When was the last time you read a book? Wondering about it. Can’t recollect… in school, or college, or during a workshop, or during a course. Are you among people who read occasionally when you get time or among people who read daily.
“Whenever you read a good book, somewhere in the world a door opens to allow in more light” – Vera Nazarian
“If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
With technology and easy access to information, today more than ever most people are busy on their cell phones, laptops, iPad, tablets whether related to work or just surfing the internet. Instead of spending time on things that do not add value to you it’s best to focus on things that help you in improving your life. Reading books is one such habit that definitely helps you in your personal development. It’s just not only a habit it’s a culture by itself.
Not just for the sake of knowledge but a book can serve as a wonderful tool to develop so many aspects of your personality. If you have to study the life of famous people and become successful like them then a book on them or reading their post or articles on how they achieved success is an amazing way to know things faster.
No matter how busy you get, do make time to read books. If you are a person who doesn’t read, well it’s never too late to start. Let’s look at 10 Ways How Reading Helps To Improve Your Personality:
#1: Knowledge
As they say, “knowledge never goes waste” and this is something no one can take away from you. Reading books helps you to understand and know about various concepts, strategies, tools and resources that you might not be aware of. This knowledge in turn can help you to get equipped with strategies that might be useful while you are facing challenging situations in your life.
You can even apply these learnings to your day to day activities to handle various situations in a better way. Infact it can be learning for others as well.
#2: Word Bank
This goes without saying that the more you read; the more you are exposed to a good amount of vocabulary. You can make a notebook or a journal and keep adding words to it at regular basis.
These words can be the ones that you might not have heard of or you might have heard of but can’t recollect what they mean. You can keep visiting your journal regularly. This helps in improving your vocabulary.
Words are like a “Bank”. When you need the right words, you can get them easily. This helps in developing your overall personality and awareness. As a matter of fact to a level when you can help generate awareness about education. It helps you to present and carry yourself well at work, school, college or even in your daily interactions with people.
It’s a good way to learn a new language as well.
#3: Memory
The most important point – it definitely helps to increase your memory power because when you read a book you are able to remember the events, incidents, methods or quiz described there.
#4: Analyse
Yes! When you make reading as a habit (rather as a culture), you will realise that you are able to analyse and understand things better. You also start to understand yourself and others better. This helps in improving your own performance and thought process.
#5: Improved Focus and Concentration
When you read a book you get involved in it. Without involvement you won’t get a thing of what is written. You don’t want to miss on the continuity of it. This is turn leads to improved focus and concentration.
#6: Time Management
Now you are wondering… where does time management come into the picture? When you start to read more and more, you start to focus on taking time out to read and complete the topic, chapter, quiz, points or strategy that you were reading. This way you will land up managing your time which you would have spent chatting, or watching TV etc..
#7: Improved Communication Skills
Now with getting into the habit of reading it is obvious that you develop better communication skills. You are a confident personality and are able to express yourself fluently; written and verbally both.
#8: Inner Peace
Peace! Yes, you read it correct. In the process of inculcating the habit of reading, you start connecting with yourself and reading what you like rather what you love. This automatically brings a sort of calmness and inner peace within you. This helps in reducing your blood pressure levels and controlling your mood swings.
#9: Connecting With New People
Wow! This sounds great to me. In the process of uplifting yourself and making fruitful use of your time; you might start connecting with the author of the book, the people in similar niche or community. You come to know about various ways people put the process, tool or resources discussed in the book to practice and how they are benefitting from them. You start networking and making friends. This opens up a whole new possibility or possibilities for you.
#10: Improved Relationships
This is a good way to nurture your relationships and get engaged with them. Reading books to your kids (even if it is bed time stories), suggesting good books to help them improve their life and become better individuals and exchanging ideas with them or with your team.
In the process of doing this you develop improved relationships with people around you and the people you network with.
There are many more such benefits and the list goes on. It doesn’t matter what books you are reading and how much time you spend reading them. It’s about developing your personality. Start with areas of your personality that you want to improve on. One connect will lead to another and so on.
Now just think of this, even if you spend:
20 mins of reading everyday ==> 20 mins * 365 days = 7300 mins ...
Phew! Amazing isn’t it?