How to read a personal growth book
On why self-help books don't work & what you can do about it
Happy Sunday!
And welcome to today’s edition of ‘Conscious living with Purnima’. In today’s post I share with you an alternative approach to reading a self-help book. I hope you find it useful.
Self-help books can have an instant positive effect on our psyche. They soothe us, stir something deep inside us and fill us with hope. However, this is short lived. Soon the messages are forgotten only to be read once again in another book in another form. Same messages presented differently. It's what we call - old wine in a new bottle.
We may realise that we have read innumerable self improvement books but have nothing much to show for it in terms of real personal growth. This can make us lose faith in their efficacy to bring about real change.
An Alternative Approach:
Instead of just reading the book, drill down the essence of the message into a practice (one or several) that you can do.
For instance, if you want to be your own best friend, then reading the book, ‘love yourself like your life depends on it' alone is not going to cut it. You will need a conscious practice of catching the inner critique before it takes full control, or consciously celebrating your daily wins or any other practice that resonates with you to firmly ingrain the idea into your being.
Essentially, you need a “PRACTICE”.
When you read a book that intends to help you with your personal growth, ask yourself one key question:
How can I apply the ideas presented in the book into my life? Can I create a practice or a reminder?
You can look at creating flashcards of the reminders or create a daily ritual based on the message. Self-help books are not meant for passive reading, you need to actively work with them.
I will share with you my experience of reading the book Mastery by George Leonard. I came across the book in a fellow writer’s blog post and highly recommend it. It is small, not more than 200 pages, but full of wisdom.
The first time, I read it passively. It was only the second time that I read it with the intention of working with it, drilling down significant passages (significant in my opinion) into a bunch of practices and reminders that I can use in my everyday life.
I will share with you a few reminders I culled out from the book to help me on my life path. Even if you haven't read the book, you will get an understanding of what reminders can be like:
✨ “Mastery isn’t reserved for the supertalented or even for those who are fortunate enough to have gotten an early start. It’s available to anyone who is willing to get on the path and stay on it - regardless of age, sex, or previous experience.”
✨ "You practice diligently, but you practice for the sake of the practice itself."
✨ "The real juice of life, whether it be sweet or bitter, is to be found not nearly so much in the products of our efforts as in the process of living itself, in how it feels to be alive."
✨ "Love of your work, willingness to stay with it even in the absence of extrinsic reward, is good food and good drink."
✨ “To learn something new of any significance, you have to be willing to look foolish. If you’re always thinking about appearances, you can never attain the state of concentration that’s necessary for effective learning and top performance.”
✨ “The best learning of all involves learning how to learn - that is, to change. The lifelong learner is essentially one who has learned to deal with homeostasis (the resistance to change), simply because he/she is doing it all the time.”
✨ “Mastery is not about perfection. It is about a process, a journey. The master is the one who stays on the path day after day, year after year. The master is the one who is willing to try, and fail, and try again, for as long as he or she lives.”
✨ "The essence of boredom is to be found in the obsessive search for novelty. Satisfaction lies in mindful repetition, the discovery of endless richness in subtle variations on familiar themes."
To see for yourself if this approach helps, pick a self-help book (I am sure you have one) and read with a keen eye for reminders and practices that you can almost immediately apply into your daily life.
Let me know if it made any difference.
Yes indeed, like how we wait for the Sunday message/writing from you, any self book is not truly appreciated, unless we go in depth of its meaning.