The Best Reading Motivation Strategies for You

Finding the motivation to read books nowadays is probably one of the biggest challenges a book lover needs to face in this fast-paced life we tend to live. Even though we love reading and we are perfectly aware of its many benefits, we sometimes tend to favor other activities when it comes to winding off after a long day. 

While some of us are struggling to find the time, energy, and motivation to rekindle our love for reading, others haven’t managed to find the right way to enjoy reading in the first place. 

For all of us though, there are certain reading motivation strategies we need to learn, understand, and put into practice in order to properly figure out how to introduce or revamp reading in our daily routine.

How to get the motivation to read?

Finding our motivation for reading is probably one of the first steps and therefore one of the most important ones in our journey to instilling healthy reading habits and taking advantage of all the benefits this amazing activity can provide us with. 

Even though proper motivation usually comes from within and the purest form of being truly motivated comes from an introspective process, there are certain strategies we can use in order to boost this process and make it more powerful, quicker, and more effective. 

Here are the ones the team from Basmo collectively found and tested as being the best.

Set goals

When you’re trying to motivate yourself to go outside your comfort zone, whether that means jumping out of an airplane for an adrenaline rush or starting to replace binge-watching Netflix shows with reading sessions, the first step is realizing why you want to make a certain change. Find the force that is driving your thoughts towards making that certain thing, what is it you really want to achieve?

When it comes to reading, this process is pretty straightforward. Ask yourself some questions and understand what your goals really are. This introspective process is generally overlooked by readers and it usually leads to ineffective reading habits or habits that don’t last for too long. 

Setting goals can mean different things for different people. While some read in order to gain more knowledge, others want reading to simply replace unhealthy entertainment in their lives. Basmo is here to help regardless of the category you fall in. 

Change mindset about reading

While this process of changing our mindset about reading might require some motivation just for itself, it is an absolutely essential one. Most of us reach our adult years with a completely wrong mindset in which reading is seen more like a chore than a relaxing hobby. This mindset has its origins in our school years when we all battled mandatory reading lists and quizzes. 

The sooner we realize reading is not a chore for an adult, and instead represents an extremely useful, fun, and entertaining activity, the sooner we will manage to get motivated to read more and stay motivated for longer. It’s easier to find the motivation to watch TV than it is to start cleaning the house, isn’t it? 

This is the mindset change we are looking for with reading as well. As soon as we manage to realize that reading is a positive force in our lives and not something we have to do, we will magically find more time to do it and we will suddenly realize that it requires a lot less effort than we initially thought.

Find the right books

What we read is equally important as why we read when it comes to getting ourselves pumped up for a reading session. A book that sparks no joy for us or one that is incredibly difficult to read are both clear examples of things that tend to make us procrastinate, postpone reading sessions, or simply skip them altogether.

As an adult, it’s important to realize that we are 100% responsible for the choices we make in our reading, and that also means we have absolute freedom. We should learn to take advantage of this and read books that interest us, that intrigue us, that bring us joy, not necessarily the ones everyone is saying we have to read. 

Just like love, reading has no age. If you find books for teens interesting and can’t seem to put them down even though you’re in your 40s, nobody is going to judge you. You can take full advantage of the reading benefits regardless of the reading material you are consuming. 

And knowing that you are preparing for a fun and exciting reading session based around a book or a genre you love is going to mean you will be as motivated as you can possibly be going in. 

Reading challenges, book clubs, and online communities

Even though reading is a solitary experience, one that usually revolves around introspection and the concept of “me time”, we are all social beings and we love being part of communities. 

This need to belong and be a part of something bigger can help us a lot in becoming better, more dedicated, and more motivated readers. If we can’t seem to find the motivation to read books by ourselves, there’s no shame in finding other ways. 

Whether we choose to join a reading challenge, start going to book club meetings, or ask for help in online communities dedicated to readers, the fact that we will be among others with similar interests and a certain level of dedication for our hobby is going to make it a lot easier for us to find and maintain our motivation.

Use a reading tracking app

“How to find the motivation to read?” is a question our team at Basmo dedicated a lot of time and resources to find an answer to. And luckily, we think we did a pretty good job at developing the ultimate reading tracking app to help each and every one of you to read more and stay motivated to dedicate as much of your free time as possible to this amazing activity.

