How Reading Can Elevate Your Mindset
Updated: Nov 21, 2022
Reading is one of the best ways to stimulate your mind and elevate your mindset. It’s a powerful way to expand your knowledge base, gain new insights, and enjoy some downtime. You can read for pleasure, work-related purposes, or as a hobby. Here are some reasons why reading can elevate your mindset:
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Elevating Your Mindset
The mind is a powerful tool, but it can only be fully utilized if you are conscious of how it works. Reading allows us to develop an elevated state of mind that will translate into how we think, communicate with others, and view ourselves. Reading allows us to become better versions of ourselves and help our brains become more active as we engage in new ideas and concepts.
Reading is also an excellent way to learn about yourself and the world around you by gaining insight into other cultures, beliefs, and perspectives that may differ from your own. The ability to understand these differences will help make decisions that are more informed rather than impulsive or based on personal bias.
By reading regularly, we can improve not only our quality of thinking & literacy but our perspective on life because reading allows us to open our minds to different points of view, learn from this newfound information and apply it to our personal life. The easiest example of this is cookbooks. Learning a new recipe or trying a recipe that we've used before but from another person's suggestion and applying those instructions when cooking up a meal is a common example of how reading can influence our life.
5 Benefits of Reading
1. Reading Is A Form of Self-Care
Reading can be an incredibly relaxing activity. When you read, you can tune out the world around you and immerse yourself in a story. It has been proven that reading aids in reducing stress levels since it lets you escape from your worries for a bit. If a book is particularly engrossing, it can also help reduce pain or discomfort caused by illness or injury because your brain is no longer focused on your current circumstances but instead on what you are consuming.
2. Improving Literacy skills & Brain Function
Reading also helps improve literacy skills & brain function. Reading regularly will develop the brain, improve memory, concentration, and focus. We often associate people who read many books as smarter, wise & knowledgeable, this is because they have been able to build their brain function, retain more information and thus improve their vocabulary, and literacy skills which result in understanding how the world and people function from an open mind.
3. Boosting Creativity & Self- Esteem
Reading can improve your creativity and self-esteem because they give us new perspectives on things we might not usually think about; this allows us to gain fresh ideas which may not exist within our current worldviews yet could change how we perceive certain situations. Depending on the kind of books you engage in, reading can be a self-esteem booster because it allows us to relate what is happening in the book to our personal lives thus establishing the feeling that we can also do better to then be elevated versions of ourselves.
4. Improves Sleeping Patterns
Reading before bed is a great way to help you get a good night's rest. It helps you wind down your brain, relax, and clear your mind for sleep. If you battle with irregular sleeping patterns, keeping a book within reach versus picking up your cell phone and scrolling through social media will benefit you when you awake the next morning.
5. Enhances The Chance Of Success
Reading is a great way to get the knowledge and skills you need to succeed in life. Reading can help you improve your communication skills, develop better critical thinking skills, and learn how to take action in life. Reading can also help you learn new tools & strategies for accomplishing a goal, opportunities, and ways of thinking that can help you achieve success. Success looks different for everyone but many of the most successful people in the world can attribute their knowledge and reason for becoming successful from reading and implementing the knowledge that they learned to their business, personal growth, relationships, and overall happiness.
A Different Perspective
Reading is a great way to learn how to find a strategy and system to do something differently in your life. Reading allows you to see how other people think and feel, which helps you understand your behavior and reactions. Reading can help you understand the world around you to better navigate through it.
Reading can be especially helpful if you're trying to develop your mindset as well as your skill set. If you're just starting out reading self-help books or even nonfiction books in general, remember that it's okay if it doesn't make sense at first—you'll get used to the style eventually once it becomes familiar. If there's something specific that stands out while reading (e.g., an idea or quote), write it down somewhere so that later on when things get busy again they don't slip away from your mind completely."
Sometimes it can take reading a book several times to understand the material, how it relates to you and how you can elevate in that specific area. These two books mentioned have helped not only me but hundreds of thousands of people on elevating their mindsets, create effective habits in our routines, and attract what we want in life with the power of intention & meditation.
Atomic Habits
"Atomic Habits" by James Clear
Atomic Habit is a book that will help you form new habits. The author, James Clear, lays out a systematic approach to change your behavior by focusing on the smallest steps possible. He says that the most important part of forming new habits is taking action instead of just thinking about it. Once you have formed a habit, it can be as simple as repeating an action over and over again until it becomes second nature for you. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the things we need to do in our day-to-day lives; however, if we break down these tasks into smaller chunks, they may seem easier to accomplish than if we were trying to tackle them at once.
The main takeaway from Atomic Habits is that Consistency trumps skill always. Any change starts with small steps and progress comes from building upon those small steps until they become automatic behaviors or “atomic habits” which require very little effort yet make up most of what you do each day (for example: brushing your teeth). I would highly recommend this book if learning how to develop healthy & effective habits interests you!
Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself
In Dr. Dispenza's book, "Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One", he goes in-depth with readers on how to get out of our way so we can move past our perceived limitations and start living fulfilling lives. He'll tell us what he means by "dysfunctional systems," why they're so hard to break out of, and how we can use tools such as meditation to detach ourselves from our current way of thinking and open our minds to creating a new reality. In this book, you'll learn about the field of quantum physics and how our brain plays a major role in our lives.
As A Man Thinketh
First published in 1902, "As A Man Thinketh" By James Allen stands the test of time. The principles in this book are still relevant to today. James Allen details how mans thoughts are what creates the reality that we live. The energy that we choose to put towards certain thoughts is what ultimately manifest in our lives, whether we subconsciously realize it or not. He remarks on how we can use our thoughts to change our circumstances and come to the realization that true wisdom, happiness and prosperity come from within versus our external world. This book also serves as a great gift for those around us.
The Game of Life And How To Play It
If there was a an awards night for books, this one would deserve a standing ovation and encore! "The Game of Life and How To Play It" by Florence Scovel Shinn is an absolute must read! In this classic best-seller Florence simply yet powerfully conveys the message that what we put out into the world by thought, speech and actions gets returned to us. WIth pessimistic actions and emotions we can turn those thoughts and emotions into one that are positive and ones that will bring us the manifestations that we actually want to come into fruitons such as the career,relationships, finances, abudance, miracles.I find that this book also helps to ease anxiety and a mind that is cluttered with fear. lack & scarcity by repeating these powerful affirmations such as
"I cast away this burden of lack to go within and go free to have plenty"
"I cannot lose any relationship that is mine in divine right"
"I cast this burden on the Christ within and go free"
The Power of Your Subconscious Mind
In "The Power of Your Subconscious Mind" by Dr. Joseph Murphy gives an amazing perspective on how you can improve your overall well-being, relationships and finances with the power of your subconscious mind. This book attests to similar ideologies to that of "The Game of Life And How To Play It" , "As A Man Thinketh" & "Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself" all four books remark on how the most powerful tool that we have that doesn't cost money, we don't have to go out and search for is our own mind. If we learn how to use our mind to create the life that we do want versus focusing our energy on the aspects of life we are not satisfied with, we then realize just how powerful we are.
Reading is what? FUNDAMENTAL. It's also a great form of self-care! If you have never thought of yourself as being a reader or have a hard time concentrating when reading a book then an app like audible would probably work better with your reading style. Essentially it's not about how fast you get through a book but the commitment you make to yourself to finish it and apply something that you've learned to your life. I hope this article has helped you to feel excited about reading and some of the many benefits that come from it.
I would love to hear what are some of your favorite past or current reads and why? Leave a comment below or tag @blackboujeebeauty on Facebook.
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