 there is no such thing as a reading slump. Do you win bingo? I think so. I just don't have time to read, maybe not live sports. Move on, get over it, do something you don't want to do. Why is it your fault? This is why you're not reading. So with this video, I'm hoping to change your mindset about reading and also help you out if you are struggling with reading. Be it because it's not a habit for you, it's something that you wish you did more of, it's something that you do do a lot of but you're struggling right now to do it or you feel for whatever reason that there's something holding you back from reading. Reading a lot, reading more than you do now. First things first, there is no such thing as a reading slump. Reading slump, it's not a thing. Don't believe me, answer me this. Do you have other hobbies besides reading? Do you perhaps like to watch TV? Do you perhaps like to play video games? Do you perhaps like to knit? Do you ever refer to a period in your life where you are doing none or less of that as a slump? If you haven't watched TV for a few days or even a few weeks, do you go, I'm such a TV slump, I don't think so. Do you ever go without playing video games for a few days and go, I'm such a video game slump, I don't think so. So why are you putting pressure and blame on yourself to read? Why is reading regarded as something that is ostensibly a hobby, something that you do for diversion and fun and enjoyment? Why is a failure to do that in some way deserving of shame or embarrassment or blame? In fact, putting pressure on yourself to do something, making yourself feel guilty for not doing it is a surefire way to get yourself to not wanna do it. I mean, certainly I work pretty well under pressure and other people do as well, but then that's a different kind of pressure. A deadline is a different kind of pressure from just like generally feeling like you're failing to do something that you should be doing because there's a moral obligation to do it. So if you're in a reading slump because you just don't feel like reading, okay, so you don't feel like reading. Why is that a slump? Again, if you don't feel like watching TV, do you suddenly go, I really should be watching TV, but I'm in a slump? I don't think so. So if you don't feel like reading, move on, get over it, do something you do wanna do. Now, if the reason you are in a slump is because nothing you're picking up is working for you, you're not enjoying any of the books that you are picking up, then again, if you're flipping channels and you wanna watch TV but you can't find anything on that you're interested in watching, do you say you're in a watching slump because none of the TV shows are appealing to you or is it that you can't find anything good on TV? Pretty sure it's a ladder. So why is it your fault if the books you're picking up are not working for you? Why is it your fault if the books that you're picking up are not holding your interest? It's not your fault, it's the book's fault. Maybe it's not anybody's fault. This is maybe a great book and you maybe want to read, but you don't wanna read this book right now. Again, with TV is the sin. There might be a TV show that actually you are quite interested in watching, but you don't feel like watching it right now. It's not because you're in a TV watching slump, it's just you're not in the right mood for that TV show right now. So cool, you put it on your watch list. Watch it when you are in the mood for it. Right now, go find something that you are in the mood to watch. And if you're not in the mood to watch anything, all right, well then go do something else. You don't force yourself to watch TV because they're like, I should be watching right now. No, you can't find anything that you're interested in reading. Well, either keep looking and don't blame yourself for the fact that what you're picking up isn't working for you because you feel that you should be reading or you should be reading the things that you were picking up that weren't working for you. I find it useful to ask myself the question and I do this for everything, not just for reading. If I could read anything right now, what would it be? I do the same thing with food. I do the same thing with activity, with TV, with movies, like if I could eat anything right now, if I could watch anything right now, what would it be? And if the answer is I can't think of a single thing that I'd be interested in reading right now. I can't think of a single thing that I'd be interested in eating right now. I can't think of a single thing that I'd be interested in watching right now. Okay, well then that answers your question. Maybe you're not in the mood to eat, read, watch TV. Maybe that's not actually what you are craving right now. Maybe you should go do something else. But if you can think of something, you're like, I would I really, really, really want to read right now is, and you have a vision in your mind of what that is, you want something action packed or you want something filled with mystery and suspense or you want something filled with lots of romance and the books you're picking up right now are not delivering, that's not a reading slump. That's you not finding the thing that you are in the mood for right now. It's not your fault and you shouldn't feel any pressure or guilt about that. You know, sure, go and try to find the thing that you're in the mood for. But if you're not finding it, it's not because you're in a reading slump. You're just not finding the thing that strikes your fancy right now. Now, are you sitting there going, no, I'm not in a freaking reading slump. That is not my issue. I just don't have time to read. Is that really true? Is it really, really, really true? Maybe you truly, truly, truly are busy every single minute of the day from the moment you wake up until the moment you go to sleep, maybe. But I bet there are times in the day where you're not using your brain or you're not using every part of your mind to do