Some of the features we are especially proud of are exactly the ones that will help you the most with your motivation:

• Setting goals: as mentioned above, setting your reading goals with Basmo is quick, easy, and particularly effective
• Reading statistics: the app provides you with countless details about your reading habits. That way you will be able to constantly track your performance and stay motivated to improve it – whether we’re talking about your reading speed or the time you spend reading every day.
• Reading lists: we understood early on that what you read is important for how motivated you are to have healthy and satisfying reading sessions. That is why we included a feature that allows you to create as many reading lists as you want and they are all easily customizable and editable.
• Emotions tracker: Your motivation comes from within and feeds on your emotions. How you feel whenever you read can have a serious impact on your future reading sessions. Basmo encourages you to keep your emotions under control, allowing you to mark with emojis how you feel after each reading session, and also keeps track of how your emotions progress during the course of a week through a nice little report. That way you can easily manage your emotions and adjust your reading according to your feelings.

What are some reading motivation strategies?

As I was saying earlier, motivation is supposed to come from within. There are cases when this is easier said than done and that is why sometimes using certain strategies can help us have a better outcome. While these strategies are not an exact recipe for success, they do give us pretty clear guidelines. 

Decide on relevance

The importance of reading in our lives should be pretty obvious for every one of us. If you need a reminder, we did dive into the many reading benefits before. Understanding what you will get from your reading and why the effort of changing our mindset and implementing healthy reading habits is going to change our lives is crucial for a good level of motivation.

Realize you are the master of your own fate

School days are way behind most of us. Let’s embrace the freedom of being able to read whatever we want whenever we want to. Autonomy not only gives us the freedom to choose when and what and for how long we are reading, but it also makes us more responsible. Realize that it is you who is in control of your fate and that it is up to you to make your life better through reading.

Make it accessible

Any good habit we want to implement in our lives starts with a few easy steps. If you read James Clear’s book Atomic Habits, you already know that any good habit needs to be actively encouraged and assisted in order to become second nature. 

What that means is that you need to make your own life easier and prepare everything in advance for your reading sessions. That way you have a much bigger chance of actually going through with them. Leave your book in a visible place, on the table. Set some time aside for reading, prepare a cup of tea in advance, get in the mood, and make sure your reading spot is always ready for you. 

Use Basmo 

Basmo was designed with you, the modern reader, in mind. Everything the app is based on revolves around your need to read more, better, and healthier. The only thing we love more than reading here at Basmo is knowing that you love reading as well. 

Use Basmo to put any of these reading motivation strategies into practice and take full advantage of your reading.

What are some reading motivation quotes?

Our quest for motivation when it comes to reading is old news. Many have struggled with it before us, and many of us even found ways to express this quest in very creative ways. 

Here are some of the most interesting reading motivation quotes our team at Basmo was able to find:

Never force yourself to read a book that you do not enjoy. There are so many good books in the world that it is foolish to waste time on one that does not give you pleasure.

Atwood H. Townsend

My eyes hunger to read more books than time allows me to devour.

Jazz Feylynn

Make reading your hobby, even if you don’t like to read. You will learn things that will prove useful when you least expect it.

Neelabh Pratap Singh

If you find other interesting quotes about reading, while reading, Basmo has got you covered: you can use the quotes feature from the app to extract the text from the book and create beautifully designed visual quotes. 

How to motivate reluctant readers?

If you are not the one with a lack of motivation to read, but someone you love, you should know that you can help out a great deal in making them fall back in love with reading. 

Even if we’re talking about a friend, a child, or another family member, the most important thing to do is help build their confidence. Remind them of the benefits reading has, try to explain to them again how much better they can become, and offer to help them throughout the process of getting motivated to read.

Help them plan some reading sessions, encourage them to choose books they know they will love, and be their reading buddy if that is an option. Spending one hour in perfect silence with someone while you are both reading is an amazing bonding experience, and one you should never hesitate to have with someone. 

It may sound cheeky, but introduce them to the Basmo reading app as well. As I mentioned above, a reading tracking app can work wonders for a reader’s motivation. Let them see how the app works and what it can do for them. Everyone can benefit from using Basmo.

Conclusion

Our motivation to read books is a force that needs to come from within and one that needs to be taken great care of. Finding your motivation to read can have a huge impact on the quality of your life and how you experience every single aspect of your existence. Luckily, our advice and the services provided by the Basmo app can work wonders if you feel your motivation fading away.

Achieve goals vector created by vectorjuice – www.freepik.com