So let’s talk about habits. When we hear the word habit, we usually think of the bad habits like smoking or drinking. But reading books, going to bed early at night or going to the gym on a daily basis are habits as well. You can develop these habits in the same way that people develop the habit of smoking or brushing their teeth every morning. Let's first take a look at how habits are actually formed. Any habit consists of three stages: the cue, the action and the reward. The cue is the trigger that pushes the behavior to start. An example of a trigger for smoking can be whenever the smoker stresses out. The brain starts anticipating nicotine and it starts craving for it and if it doesn’t arrive the craving grows until the smoker reaches for that cigarette. So he pulls out the cigarette and starts smoking which is the action itself and then there is the reward which could be the mental satisfaction that he can get or the mental relief out of stress.
If you want to develop the habit of reading then you have to follow the exact same path. Create a trigger to start reading and a reward once you are done. A trigger can be a particular time of the day, every evening at 6 p.m. you start reading for an hour until your brain gets used to it, so whenever it's 6 p.m. your brain starts expecting you to start reading. That could be the cue. Once you're done with reading, do something you enjoy as a reward so your brain also starts anticipating that moment once you are done with reading. You're more likely to start reading when you brain expects some form of reward after. That’s exactly how the smoker’s mind works: it expects a head of nicotine once it gets stressed and that's the exact way to build the habit of reading. Remember that the cue and the reward can vary for different people and it all depends on you. A habit usually takes 3 weeks or more to build so don’t expect yourself to become a persistent reader in a matter of a few days. Just be patient in the beginning and you can make it once you develop it. Reading books becomes as easy as brushing your teeth every morning and trust me it’s actually worth it. I have read hundreds of books since I have developed this habit and it actually changed my life for the better.