How to Form a Reading Habit

Every new year never fails to inspire people to start reading. If you’re like me, I always set my reading goal on Goodreads at the beginning of the year. Sadly, as time went by, I forgot what I had promised with that platform.

According to my in-depth research regarding developing reading habits, I have come up with three tips that are the most popular and personally interesting to me.

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First and foremost, read books that interest you. When you find that the book you are holding fails to keep your attention many times, leave it. That means you can stop reading a book when it’s not interesting to you. Start a new one until you find a book that speaks to you and makes you unable to put it down.

After many years of reading, I’ve finally found my taste, which is books about women. I’ve read a lot of books about women in the past such as Twelve Extraordinary Women, Lies Young Women Believe, Captivating, and more. I can recall the time I picked up Captivating by John and Stasi recently, and I said to myself, “this is going to be my next favorite book.” And indeed it is.

Building a reading habit is like building a relationship. You keep getting into the wrong relationships until the right one arrives in your life and you’re together forever.

I believe in a statement that says:

Everyone is a reader… some just haven’t found their favorite book yet.

— Anonymous.

Come on! Creating your reading habit begins with believing that you can be a reader someday and that there’s a book destined to build you into a reader.

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Second, have a habit tracker. It can be a calendar, a tracking app, or anything that can track your reading. Till the day you arrive at your soulbook — not soulmate but something similar — you need to keep reading various genres, drop them down when necessary, and flip open a new one.

In other words, I recommend you to read every day, even just for several minutes on some days. You should be consistent in the quest of finding your soulbook if you want to make a habit to read.

Therefore, having a habit tracker is a tremendous help. After you read something today, cross the date on your calendar and feel a sense of small achievement. By doing so, you are absolutely on your way to having a reading habit.

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Lastly, give yourself a library day! A library is the best place to begin your reading habit when you are a budget reader. To keep reading, dropping books, and reading again, you have to keep having books in store for you.

Go to a public library or library cafe and pick for yourself different types of books that seem interesting to you without having to spend much on book costs.

What’s more? Finding your favorite book can be exhausting and discouraging when you haven’t had the habit to read yet and you keep finding books that don’t match your preference. So, going to the heaven of books and readers can inspire you to read in many ways.

I remember visiting my favorite bookstore in town whenever I feel down or unmotivated to read. By seeing many books with different colors and pictures on their covers, reading their descriptions, and visiting some of their pages, I’m reminded of how peaceful it is to be surrounded by books and how satisfying it is to read a good book.

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All in all, these are 3 easy tips to jump-start your reading journey. Don’t overwhelm yourself yet. Just grab a book with a title that sounds interesting to you. After you read it, feel free to abandon it whenever it does not meet your expectations and start a new one right away. That’s it. Are you ready? Set & go.