something. Maybe, maybe, maybe. You truly spend every single day of every single week, of every single month using your brain when you're awake and only shutting it off when you go to sleep. I find that extremely unlikely. So are you prioritizing reading over other things? Are you telling me that you never watch TV? You never play video games? You're never on social media? Figure out what the things are that are your time suck, the things that you do instead of reading, the things that you do for funsies. And if you wanna make reading one of those things, then that will take time away from those other things. If the only free time you have in the day is, say, two hours, and right now, those two hours, you spend watching TV or playing video games, well, then you're gonna have to decrease the amount of time you spend watching TV or playing video games, or you're just not gonna be reading. In which case, you can't say you don't have any time, you're just choosing something else over reading, which is, you know, it's your life, live your life, but then don't say you don't have time. So decide, is it gonna be, okay, instead of watching TV for two hours, I'm gonna watch TV for one hour and read for one hour. That's fair. But if you immediately jump to watching TV first, then you're probably gonna spend the whole two hours watching TV. So figure out what is the thing that's sucking up your time. If it's TV, then put a book next to your TV remote so that when you're reaching for your TV remote, you can go, hmm, or I could read. If you're playing video games instead of reading, put a book next to your video game controller and you reach for that controller, oh, or I could read. If like me, you spend a lot of time on social media where you have the app for the social media that you use the most or the apps that you use the most, put right next to it the app for the Kindle, the app for Audible, the app for Scribd, put a reading app next to the app that you tend to go to most. And then every time you go towards that app, you're like, oh, I could read. Put a book next to your bed so that when you're going to sleep or when you're waking up, you can pick up a book. Put a book on your coffee table so you can reach for it. Put a book wherever it is that you sit the most so it's within reach so that whenever you're like, you know what, I should read, it's right there. You don't have to go get it. It's right there. And is there no part of your day that you're doing something that doesn't require your brain? Are you washing dishes? Put on an audio book. Are you doing laundry? Put on an audio book. Are you cleaning the house? Put on an audio book. Are you commuting for errands or for work? Going to the grocery store? Going to the office? Going to the DMV? God forbid. Put on an audio book. Now odds are, if you don't already do those things, you'll forget and it won't become something that you do. Even though I just told you these are things you can do. If you don't already do them right now, probably won't do them. You have to make them a habit. When I wake up in the morning, one of the first things that I do is put on my headphones as I go to the kitchen because I'm going to listen to an audio book while I make my coffee, wash any dishes from the night before, fix my breakfast, eat my breakfast. I'm listening to an audio book. But if that's not something you automatically do, it's going to take a minute for that to become something that you automatically do. So put your headphones next to your alarm or your phone and be like, oh yeah, I was going to start doing that. And once you start doing it, if you do it every day, it becomes a habit. If the thing you do after you finish work or after you're done with a workout or right before bed is to turn on the TV, make a book instead. And the first few times you'll have to think about it. Again, that's why I want to put the book next to the remote. So that when you go to do the thing that you always do, you can be like, right, I'm going to read now instead. And once you do that a few times, once you do that every day for a week, it becomes a habit. It becomes, oh yes, now is the time when I go to read instead of, ah yes, now is the time that I go to watch TV. For me, most household chores now, I just, they're linked with an audio book in my mind. Like I don't have to remember, I just do it. If I'm about to go clean something, if I'm about to go organize something, if I'm about to cook something, I am like, where are my headphones? I need my headphones. Got to listen to an audio book. Make reading easily accessible too. Because again, if you have to make an effort to go find the reading, then you won't do it because people always choose to do the thing that is easiest, the thing that is most convenient. So this is again, why keep books everywhere around the house so that when you're about to go to bed, a book is right there, you don't have to go get it. If you sat down on the couch, you don't have to go get a book, it's right there. But not just any book, you want to make sure that books that you're interested in reading are available to you immediately. And there are so many great resources to do this. Again, if you are like, well, I have these five books, but I don't really want to read any of them, so I guess I'm watching TV. