Reading self-help books is a major part of self-growth and allows us to learn from other people’s experiences. However, it’s common for people to forget the lessons in books. To get the best out of them, we need to learn how to apply what we read. Yes, reading can still have an impact on your life, but putting those lessons into action is what will bring about the big change. It all starts with having good reading strategies and habits. As I promised, this article will cover the strategies that you can use to remember and apply what you read in your next book.
How To Apply What You Read
To see progress in your life you have to have effective reading strategies in place that will help you remember and apply what you read. The strategies below will help you do just that.
Choose The Right Book
I fell in love with reading when I was going through a very tough time and decided to read a book that resonated with those difficulties. It helped me bounce back and turn things around. So I definitely believe that reading books that help you in areas where you’re struggling, whether it’s about finance, mental health or relationships is a great tip. However, I am also convinced that picking up any self-growth book has the potential to make a huge impact on your life.
Tip: Don’t read books on topics that are boring to you.
Exercise: Make a list of the skills that you want to develop. This can include investing, building better communication, or journaling. Then, pick a book that has those skills and decide to read it.
Be An Active Reader
An active reader is someone who puts in the work to understand concepts written by the author. On the other hand, a passive reader rushes to get the book done, simply skimming through the ideas without aiming to gain a deeper understanding. The number of books you read in your lifetime isn’t important; instead, the valuable lessons you gain from them are what truly matter. This backs up my previous point on why we should read the topics we’re genuinely interested in. When we have genuine interest, it creates room for curiosity and makes us active readers by default.
Highlight and Annotate
Research has shown that highlighting notes when studying can improve memory. Additionally, highlighting key concepts in the book helps them stand out when you need to go over them sometime in the future. I like to annotate the book by using different highlighter colors to represent different concepts. This makes it easier for me to figure out what I’m looking for when I’m rereading a book. For example, I use the color green to mark the examples that back up a certain idea, blue for practices recommended by the author, and pink for facts, quotes, or opinions. You can go about it however you want. If using sticky notes is your thing, go ahead.
Tip: Before highlighting, make sure you read the section beforehand so that you don’t end up highlighting the whole section. This will help you easily pinpoint the important ideas without overdoing it.
Take Notes
I think this is the most important step. Summarizing the chapters can massively help in remembering and applying what you read. I’m speaking from personal experience on this, I have created summaries of numerous books and it has been massively helpful when I need to recall a certain chapter in a book. I also found that when I summarize a chapter, I come up with new and fresh perspectives on the chapters I’m outlining. From my experience, I’ve discovered two ways for summarizing notes:
- Transferring what you highlighted
- Creating a summary in your own words (Recommended)
Argue With The Author
Yes, there’s nothing wrong with disagreeing with the author’s ideas. They might have different values after all. Know that not everything they say will resonate with you. A good idea is to write down the points on which you disagree in the book’s margin or your notebook. I sometimes go on Quora to see other people’s perspectives on that specific point. Doing this will also help you remember key ideas and understand different points of view.
I want to share something with you. I remember a time when I read a book and disagreed with a major part of the author’s viewpoint. It triggered major anxiety and overthinking in me. Personally, once I get into that loop of overthinking, it’s very hard to break free. I thought I was doing something wrong in my self-growth journey and things started to escalate from there. I know that’s probably an exaggerated version of what others may encounter but I want to assure you that if you go through a similar situation it’s perfectly normal. You’re not doing anything wrong.
Do The Exercises
Many people tend to procrastinate and ignore doing the exercises in a book. But those exercises are there for a reason and telling yourself you’ll do it later is a lie. I’ve been 100% guilty of that and guess what? I never actually got around to doing those exercises. If you’re guilty of this, this is your sign to take action and do them now. The exercises are also a way of practicing the methods the author is sharing with you. So if your book has exercises, DO THEM!
Master Practices
When you stumble across a practical method the author recommends, practice it as much as you can until you can master it. I think the key here is to practice one or two ideas at a time because wanting to master everything at once is impossible and overwhelming.
Discuss With A Friend
Sharing your knowledge with others can be a powerful tool for helping you recall information. I think we can all relate to this experience. Do you sometimes see yourself engaging in a discussion with a friend and, simply by talking about it, developing fresh and new perspectives on the topic? That very conversation is also easier to recall later on.
Tip: If you can’t find someone to share your knowledge with, you can also watch a video or read an article regarding that topic.
Reread Books
Make sure to keep note of the books that had an impact on you and write them down. Reread these books or your summaries in the future. The practices above will help you remember most of the things. But rereading something can also help you see it from a different point of view and even remember certain information that may have slipped your mind the first time you read it.
Conclusion
Let’s recap, sometimes people read and read but don’t see any positive changes in their life. That’s because they don’t have a proper reading strategy. A reading strategy will help you apply the lessons to your life and change it for the better. We discussed how we can remember and apply these lessons effectively and I gave you some tips along the way. So go ahead and read the book you think will change your life and make it your mission to apply its strategies.
So how was that? Which book are you going to read? I highly recommend that you do the exercise above to help pinpoint your interests. Let me know in the comments if the reading strategies were of any help. Share this with a friend that’s finding it difficult to apply and remember what they read. I’ll always be here cheering you on!