52 Books in 52 Weeks

If you told me at the beginning of the year, I would on average read one book a week I'd have laughed. I did initially have an ambitious goal of around 30ish books or so, which I adjusted as it became too achievable and not challenging enough. 52 was the perfect number to strive towards, it kept me determined, motivated a gave me the push I needed. I get a lot of messages from people about books and others wanting to read more so I wanted to document the hows, whys & hopefully encourage you to give it a go for 2021:

Find your own motivation: I love learning and personal growth/development, however reading wasn't always something I prioritized because let's face it sometimes it is much easier to scroll through instagram and have a bit of a day dream. Likewise in my role as a life coach I take the responsibility of continuous learning and being able to recommend or pull from different sources to support each clients individual needs, very seriously. Your why will be different but it's important to know what that is if you are looking to increase or improve your reading/learning.

Diversify your genres: Reading heavy personal development books continuously can get tough, which demotivates you from following through on them. For me, I want to read those books so I can learn, adjust and improve, which is why I usually need to read 2/3 books at a time - typically a deep discovery one, a casual rom-com/psychological thriller on my kindle and then an audiobook or a physical book. This means that when the heavy learnings gets too much I can 'switch off' with a more casual read.

Kindle, Kindle, Kindle: My saving grace & love of my life - I wouldn't know where to start with my love for the kindle - firstly I sleep so much better when I'm off my phone and reading the kindle at nights - mainly I like that I don't need to get up and turn the lights off as my eyes start closing. Books are typically cheaper and I love the percentage at the bottom so you see where abouts you are in the book. You can also access your Kindle stats in an app, which helps those that are motivated by accountability and clocking up records.

Accountability app: I discovered the Good Reads app, which connects like-minded readers and allows you to document all the books you have read and rate them, you can also set a goal for the year and it will show you how you are pacing. I haven't got the best memory of the cult books I read like the Silent Patient, Girl on the Train etc so I like now that I can jump in and get a refresher

Don't just read - Listen: Audible has definitely helped to knock off 10 or so books this year, I am very very particular with the readers voice and sometimes I often buy the book to read again in the flesh if I find that there are some snippets I want to go back to: Atomic Habits & The Miracle Morning are two examples that I have done this with. There are some great free trials available for Audible and also the likes of audiobooks.com if you want to trial them out first and see if it works for you.

Feel free to message me if you want to chat or learn more :) @aish_lifecoach

Overall I actually found it very achievable and something that I'm going to try keep up every year :)