READING

James Clear, the New York Times best-selling author of Atomic Habits (www.atomichabits.com) has taken the world by storm with his powerful 2018 book on how we can build good habits and break bad ones. He’s looked at the international research across a number of different fields and has translated this into a coherent set of ‘easy’-to-implement actionable strategies. However, all are underpinned by three of what he calls ‘meta-habits’ – reading, questions, and sleep. Today I want to talk about just one of these – reading.

 Clear argues that reading can improve all areas of life: “Whatever you’re dealing with, whatever you’re working on, you can read about it and find a solution to it and do it better”. However the benefits go far beyond practical problem-solving. As well as improving literacy and benefiting from further and higher education, I believe that reading can also help us to:

·      access informal learning, culture and heritage;

·      improve focus, social skills, and health and learning outcomes;

·      develop imagination, thinking skills, and empathy; and

·      empower active citizenship and contributions to social and economic development. 

 Whether we think of ourselves as readers or not, we read all of the time. Many of us read novels for pleasure and relaxation. Others may prefer to read biographies of people they admire or other non-fiction books, text books, spiritual texts, newspapers, magazines, comics, journals, research studies and reports, instruction manuals, websites, or blogs.    

 While I didn’t develop my love of reading until my early 30s, maybe you were ‘luckier’ with it happening  when you were a young child? For the care experienced, my own research has found that an early love of reading can also be a critically important form of resilience.   

 Are you reading enough? And how are you and your teams fostering a potential love of reading among the babies, children and young people that you work with? It’s never too late. 

I’d love to hear your thoughts! You can email me at: iain@betteroutcomes.co.nz

Kia kaha (Stay Strong).

Iain