How to Cultivate a Reading Habit

In this dispensation, one can not take away reading from success. Most inspirational, motivational and leadership literatures are written. Successful Men now hide the secrets of their success in writing, to discover their tips, you have to cultivate and develop a reading culture.

A wise man once said that where you will be in five years time will be determined by two things:

1). The friends you keep and,
2). The books you read.

Another wise man said, “If you want to hide a treasure from a black man, hide it in a book”. This is due to the fact that most people have a very poor reading culture.

Information they say is Power. When you read, you get informed. The striking difference between two individuals is the information they carry and the greater the information carried, the higher the superiority to the next individual. Man can never be complete without information. A Homo Sapien is a thinking man, he is an informed man.

Reading develops your skills, you learn new methods of executing a project. You can never get a problem solved by using same method over and over, hence, reading exposes you to new and diverse methods of getting work done.

Inspirations and motivations derived through reading can not be quantified. You download new ideas which you can choose to practice. It ushers you into a new realm of behavior. You begin to adopt general standards through reading and sampling people’s opinions.

STEPS ON HOW TO CULTIVATE READING HABITS:

1) Analyse your reading habit

You need to analyse and evaluate your present reading conditions by asking and answering vital questions.

Do you read at all?
How often do you read?
Do you plan your reading or just read anyhow?
Is what you have been reading beneficial to you?
Is your reading limited to one area or diverse?
Your answers to these questions will help you get started.

2) Create time for reading

To cultivate a reading culture, you have to schedule time for reading, because it takes discipline to develop this culture. If you are serious about developing this culture, it will not be a matter of having time but of creating time. If you don’t create time for reading, you will never have time for it. Discipline yourself to always read daily, no matter how small. Set a goal for yourself and work towards achieving the goal.

3) Balance your reading

Balance is the key of life. One therefore needs balance even in the cultivation of a reading culture. You need to be current and versatile by knowing a little about a variety of issues. Don’t limit your reading to only one part of life.

4) Respond to your reading

It is not just okay to read a book, it is also vital that you respond to the book both physically and mentally. To respond effectively to your reading means to decide to act on and utilize the information you get from it in a positive way.

5) Know what to read and what not to read

Thousands of books are published and released daily all over the world, and even if you read one book per day, you can never exhaust all the books on earth. So it is very vital that you choose what you read. You have to be discreet in your choice of book, because, life is too short to spend on reading junks that are not beneficial to your destiny.

6) Make a monthly trip to the bookstore or library

It is vital for you to visit bookstores and library periodically so as to be current and aware of relevant books and new releases. You need to do this so as to peruse and review books.

7) Build / develop your own library

If any book is worth reading, then it should be worth buying. To develop a reading culture, you must rise above only borrowing books to read, to buying books to keep. Books are tools that come in handy from time to time, and they are a good heritage to leave for your children. Start building and developing a library now.

credit: Taiwo

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