There’s something really great about a book, films and audio books are great but they don’t leave as much to the imagination. A great book or article is an immersive experience, your mind starts to determine the voice which is being read back to you, the image of the characters and the words jump off the page and become mechanics of the stories.
They are the home of fact but also the space of continuous imagination, a place to escape reality or create a world where anything is possible.
Books became more for me than the written word over the last couple of years. As I hit my thirtieth precious year, I started to feel a little lost. Not knowing what direction I should be looking in, was I happy and above all what did I want out of the next 30 years, how could I be the best version of me.
Through reading, absorbing and practising the steps of many authors I was able to change my mindset over the last 18 months. To elevate many of the things holding me back and to determine what was really important.
If your interested in the books that helped me with this, here they are:
Four Thousand Weeks (Oliver Burkeman), A book to remind us of our mortality, to remind us of the precious time that we have on the planet and a warning that as the technology grows so will the demand unless we learn to control it. A big topic with a dash of sarcasm, brilliantly written.
Think Big (Dr Grace Lordan). From Understanding my mortality and knowing I did not want to waste a second, I read Think Big. This helped me understand what I wanted my life to look like, short term and long term and help me set the targets that I needed to ensure I got there.
Why (Simon Sinek) - What you think your life should look like is a big goal but knowing why you want that is something different. To understand the plan that I had made with Think Big was aligned to me as an individual and what I wanted to achieve was so important.
Getting things done (David Allen), here I learnt the art of stress-free productivity. Trust me this can’t be nailed in 18 months but I am making good progress and now have the ability to switch off at times. I couldn’t achieve what I wanted working the way I was.
High Performance (Jake Humphries and Prof Damian Hughes) - The fundamentals of Mindset, behaviour and team. Continually inspiring and a reminder that small consistent changes make for good success.
Roald Dahl and Dr Seuss books, a reminder to always be a little bit silly, to know that the impossible is always possible and to have fun and laugh along the way. Some good morals built in there too.
Some great reads and if anyone has other recommendations I would love to hear them!