I am obsessed with self improvement

Yesterday, I was talking to my wife about a new book that I am reading and she said to me, “Don’t you ever read any fictional books?”

Admittedly, I rarely do.

Now, I do occasionally watch a kids programme called Yu-Gi-Oh, when I am cooking or doing house work and on the weekend I might watch an Arsenal game. However, when it comes to reading, I am obsessed about learning.

Whether that’s how I can develop my career, manage my finances better, kick a bad habit or learn from someone else’s story. I am constantly reading about things that can help me to improve.

They say you can learn from yourself or from others. I choose to do both. I have kept a journal for the last 9 years and that has been a great resource for reflecting and self expression. In terms of learning from others, I tend do a lot of observing and reading. In fact, in the past couple of years, I have read roughly 50 books a year.

Previously, I joined a book club at work where we committed to a reading target and listed the books that we had read. However, after a while, I stopped contributing to it. Why? Because the books that I was reading were way too personal for me. Typically, I read books when I am, facing a difficult challenge, driven by a particular goal, or to learn about a topic of interest. On the other hand, everyone else in the group was reading fictional books and I was just not comfortable with sharing some of the more personal books on my list. If you look at a person’s library you can learn a lot about a person.

I do agree that we all need to let our hair down every now and then, but when it comes to reading, I am proud to say that I am obsessed with self improvement and it is something that I never want to change!