How to develop the habit of reading?

What can reading do to you? Well, it can do lots of stuff, from teaching you things beyond your horizons to reducing your anxieties. Reading, it teaches you different cultures, different religions, and politics of different regions. Reading, it assists you in times of utter confusion, brings you joy and satisfaction and helps you in communication. Reading, it improves your concentration, enables your brain to stay active and makes you consider things from different perspectives. And above all, reading, it gives you knowledge that no one can take it away from you.

Reading is one of those healthy habits, which is very difficult to form and do on consistent basis. It is similar as going to gym for instance or jogging or taking dog for a walk. You can see the apparent benefits of these practices but you don’t do them or do them but occasionally. The followings are some of the steps that we can take towards developing the practice of reading.

1. The first thing to do is to consider all the benefits and rewards of reading of which some are mentioned above. You see, once you take into account all the merits of reading, can you think of really going in to it. When you are not aware of its benefits or the benefits of anything for that matter, you don’t do that thing. You do things when you see advantages in them. What is my benefit of studying for exams? In what ways can exercise help me? Similarly how can reading benefit me? Once you answer this question, you are good to go.

2. Second thing you want to do is to begin with small versions of reading, such as articles, short essays or stories, blogs, magazines, etc. This was a significant factor at least when i think of myself. What this did to me was that it persuaded me to go through whole portions of the work without sensing quitting. On the contrary if we start off with an extensive 300-page book, more often than not, we put it aside after having read only few pages. Sometimes we abandon it in the middle of the first page! Believe me, it happens. Also what those small articles and stories do is, they give you a sense of satisfaction of having read a whole story or a piece of information and gradually prepares you for long-lasting readings.

3. After considering and acknowledging all the advantages of reading and having gone through number of articles and short stories for few days or weeks, you develop a sense of reading a lengthy book. If you still haven’t, don’t be concerned at all and keep on going with what you have been doing. The important thing is to stay persistent. Eventually a time comes and believe me it does come, when you want to pick up and lose yourself in “Harry Potter” or “Hamlet” or “In Search of Lost Time” or “War and Peace,” books, that once you dared not to touch.