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. First of all, make sure that the books that you do have on hand, either because they're physically from the library or because you bought them are books that do interest you. So don't just like get books because you're like, in theory I want to have read this, but like it doesn't appeal to you. Keep books around that you're interested in and a variety, but all the kinds of things you could be interested in. So if you're the kind of person that enjoys comedy, also enjoys romance, also enjoys action, keep one of each to hand all the time. There's also so many great resources to keep basically any book you can imagine at your fingertips, download the Libby app to your phone. This is one of the apps that I was saying, keep it next to the social media apps that use the most. Libby is a library app. So you can connect your library card from anywhere to the Libby app. And that way you can get ebooks and audio books. I have, I finally got the Libby app like a year and a half ago or something because I couldn't be arsed to get my library card when I moved. And it's really easy to get library cards now online. You used to have to physically go into the library. There's probably still libraries that require that, but a lot don't, especially if it's a pandemic. You can get a library card for digital copies of books and digital copies of audio books really easily online. So I got a library card for both LA City and LA County, that's where I live. I have both library cards connected to my Libby app. And basically anytime there's a book that I wanna read, I go check my Libby app. And unless it's like a brand new hyped release, I can usually get it right away. And if I can't, there's still like a million others that I can. So something like it I can probably get. You have an app like that ready to go so that any book you can imagine that you're like, well, I'm not interested in the five books that I currently have in my house. If only I could read X. Well, if you have the Libby app, two seconds to check if you can get it. And odds are you can get it. Or if you're willing to spend a little money, which I mean, if you can afford Netflix, you can afford spending money on books, you can subscribe to things like Audible or Scribd or Kindle Unlimited or all three. So that again, if the library doesn't have it and you can't get it through the Libby app, if you have a subscription that allows you a pretty wide variety of things. So Scribd, for example, they have a certain number. It's kind of like Netflix where like Netflix has a lot of titles, but they do cycle them out. So sometimes their license for it expires. So it's not forever available, but it's a pretty wide amount of things that are currently available. So if you have Scribd, it's a one fee gets you access to all of those things. They may not have what you want available, but they have a heck of a lot available. And then in Audible, you can have literally any book that you can imagine. You have to pay for it for each individual book, but you also get a discount on other audio books if you are a member. So I believe the monthly credit is like around the $15 mark and a $15 credit buys you any audio book, even if the list price of that audio book is $40, your $15 credit works for it. And then if you are a subscriber, then a $45 audio book, you get it for a discounted price. So it's like 37 or something, but also it can be a lot less. And they have sales all the time. So you can get audio books for like $2, $3, $4, $5. So see what's available if you're willing to pay a little bit of money. Kindle Unlimited as well, or just regular Kindle has books on sale for a dollar for $0.99 for $2.50 all the time. So you can check what's available for a little bit of money or you can subscribe to Kindle Unlimited. So again, it won't have everything available, kind of like Scribd, but a lot of books are available on Kindle Unlimited. So you just kind of want to see what's for free. There's a lot that's for, well, not for free because you are paying for Kindle Unlimited, but it's included in the price of your membership. There's no additional cost to it. So again, if you can afford Netflix, you can afford Scribd or Audible or Kindle Unlimited. It's really, really important to enjoy what you're reading. I already touched on this. So if your problem is that, okay, like I've downloaded these apps and I've decided to make a part of my routine. I've set time aside for this, but like I just, I just don't want to read. I just don't want to read these books. Well, is it that you don't want to read at all? Because if you don't want to read at all, well, then maybe reading isn't for you. I don't know why you've made this a goal for yourself. You don't like it, don't do it. If you're not enjoying anything that you're picking up, you're not going to want to read. If you're like, oh man, like I really, really want to watch The Vampire Diaries, but I've decided to read. So back to Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky, like maybe Dostoevsky is not the author for you. You don't have to read like edified literature. You read whatever the hell you want. And there's a ton of videos out there on TV to book or film to book recommendations. Like if you like this movie, read this book. If you like this TV show, read this book. Or a lot of TV shows are based on books. So you can go read the book that the TV show is based on. Vampire Diaries is actually based on books. Make sure that what you are picking up is something you're actually interested in reading. There is no, just like there's no pressure to read at all. There's no such thing as a reading slump for this reason. There's no moral obligation to read. There's no moral obligation to read specific kinds of books either. It's not like, oh, for TV you can watch any old garbage, but if I'm reading, well, I should read something good. No, read whatever you want. If you like action movies, read an action book. If you like romance movies, read a romance book. If you like thrillers, read a thriller. Whatever it is that you will enjoy watching on TV, there's a book equivalent to that. Maybe not live sports, but you can read nonfiction about the history of sports. There's also no pressure to finish a book. If you've picked up a book and you're like you're not enjoying it but you've started it, so you gotta finish it, why? If you start a TV show and you're not enjoying it, are you stressed about DNF-ing a TV show? I doubt it. If you start a movie and you're not into it, are you stressed about DNF-ing it? I doubt it. If you have to read this book for school, okay, well, you have to read this