From Pages to Progress: Turning Self-Help Books into Real Results

I have wanted to start a business for a long time now. But I’ve never done it before, so into the YouTube rabbit hole I went. Got some book recommendations and started reading them. From there, I found more books that I felt I needed to read before I deemed myself qualified to start a business. Sound familiar?

You may already know this, but deep down you probably don’t think you are unqualified. Consuming content is just so much easier than taking the steps to learn something new and inherently failing at things.

Reading self-help books gives you the illusion that you are learning and making progress in what you want to achieve.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that the books are bad. What I am saying is to put the things you read into action. If you don’t do this, you will stay in your comfort zone of just reading and not truly learning.

If you wanted to learn to swim, would you pick up a book? Probably not. You would go to a local swimming pool and get lessons. What do those lessons do? They don’t put you in a school bench to tell you how to float; they give you instructions, and you immediately get in the water to practice.

See what I’m getting at here? You need to put every lesson you learn into action immediately, or you’ll learn nothing from it.

When you read a self-help book, I want you to do what you would in a swimming school, or any other learning environment. Take notes on the things that stand out to you. As we know, taking notes while learning helps you remember the material. So, take notes, highlight interesting quotes, and write yourself a summary. But we’re not stopping there.

The last important step is to get you out of that comfort zone. Since you won’t be tested or thrown into the pool by your teacher, you have to do this yourself. With every chapter or lesson you learn, create an action point for yourself. And now put it to practice. When you finish a chapter and have a few points, start putting those into action before the next time you pick up the book. You could see it as homework you need to do before the next lesson. This way, you’ll get yourself out of that warm and cozy comfort zone and start moving towards your goal.

When you follow these steps, you won’t feel the need to read another book before you can get started because you already did! Of course, at some point, you might want to learn a new skill related to your goal, and it’s perfectly fine to get another book to learn that skill, as long as you follow these steps again. Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither will your dreams be. But by taking action, you’re already building the foundation.

So, let’s put this post into practice right now, shall we? Highlight the points in this post that bring value to you, and create some specific action points based on what you’ve learned. Since there won’t be a next lesson for this class, how about setting a deadline? Execute the action points you made before next week and start building that base! Remember, the goal is progress, not perfection — every small step counts.

Thank you for reading this, and good luck!