Do you read a lot of self help books? Because many people that I know are forever reading, always learning, endlessly searching, Unfortunately, however, it is not reading that changes your life, but doing.
Constantly reading self help books is not dissimilar to collecting loads of holiday brochures and travel guides about an exotic destination that you long to visit. You’ve poured over photographs, read the advice, imagined what it would be like to be there, immersed yourself in the idea of being there. However, you’ll never pluck up the courage to buy the ticket. What’s my point? Reading about how to achieve the life that you really want and doing something about it are two entirely different things. Reading all those feel-good stories about how others have taken the required action and, as a consequence, changed their lives, may well give you that longing feeling inside. But tomorrow morning, when you drag yourself out of bed for another normal day, what will have changed? Nothing! When you’re confronted with another day of hassle, stress, financial shortage or low self-confidence, what good will all the books have done you? If anything, you’ll be even more restless and more dissatisfied than you were in the first place.
Reading, understanding and intellectually appreciating what it takes to change your life is going to make no difference to your life until you put what you’ve learned into daily practice. And that’s just too big a hassle for most normal people – they’re fearful of taking what they believe as some really risky leap of faith.
If you’ve been lucky enough to come across a self help book that has step-by-step tips on how to change your life (and there aren’t many of them – most of them are ‘feel-good books’) then surely you’ve realized by now that there is no leap of faith required. All you need to take is take simple steps, every day, that will awaken you from the stupor in which most normal people are merely existing.
To change your life, you have to change the way you’re living the life that you have at present. Change can start small – by doing something as simple as changing your morning routine – because small things get your subconscious mind out of its comfort zone. Once out you will start to understand that every single thing in your life can be done differently. When this realization hits you, you will find yourself in a completely different place – where things that were otherwise unthinkable suddenly become the logical thing to do – and easily doable.
In fact, it’s you who has to start doing the things that will change your life, to stop reading and start doing.
