“By stretching skills, by reaching toward higher challenges, such a person becomes an increasingly extraordinary individual"
M. Csikszentmihalyi
Experienced and passionate readers know how addicting, pleasant and transformative reading can be, yet many people struggle to read a couple of books per year.
The key to become passionate about reading and to get the most out of it is to transform reading into a flow experience.
"Flow experiences" (M. Csikszentmihalyi) are those moments when we become one with what we are doing ... the truly best moments. Usually these moments occur when we challenge ourselves with activities that have clear goals, clear rules and require us to use our skills and our full concentration.
Flow activities push us to a higher level of performance and lead to rapid personal growth ... in sum they transform us in "increasingly extraordinary individuals".
I found the "Flow" book amazing and I keep coming back to it as a reference to truly make it part of how I live my life. I truly believe that what this book preaches is fundamental to become the best version of ourselves.
So let's move our first steps into transformational reading:
1) Challenge yourself in a way that is stimulating.
The first step toward transformational reading is setting a goal which is stimulating, out of our comfort zone, but not so far from it that it becomes unattainable or scary. We have to challenge ourselves to keep the "fight or flight response" at bay.
You can either aim at increasing the quality of the books you are reading or you can go for quantity by pushing yourself to read X% more than you normally would.
For example, for sometimes I was stuck in the rut of reading numbing books. If you happen to be in a similar situation improving quality will be the most critical move toward transformational reading: a first step to break the habit could be to identify a couple of books from the "1001 books to read before you die" reading list.
As you slowly increase the complexity of what you are reading, you will notice more and more layers of meaning and you will start to find delightful details or subjects that, once, you would have overlooked. The more I read Murakami, the more I appreciate his writing, but I have also started to appreciate more everything that makes me think of the details in his books, like slowly cooking a meal or listening to my favourite music.
2) Lose yourself in reading.
Once you find something that has an interesting level of complexity you will feel that your attention starts to concentrate more and more on it. You'll start to become so involved in what you're reading to gradually lose perception of what is around you or to be attracted to it again and again. The addictive effect of flow activities starts to build up.
All the same you can facilitate the emergence of this feeling by building a ritual around it, like finding a quiet comfortable armchair to read, preparing yourself a cup of tea or coffee or listening to your favourite music while on public transportation.
The goal of this step is to be completely absorbed in the moment.
3) Have clear goals and reward yourself!
To reach the maximum of the involvement in an activity, goals should be extremely clear and feedback as immediate as possible. One way to do this is, for example, chunking or time boxing. Say you are attempting to read the "Count of Montecristo" which is thousand of pages long, one could be easily scared off by the immensity of the book. Trying to chunk it in 30 minutes' or 30 pages' reading sessions will help you set clear goals and prevent becoming intimidated by its hugeness.
In this phase, keeping track of your progresses will provide even clearer feedback and will motivate you to compete against yourself.
Moreover, if you get in the habit of rewarding yourself after you finish each reading session, you will enter a virtuous cycle. In fact when you reward yourself, your brain learns to associate positive feelings to the activity you are rewarding yourself for and this will create automatisms that will draw you to read more and more. A square of dark chocolate after some good reading will do the trick if you enjoy it!
For those who already enjoy reading, the feeling of continually expanding their own horizons becomes a reward in itself, so the more you'll lose yourself in reading, the more reading will become rewarding in itself.
Personally I became a bookaholic when I was a kid and I haven't stopped since. All the same, the main challenge I faced was in the quality of the books I read and this strategy has helped me enormously to shift my focus toward truly transformational reading.
Best quotes from "Flow" by M. Csikszentmihalyi
"The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. Optimal experience is thus something that we make happen."
"Because optimal experience depends on the ability to control what happens in consciousness moment by moment, each person has to achieve in on the basis of his own individual efforts and creativity"
"The optimal state of inner experience is one in which there is order in consciousness. This happens when psychic energy, or attention, is invested in realistic goals and when skills match the opportunity for action."
"A person who has achieved control over psychic energy and has invested in consciously chosen goals cannot help but grow into a more complex being. By stretching skills, by reaching toward higher challenges, such a person becomes an increasingly extraordinary individual"
" A mind with some stable content to it is much richer than one without. ... The consciousness of such a person [...] can always amuse herself and find meaning in the contents of her mind".
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