book for school and you know, I wish you luck. But if you picked up a book and it's just really like not clicking for you, well, then pick up something else. There's no reason to keep reading it, unless it's for school. Lastly, if you're the kind of person that needs accountability, I'm that kind of person. There are a lot of ways to find that. If you're the kind of person that needs a gym buddy, you have a group that you watch your favorite shows with so you can talk about it. You like groups, you like structure, you like deadlines, you like things like that. There's a lot of ways that you can find that for yourself. Personally, my channel does that for me. So feel free to start a booktube channel, you know? That's an option, but it's not, you know, an option for everybody. So you can set a reading goal on Goodreads. I believe you can also do that on Storygraph. I don't use Storygraph, but sign up for Goodreads or Storygraph if you haven't. And on there, you can log what you're reading. You can set a reading goal for the year. You can also connect to other people who are reading the same books as you and develop a community online. You can also join a book club. There's, especially during the pandemic, there's a lot of virtual book clubs so you can find one online. There might be one, not necessarily, but there might be, so check. Often libraries will host one or bookstores. Again, you can find the same thing online. You can find forums for things that you already like if you have already read some books and you're not, this is my first time ever reading. There might be some books you already like in which case you can find forums where other people also liked this book. And those people might also be willing to talk about other books. So you can join forums, you can join Discord servers. A lot of booktubers have also Discord servers where you can join in to talk about books and they'll have book clubs and reading buddies and challenges and just generally be talking about their reading. And by talking to other people who are reading, it makes you also want to read. A lot of booktubers host readathons and reading challenges and you can participate in those which, again, creates a sense of, oh, I have to finish it by this deadline or I have to finish it as part of this challenge or I have to read this many pages to be winning this bingo or whatever. Do you win bingo? I think so. I don't particularly like gamifying things, though. Oh, that's a lie. In specific ways, I like gamifying things but I don't really like reading challenges. I don't really like readathons. But if that's your thing and you like that kind of thing and that gives you motivation, then there's tons of that on booktube. You can also do this independently for yourself. Like if you like accountability but you don't necessarily need someone else to keep you accountable, you can set daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly goals for yourself, say, if you've decided to make reading a priority and structure it however you want it can be for the number of pages, the number of hours, the number of books, whatever works best for you. So for me, I personally get very scatterbrained. If I think of a thing that I need to do, then I need to do it right that second. I'm like, otherwise I'll forget it. I need to do it right this second. And if I have no sort of like end point insight for what I'm gonna be reading, if I'm just like I sit down and now I'm gonna be reading until whenever. Like I just can't do that. I'm like, am I done yet? Am I done yet? Even if I'm really, really love the book then that doesn't happen. But I'll start to be like, I don't know, is now good enough or how far am I going? Do I have a goal in mind if I'm like, well today I'm reading until this chapter or I'll set a timer for myself like for the next half hour or for the next hour I'm reading and I will not check my phone. I will not check my email. I will not do anything because it may be P for that period of time. And then as soon as the timer goes off, well then now I can go and I can check all those things that I would have been like itching to check otherwise because there's no set time I wish to do it. If I'm reading and I'm like, oh, I wanna check this on the internet. I'm like, as soon as the timer goes off, I get to check that. So that keeps me from straying. My goal was to read for an hour. I'm gonna read for an hour. You can give yourself TBRs. I mean, I do that on my channel. A lot of people do it on their channels. Even if you don't have a channel, you can do things like this month and I'm reading these books. And be realistic about it because there's nothing worse than failing a goal. So be realistic, you're like, you know what? I don't read very much, but I would like to make it a goal that I read one book every month this year. And the way I'm gonna achieve this is every day I'm gonna read for 15 minutes. That's decently realistic. And then if you find that that's actually easy for you you can be like, you know what? Actually my goal is to read 24 books this year to each month. And I'm gonna read for an hour every day. Move it up as you see fit. It's just like with fitness. Like you don't start out by training for a marathon and on day one, you're like, today I'm gonna run 10 miles as training. No, you baby steps. And then when that becomes easy to you, then you up it. When that becomes easy to you, you up it. Reading is really no different than that. So those are my top tips to get you reading. Let me know in the comments down below if these were helpful to you, if they're not helpful to you. If none of this describes you, if you have a problem that I've not addressed, feel free to let me know what that problem is. And I will try to find a solution for you. Whatever you want to let me know I post videos on Saturdays. Other random homes as well, but definitely Saturdays so I can subscribe, find my Patreon if you feel so inclined and I'll see you when I see you. Bye.