Tag: reading

Why reading 5 pages per day will change your life

5 pages per day x 365 days per year = 1,825 pages per year.

If a book averages 300 pages (which seems high), you would finish 6+ books per year.

What you read daily changes the way you think. If you can change your thoughts, you can change your life.

We all need constant, little reminders of how we should be acting. By going too long without thinking about something (leadership, business, marketing, sales, relationships, finance, etc), we often forget what we should be applying in everyday circumstances.

A simple tip to lead to success

Have you ever been unsure of what you want to do, of what goals you would like to achieve? Or do you have a vague idea of “what you want” but are overwhelmed when thinking of how to get there? Here’s something you can work on every single day…

Go to bed smarter than you woke up.

Now, having more knowledge/information doesn’t guarantee success. But it is at least a step in the direction towards becoming an expert in your field. Once you have the information, you can act upon it.

So ask yourself when you wake up…What will you learn today? How will you improve your mind, your body, or your relationships in any way? There’s no such thing as equilibrium – just tiny adjustments, up or down/better or worse…will you improve yourself and your knowledge today? Or will you get worse?

Reading vs experiencing

Reading about something is not the same as experiencing it. A lot can be learned from reading, so this is not trying to discredit reading at all. But being a part of something/experiencing it is completely different than looking at it from the outside-in.

For example, I can read about D-Day, but I will never know what a soldier experienced during that battle. Or I can read about Yellowstone National Park is, but I can only imagine what it’s like to see it in person.

Read often and read broadly. It’s nice to have a good knowledge base of many subjects. But be humble enough to know that just because you’ve read about something doesn’t mean that you truly understand it. Go experience things as often as you can. When it comes to trying something new or going somewhere you’ve never been before, say yes. Because there is no substitute for experience.

Action and inaction

Stop reading (and watching/listening) so much and go think on your own. You need silence for creativity and for clarity. Ironically, you shouldn’t fill up every moment with doing something in order to be the most productive.

By the same token, stop reading and start doing. You can always accumulate more knowledge. Don’t use learning more about a subject as an excuse to procrastinate doing whatever it is you’re learning about. If you wait until you know everything to get started then you’ll never actually get started. Start doing it and continue to learn along the way.

Protecting your time

Be intentional with your time. Protect it…not just from others asking you to do things, but also from yourself. It’s easy to binge watch a show. Be careful so that the 30 minute show doesn’t become a two hour watch session. It’s easy to consume social media. If you keep a social media account, make sure that you’re not mindlessly surfing through their carefully crafted content specifically targeted at delivering the most compelling stories to keep you on their website.

How can you be intentional with your time where you’re doing something to improve your knowledge AND what would make you feel better (long term)? Instead of consuming shallow, surface level content (including tv shows, social media posts, and even many magazine articles), try reading something with more depth.

Start small. Try reading 10 pages per day (from a book). Over the course of the year, this will equate to 3,650 pages per year. If an average book is 250 pages, you will have read between 14-15 books for the year! If you do this for ten years, you will have read 140-150 books.

So many people quit reading or only occasionally read after graduating high school or college. Be different. Set yourself apart from the collective average. Use your time intentionally. And then use your newly acquired knowledge to further yourself in your career or change your life for the better.