Habits, Books, and Personal Growth

‘Do you feel like your life is stuck in place? Do you want to change it, and grow to be a better person – to have a beautiful life? What do you want to be?’ - Those questions were always in my head, until recently I got the answer. Yes, I want to change my life and reach my goals. The next question is what step should I take? I realize that if I want to change something, I have to start within myself. Then again, which part should I change first?

Recently, I found a sponsor post on my Instagram feed that encouraged me to ‘Take this Personal Growth Challenge for 28 days’. I took the quiz, enrolled to their program, and they sent me my self-development plan.

The program runs for four weeks, covering a topic each week:

1. Productivity – Get actionable tips and tricks to become a high-performer.

2. Money and Career – Focus on impressive career and earn money.

3. Love and Sex – Dive into the secrets of successful social interactions.

4. Happiness – Discover clear and simple ways to kick-off.

There are 28 summaries of the best books to achieve my goals. Here is the flow, I should check my plan on daily basis, read each summary of the book for 15 minutes and celebrate the progress. Thick each book every time I finish read them. Since starting the program, I consistently read a few pages of books every day, and yeah, I can feel the difference! I have been feeling more positive and that every day, I am one percent closer to being a better person.

For the past few years, I can honestly say that I didn’t even think about reading books; especially non-fiction. When I was in junior high school, I loved reading comics, though I didn’t really like to read a novel, or even just a page full of words. However, I have since realized that successful people love to read books. I think that there is so much knowledge to be gained, and that’s why they read them.

I started by reading a non-fiction book regarding financial and personal growth a year ago. At first, I didn’t enjoy reading it; I felt sleepy after reading just a few words. I didn’t pick the book up again until six months later, in early 2021. I started to put all of my effort, and focus into the book and read carefully. I found that not only can I understand it, but I can get a real benefit!

Wow! I found out that reading is not such a boring activity. Reading helped my brain to memorize things, to reduce stress, and to increase my vocabulary. I now have so many topics that I can talk about with someone else about the books I have read.

In James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits, he says that if we want to change our habits, we have to change our identity. Instead of saying, “I want to stop smoking”, you have to say “I’m not a smoker”. In my example, my target is not to finish reading one book, it’s that I’m changing my identity to see myself as a reader.

After reading Atomic Habits, I also realized that I had applied this successfully in the past. In 2018, I had wanted to become a runner. My goal wasn’t just to finish a 5km or 10km run in a certain time, but that I should enjoy my runs and do them regularly. I also registered for some running events in 2018 and 2019. The joy when I finished a race is unforgettable. I can now say confidently that, ‘I’m a keen runner’; my identity has changed!

Personal growth is really helping me to develop my soft skills. What are soft skills? Wikipedia said “Soft skills are a combination of people skills, social skills, communication skills, character or personality traits, attitudes, mindsets, career attributes, social intelligence and emotional intelligence.” In this era, it doesn’t matter if you are an expert in a given field - if your soft skills are zero, then you have no hope. Soft skills are important for explaining yourself, socializing, and career development.

In my experience, the first thing I look for in a person is their manner. Once, I interviewed candidates for a position in the accounting department. I looked into their eyes and asked them questions about the job as well as their personality. I could say that 3 of the 5 candidates have good manners, and that they knew how to open a conversation, how to answer a question confidently and how to impress me as their interviewer. Their soft skills were a very important thing that influenced my hiring decision.

There are a lot of books to help you improve your soft skills or to help you grow. Don’t think that reading is a hard thing to do; your unconscious brain will believe it and you will become discouraged. If you start with just one paragraph first, you can slowly improve to reading one page per day, until eventually you will lose track of time and forget that you are reading!

I have learned that you can start to change your habits and begin self-development just by reading a book. Set a target, meet it consistently, and take the benefits!