I Hate(d) Reading.

Once upon a time, there was a young man in his 20’s sitting alone in his apartment writing a blog post about how he began to like writing and reading again on a random Friday night when he could be doing absolutely anything else. That man, was (is) me. (Shocker)…(and kind of sad. Bite me, my plans fell through for the night.)

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Anyways, I’m not writing this to share my woes of boredom. I’m writing this to share my story of how I fell back in love with reading and writing. 

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Let’s travel back to elementary school, shall we?

Your biggest worry came from answering whether Jimmy had 8 apples after you ate 2 of them on last night’s math homework. You spent almost all class eagerly waiting for recess or PE. Your biggest business deals happened at the lunch table and your most devastating loss came from losing “Tug-of-War” with your class on Field Day. 

My fondest memories, however, were not made in a classroom or on a playground. They were made in a library. You see, at my elementary school, we had a program called “AR” or Accelerated Reader. Accelerated Reader was a program that systematically assigned point values to books based on length and reading difficulty. Once a student completed a book, they would then take an online test to prove their knowledge of the book. If they passed, they received the point total and could use those points to exchange for rewards (like a pizza party or an ice cream sundae). Teachers would have an ongoing leaderboard to showcase who had the most AR Points throughout the year. 

This was a game-changer. Like many students, I started reading every chapter-book series I could find. ‘Harry Potter’, ‘The Magic Tree House’,’Goosebumps’ - The list went on. Not only was this AR system encouraging my friends and I to read, but it also made it FUN. I ended up reading all kinds of books ranging from Stars and Nebulas to Culinary Arts. This excitement, however, did not last very long. 

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Fast forward to now. 

You’re all grown up now. Your biggest worries come from rent, meeting deadlines, and balancing relationships. You spend most of your time in front of a screen, eagerly waiting for the workday to end so you can go home and stare at a bigger screen playing netflix for a little while before bedtime. Your biggest business deals happen over docusign and your most devastating losses would be unimaginable to your elementary school counterpart. 

The point is, life’s harder, and as you grew up, teachers stopped rewarding you with pizza parties for reading and instead started handing out F’s if you didn’t. Continued education and extra certifications meant that you could finally afford to have a bathroom for yourself instead of sharing with a roommate. There’s a lot more pressure on your education and you don’t want to take on any more than you absolutely have to. Which also means you don’t hate reading, you’re just jaded and scared of doing it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been there. I didn’t pick up a book unless there was an assignment all throughout high school and college (and even then, SparkNotes came in clutch, often). I hated reading. I had convinced myself that there was nothing I was going to gain from reading outside of what what was absolutely necessary.

“Great, thanks for the story. But how TF did you start liking to read again, Asmir?!”

Here’s how.

• Carrots work better than sticks

  Positive reinforcement works better than negative reinforcement.
  

  Think back to AR Points. There were ZERO punishments for not reading, but TONS of rewards for reading. We were encouraged to read because we knew that it would only benefit us. Grades and deadlines add unnecessary pressure to curiosity.

• Get books that answer your questions

  Like I said before, LIFE IS HARD. We are tasked with new scenarios regarding our finances, relationships, careers, futures, health, and more everyday. With these challenges come an abundance of questions. But like any problem, there is always an answer.

  No matter the predicament, there is a high chance someone has written a book that can help you through your problem.

  And that’s carrot #1 - An actionable solution.

  When you have a problem, turn to books and articles to learn about how you can solve them. The more problems you’ll solve, the more you’ll realize that reading is simply expanding your ability to solve problems. The more that ability pays off, the more you’ll want to read.

• Get paid to read

  I realized that I like tangible rewards. So here’s a little system that I set up to reward myself every time I finish a book.

  Keep in mind: This requires self-accountability and structure.

  1) Pick a time period. I usually pick a year, but you can make it whatever you like.

  2) Pick how many books you want to read in that time period. I make it a goal to read at least 12 books a year (1 a month).

  3) Set a dollar amount for each book. This can be $10 a book or $100 a book, completely up to you.

  4) Add up all of that money, take it out of your bank, and put it out of your control. If I set all of my books at a value of $100 a book, I would then take out $1200 from my account and put it in a location (give it to a friend, an account overseen by a relative, etc.) that I cannot easily gain access to.

  5) Finally, give someone you trust dearly access to the money so they can “pay you” your funds back to you. Everytime I finish a book, my accountability partner sends back $100 for completing the book.

  Here’s the part that’s a little “stick-ish”: If you don’t meet the deadline, you lose the rest of the money to your accountability partner. So if you choose this method, be sure to keep yourself accountable and organized to make sure you make all of your money back!

• E-Books or Audiobooks

  Don’t like reading physical books? No problem. Companies like Amazon have multiple options for books such as E-books (digital copies of the book that you can read on your iPad or Kindle) or even Audiobooks (a spoken version of your book so you can listen instead of physically scanning each page).

  Every human is different, so experiment and figure out what works best for you when it comes to your reading format.

Reading is challenging, and I know you’ve probably convinced yourself that there is a million other things you could be doing instead of it. From my personal experience however, I’d rather be someone who likes reading than someone who’s scared of it EVERY SINGLE TIME.

That being said, you just read this whole article, so it’s clearly not impossible for you. So get started and let me know how it goes for you! 

Be sure to comment below any other strategies you’ve used in the past that have kept you reading!

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