. I’d like to share some thoughts and ideas on how to finally pick up the book that has been sitting in your shelf for all these years.
Every Book is Boring!
What do you want to read about? This is the most important question. And it can be anything. But it should be your focus. What topic do you enjoy most? What do you like to watch on YouTube or Netflix? What do you talk about with friends? What do you study or what class did you find most interesting in school? Is there a topic you always want to know more about?
If you can find a topic you enjoy, you are much more likely to read an entire book on it. So maybe don’t just pick up the book that has been sitting in your bookshelf for years and rather ask yourself if you still find it interesting. And if not find a new one:
Where to Find Inspiration
Oh, there are so many places.
First option – the best one by far(!) – this blog! Obviously. But there are more…
Simply going on the New York Times Bestseller List or Amazon Bestseller List might be inspiration enough. You can browse the categories and see where you end up.
Go where books are. Rummaging in bookstores and asking the employees for recommendations can be a great source of inspiration. These people are usually very passionate about books and know what they are talking about. Tell them what you like and see how it turns out.
Do you have any role models, idols or just people you look up to? See if you can find recommended books from them and ask if they have any recommendations. Many books on my reading list came through recommendations of authors whose books I enjoyed tremendously: Jim Kwik, Daniel Kahneman or Warren Buffett.
Give your friends a chance to inspire you too. See what they read. I have read some books in the past months that I did not believe I would ever read thanks to some people around me. They can be a great source of inspiration and motivation. And you instantly have somebody to talk to upon finishing reading, which is much needed with some books.
And in case I forgot to say it: this blog also offers great book recommendations…
How to Start Reading
Let’s imagine we have found a book that sounds interesting and fits our interest. How can we now actually get motivated to read it?
This might be a problem you have faced. I certainly have. The book just sits there untouched.
Your initial desire to read the book can already tell you a lot about whether you choose the right one. Is it still standing in your bookshelf? Then maybe it wasn’t that good of a choice.
But if you haven’t started immediately don’t worry. Sometimes, as Mark Manson nicely put it in “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck”, motivation comes after action and not the other way around. So, take the action first, read a couple of pages and see if the motivation to keep going gradually builds up. Give it a try. You don’t race against anybody. Take your time.
Start Small!
Finally, there is no need to rush. Read in little chunks. But try to read consistently and I if you truly want to read more, incorporate it in your day.
But start out with reading 15 minutes per day. Heck it can even be 15 minutes per week. Just start. Don’t set the bar too high or else you risk losing motivation.
Something I have enjoyed over the past weeks is to start the day off by reading. Don’t look at the phone when you get up. Make a coffee instead and read for 30 minutes. It is a great start to the day, and you get the feeling that you have done something productive. You have some time with your own thoughts.
It is a weird feeling to start your day out like that, but you might find yourself approaching the next couple of hours with a more positive and energetic mindset. Try it out.
A Look Ahead
In the upcoming weeks we will take a closer, more scientific look at why reading is beneficial and what it does to our brains. But I hope that this post could already offer some new ideas on how to approach that book that has been sitting in your bookshelf all along. Picking it up and reading only a few pages is the very first step in solving our Reading Dilemma.
Enjoy!
