Improve Your Mental Diet

I discovered Tony Robbins back in 2010 while in a gym rut. I read one of his books and listened to the audiobook Awaken the Giant Within. This was my first experience with personal development (now called self-improvement, same thing).

Back then I thought it was just about feeling better. After his book I read more and listened to more. One might say it was too much.

The books were…fine. Most were motivational in nature, which is better than nothing. At some point, you have to ask yourself, what am I going to do with it? That's where books with practical advice comes in.

Looking back, it was all good. Sometimes you need a motivational kick. Other times you need to learn the next steps and put the work in.

Either way, the biggest thing reading does for you is changing your mindset, which for most people is the hardest thing to change. Just look around. Just scroll on social media for a little bit. Our minds default to negativity and it's only amplified on the internet.

I attempted 75 Hard a few years back. One of the rules was reading 10 pages per day. This actually helped me rebuild the habit of reading again.

That's a good start.

Just start with 10 pages per day.

That's enough for a 300 page book in a month. That could be 12 books per year, or whatever 3650 pages equals out to.

Either way, just start reading.

But why?

But Reading is Boring…Right?

People hate on reading.

It's too boring, or takes too long, or "I can find the answers in a simple AI/Google search."

If that were the case, we'd all be healthy, wealthy and wise, but look around you.

No matter what goals you have, here's the biggest reason to read more:

Before people act, they need a change of mindset.

Everything you do, whether it's good or bad for you, comes from what you believe in. If you play video games every night, you might believe that it helps you unwind at the end of the day, connect with friends online, and is a good mental challenge. Someone else could not play video games because they'd rather go to bed earlier, spend time stretching or working out and don't want their motivation to be sucked into a video game instead.

One activity, two different belief systems.

Most people want their lives to change on some level. Whether it's because they're fed up with something or want a challenge. The awesome part about that is that they can read a book from someone that's probably achieved the goal they want and learn from their decades of mistakes faster than trial and error. That book could also have the complete story and reasons behind the methods. You read a book about lifting weights and you find out that:

• Lifting helps build better body composition and proportions.

• Having more muscle helps you burn more fat at rest.

• Being strong helps with longevity so that you're not frail into old age.

That's just a short list. A book can have someone's personal story that makes you connect to the reader and the reasons even more.

If you just want more motivation in your day to day life, reading is great for that too. Again, not with short video snippets on social media, but with someone's life or a full book. Two examples that come to mind are both from Arnold Schwarzenneger. His autobiography, Total Recall, was inspiring enough without him having to tell you to do anything. Later he wrote the book Be Useful where he's giving practical advice mixed with his personal story.

When someone like that is "coaching" you, you listen.

Better Than Bad Habits

Bad habits creep into our lives.

We know they're not good for us, but for some reason we can't stop. A lot of them creep up at night: binge eating, too much TV, video games, endless scrolling, etc. This all leads to staying up late and being miserable in the morning.

Enter books!

For as much as people try to just quit bad habits, they're left in a void when they're gone so they have nothing to do. Then their monkey minds want comfort again, so they slingshot right back to the stuff they said they wouldn't do.

On the other end, sometimes we want to push it too much when we discover self improvement and we want to take on the world. We add productive activities to our list, but night time is a hard time to be productive. We did all the bad habits before because we want to wind down. Sadly, an over-stimulated brain isn't a recipe for wind down time. A book is a great replacement. It's not hard work but it's not complete entertainment either.

You need to be like your great-grandparents. They had nothing else going on at night except for the newspaper, a few books and each other to talk to.

I've been experimenting with trying to cut off social media (not just screen time because I will read on my phone, blasphemy, I know), at around 8pm. I don't always nail it, but at least there's an attempt. When that time hits, there's not a lot else to do aside from clean up around the house and get ready for the day. Your brain will seek out something to do, so give it the book alternative.

Then when it comes to sleep, I can't think of a better thing to wind down than with a book. It's the opposite of social media.

• It's text instead of video.

• It's one subject instead of infinite subjects.

• It forces imagination instead of the imagination being done "for you" and presented in your face like a show, movie or video game.

It has a powerful way of shutting the rest of the world out. Things happen around the world, whether positive or negative, but they don't deserve your attention all the time, especially right before sleep time. Want to improve your outlook on life? Keep your world small.

What to Do: Two Reading Modes

Practical and Motivational.

Those are the two categories of non-fiction you can use.

Practical books tell you what to do. They give you step by step actions, ideally towards a current goal you have.

There's tons of motivational books, but it wouldn't make much sense to read one per week and try to implement everything. Sometimes, you just need a reminder of all the positive stuff that the world doesn't give you.

Here's how/when to use each one:

Practical

• Live life

• Have a goal or a problem…which later turns into a goal.

• Get a book that you think will solve it.

• Read it, take your time, take notes, read it as many times as you want until you get it.

• Follow along with the steps provided as you go.

• If things aren't working or you are getting bored after you've given it a fair chance, get another book.

These usually take some time because new behavior takes some getting used to. That's ok. This is a life change you're trying to make here. It will take time to stop doing old habits and start doing new habits.

Motivational

• Find something that you think speaks to you.

• Read it.

• Read it slowly or read it again until you get it.

• Don't worry about notes or memorization.

These books usually have some small list of steps to take, but the main reason to use these is to just let the message/philosophy wash over your brain so it changes the way that you think and what you believe. When in doubt, gather a few of these and just re-read them again when you're not in the mood to follow a book step by step.

Join the Minority and Read More

I'm not sure why, but there's some debate in the self-improvement space about reading. People say that you can find the information faster with a quick search (which I mentioned earlier). Or people say "you just have to take action!"

At the end of the day, yes. Action takes you to where you want to go.

But you need the information too.

What if you went to the gym for the first time, by yourself, never seeing an exercise performed before and were told to workout. What would you even do? Doesn't a little bit of education help?

Yes.

Isn't reading a better activity than any of the bad habits you could be doing?

Yes.

In a world of increased mental health issues, isn't scrolling social media horrible for you? You're comparing your life to others, consuming negativity, giving yourself a false sense of socialization, and/or destroying your attention span.

Isn't reading better?

Yes.

When I put it that way, it's obvious.

Remember, if you want to act on the things you want to do, and do so on autopilot, it's going to take a change of philosophy.

Instead of consuming randomly, have some intention in what you're putting into your mind.

Now go read something.

Thanks for reading!

As always, if you have any questions or comments feel free to respond to this newsletter.