"I love reading!" If you've somehow ended up on this blog, you've probably said this sentence at least once in your life. Let's be honest - that number is probably closer to once a week. I know i say it every chance I get. The simple truth is - readers love to read. It brings us joy, it brings us peace and it's an activity that we constantly jump to whenever we have some time to spare. But what if I told you that there are millions of people out there that don't read for pleasure? Now let's be clear here - I'm not saying they hate reading, or that they can't read. I'm saying that they refuse to read for the simple pleasure of it. Would that fact surprise you?

It surprised me. As you've probably guessed by now, I'm an avid reader. My wife, however, until quite recently in her life, was not. In fact, she'd constantly struggle with finishing any book she started. We've had multiple conversations on the topic, and what struck me the most was that she actually wanted to read all these books, yet there was a mental barrier in her head that prevents her from doing so.

how to find joy in reading — How to find joy in reading? Photo credit: Unsplash.

That can't be a coincidence, I thought, so fast forward a few days and I had interviewed multiple family members and friends - both readers and not - in order to figure out if this was an isolated case. Turns out, it's not. As a matter of fact, it all goes back to those golden school days.

No matter the country, in which you went to middle or high school, public school systems across the world generally have at least one subject dealing with language and literature. There is one other common denominator - a big chunk of your grade revolves around reading certain books. Mostly, schools go for classics such as the Iliad, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Lord of the Rings, and quite likely, a bunch of local authors whose works had major significance for the cultural development of the country your school is located in. And while these works of art are absolute must reads and generally worth the investment, public school systems made one giant mistake - they made most of us see reading as a chore.

This is exactly what had happened with my wife and friends. Throughout their adult lives, they had been unconsciously associating reading with doing a chore. You read the book, you can answer questions about it and you can get a good grade. You don't read it - you fail and probably get grounded as a result (hence even further intensifying the distain towards reading). To make matters worse, a lot of my friends who actually read all the assigned books in their school days can barely remember anything from them and have not attempted to re-read any of them ever since. They treated the task as any other school test - read the subject matter, memorize what you need until the exam comes, pass, and immediately forget about it.

“‘Classic’ – a book which people praise and don’t read.”

— Mark Twain

So what can be done to re-wire our brains and rediscover the joy of reading? Thankfully, I wasn't the first person to ask this question. Kelly Gallagher, who has written numerous books on the subject has long advocated against what he calls "Readicide", or "the systematic killing of the love of reading, often exacerbated by the inane, mind-numbing practices found in our schools."

Kelly makes several suggestions for school teachers and all those dealing with the education of young adults, to combat Readicide. The core of his suggestions usually revolves around giving students more power over their reading experience. This could be done in a number of ways, namely by breaking down classes into smaller groups of similar reading tastes that follow their own unique reading path, or stimulating class discussions and democracy to allow students to choose the books they wish to focus on.

Kelly's methods have seen some incredible results, but as you're reading this your probably thinking - "I'm a grown adult - it's great that kids in the future now stand a chance, but what about me?" It's the same exact question my wife had for me. By any means, I am no professor of cognitive development, nor have I published multiple works on the matter of Readicide like Mr. Gallagher. But nonetheless, I will share what worked for my wife and how she finally set herself on the way to completing her first full read in a very long time.

Don't trade a chore with another chore - ease into it.

I can't stress this enough. As with many other resolutions, people will tend to do a full 360 and change their long-developed habits overnight. They will literally force themselves to complete whatever they're doing each day and try to mimic the habits of people that have been doing that same activity for a much longer time. And while pushing through a book can sometimes be a good thing (even straight necessary in the case of the middle books from the Wheel of Time series) early on, this strategy will only lead to disaster. Why? Because you'll not address the root of the problem, which is viewing reading as a chore and something that must be finished. As cliché as it sounds, the journey is in the destination and you must learn to savor it at your own pace.

Choose smaller books or start with short stories.

A buddy of mine decided to get into reading and the first thing he got for himself was the Wheel of Time series (I might have had an unwitting hand there, but hey - I didn't know better back then). He wanted to have all the books easily accessible, so he purchased all 15 of them on Kindle. Little did he know that digital series are usually combined into one giant file for convenience. So he bravely opened the file on his Kindle and was hit in the face with almost thirteen thousand pages worth of information. I know that earlier in this post I said that the journey is the destination, but when you've read more than 600 pages and you're less than 10% done with your destination, things can get a bit disheartening.

Hence why, it is recommended to start with books that are generally shorter, are stand-alone issues, and are not as intimidating for beginners. Short stories are also an ideal start for those that really find the idea of reading more than 200 pages akin to a herculean labor.

No idea which book to start with? Well, my advice is to:

Choose a genre that you're interested in.

I, myself, am a fantasy buff. From the first time that I read The Lord of the Rings, the genre has had it's hooks in me and I have absorbed as much of it as I could (or at least as much as my bank account could afford). I have two older brothers - one's passion for the fantasy genre can easily rival my own, yet the other finds it fairly uninteresting (which has led to many dinner table disputes). He, however, is an absolute student of western literature. Anything that involves cowboys and Indians is probably present in his home library. To this day, he is the only person I know to have the full collection of Karl May novels.

