reading? books?

Since I went to school, I always had a crush on books and from very early on, I also piled them up without necessarily reading them immediately.

In my busy corporate days and being a mother to little children, my reading was basically limited to e-mails and short articles, while the pile of books that I wanted to read because I had fallen in love with their cover and excerpt grew to gigantic size along with me feeling guilty about not reading.

As I had embarked on my journey of becoming a coach, reading books felt like a necessity and I started realizing that I had totally lost the habit of sitting still and immersing myself in written words. I also realized how not reading had dried up some aspects of my creative mind, of my imagination. And yet, there is always so much to do that putting down my book to get some work done doesn’t seem like a bad idea – at first.

My way back into reading was audio-books. Learning about brain science while doing the laundry was a bit of a challenge at first, while the “power of engagement” accompanied me well on my bike rides through the forest. By now, I do both, reading myself and listing to others reading to me. Listening while doing something else works fairly well for me, it’s a way to do a quick read. And then, I usually have the paper copy of the book to go deeper into what intrigued me.

As a practice to be reading for real again, I started planning 10 minutes reading as “my time for me”.  After those 10 minutes, I took a PostIt paper and before I closed the book made a note of what I got from my reading – insights or simply the feeling I had after this break.

In this section of my blog, you will find regularly recommendations for books. And in order to see if it’s worth a read for you, right now, I’ll share some of my insights and highlights. In a way each and every one of them triggered thoughts and ideas, found a way into my coaching work, my life and my very own development.