As a starting reader, choosing a genre that you feel instantly drawn to. Maybe it's fantasy, maybe it criminal novels, or maybe it's even historical dramas. Whatever floats your boat (or turns your page, in this case) - start with it.

In my wife's case, she found herself instantly drawn to the criminal novel/detective genre, yet thought that perhaps the stories would be too complex to hold her attention for long, and she would get lost in sub-plots and mysteries. So where did she start her journey?

Read the books that sprang your favorite movies and games

That's right, she started with stories she was familiar with - those she knew from her favorite movies and TV series. Wait a second, you might say, this sounds counter-productive! She has already seen the story play out and there is no way she'd want to read the book now. While this may sound like the logical first reaction, there are two things you must keep in mind:

1) Movies, TV series and games based on books are called "adaptations" for a reason. Most of the time they are loosely based on the original story and even if the main plotline is the same, most sub-plots are usually changed, combined or outright taken out, in order to fit the new format.

2) Adaptations are usually based on a single piece of work from an author. That does not necessarily mean that this is the author's only book in the series or literary universe. For every completed Lord of the Rings movie trilogy, there are 10 The Dark Tower movies that put a definitive end to any future development the franchise has on the big screen (at least until Hollywood decides to reboot it to possibly another failure of epic proportions, and the cycle starts again).

Reading the books that sprang your favorite movies and video games is a great gate-way into the glorious world of reading. And while many seasoned readers are off-put by the idea of putting actor's faces to their literary heroes, new readers can find it helpful to develop their imagination and sense of book-world understanding.

In case you're wondering, my wife decided to start with YOU by Caroline Kepnes - the book that inspired one of her favourite Netflix shows with the same name.

“I have a passion for teaching kids to become readers, to become comfortable with a book, not daunted. Books shouldn’t be daunting, they should be funny, exciting and wonderful; and learning to be a reader gives a terrific advantage.”

— Roald Dahl

Choose the medium that works best for you

Personally, I love the smell and feel of books. There is nothing like relaxing on a cold evening with a blanket, warm drink and a good book. That being said, I'm also a practical man and have my Kindle at the ready for when I need to travel and have limited space, or generally just want to spice things up. Both paper and digital have their pluses and minuses and I've learned to enjoy the former and bypass the latter.

In my wife's case, Kindle was a godsend. It was a much more familiar feeling to reading articles on her phone and she could easily fit it in her purse and carry it wherever she needed to go. But most importantly, by tracking percentages read and chapters remaining at the bottom of the screen, Kindle allowed her to transform the reading process into a sort of game and create a reward system for each milestone she reached.

Which brings us to our next point, gamification

Gamify the experience - reward yourself regularly

Going back to the original theme of this article - your goal as a freshly faced reader is to eliminate the association in your mind between "reading" and "chore". Gamification is an excellent way of doing just that.

What is gamification? Google defines gamification as “the process of taking a mundane task and make it more engaging by adding elements that are typical to games: score, competition rewards”.

Now let's look at the definition of a chore: “A tedious but necessary task” (Google Dictionary). The defining aspect of chores is that while you may get a reward for doing them, you will most certainly get a penalty for not doing them. Notice how I stressed the word "may" there? Chores are tedious precisely because they are high effort low reward. But what if that wasn't the case? What if it could in fact be the exact opposite - multiple guaranteed rewards throughout the whole journey? Well it would almost be as exciting as playing a game …. Ah, now the name gamification starts to make sense ;)

Adding a rewards system to your reading journey is a great way to keep yourself motivated and have an added bonus for completing certain milestones. Great examples of gamification include:

Reading challenges - for example, 52 books in 52 weeks
Long-term rewards (for example, for every book you read, you add the equivalent of it's paperback value to your savings accounts. At the end of the month/year you get to buy yourself a gift with the total sum generated by your reading efforts through that period.
Short-term rewards - for example, eating a cookie every time you finish a chapter … Maybe don't go for this one specifically, unless you plan to supplement it with doing 10 push-ups for every cookie you eat. Yep, let's stay away from the cookie and instead pretend that I said "a piece of fruit" or something above.
Friendly competitions - nothing gets some people's juices flowing like a good old friendly competition with a friend, colleague or significant other. Who can read a book faster? Who can read more books? Who can eat more cookies? (I knew I shouldn't have mentioned the cookies above …) Ideally, find someone who is also a reading newbie (or close to your own level) and motive each other to grow together.

Have fun!

Most importantly, have fun! Whichever way you start your reading journey, always remember that the goal is to enjoy it! If it becomes tedious and starts feeling like a chore again, stop, re-examine your process and figure out where you went wrong.

Wherever the journey takes you, I can guarantee it will be one hell of a ride!

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Why we sometimes view reading as a chore and how to find joy in reading?