So You Want to Be a Reader

How to Read More Books This Year for Purpose and Meaning

It was Mother’s Day 1975 as I wandered down the block towards a garage sale with a single nickel in my pocket. I had no idea what I would find, but I had all the confidence in the world that I would get something special, and I did. I walked home, mindful of the decorative china plate pressed firmly against my chest, and of my arms wrapped securely around it. I had found the piece de resistance.

Our home had a china hutch. A dedicated piece of furniture to hold these sacred relics. These dishes were too special for everyday use. Instead, we would only get them out on certain occasions—Jesus’s birthday counted. Oddly enough, our own birthdays did not. On those days, cake and ice cream were served on paper plates.

Sadly, that’s how I’ve treated my books over the years. Like the good china. Books were important, symbolic, and slightly sacred. Holding space for me patiently. I even custom-built their own dedicated space—our home library, where shelves from floor to ceiling held them in reverie.

Books represented the person I might become someday—educated, disciplined, and well-read. But instead of using them often, I preserved them. I owned more books than I had ever read.

And when I did read, I read just like I had learned in school, as if anticipating a test and then a grade. The outcome was always rigged, and so I plowed through the pages cautiously and with great trepidation. The idea was never to fully understand it, but to search for the clues or the mystery of what might be important to someone else. I would think about these books only briefly, and then when the next book came along, the cycle would repeat itself, leaving me empty and drained from the process.

The problem was never that I lacked books.

I lacked permission to approach differently.

With wonder and purpose.

Break the School Mindset

Most of us learned to read inside an institution that measures completion. The system rewards finishing the chapter and passing the test. It does not reward curiosity. It does not reward depth. It does not ask whether the book altered the way you see the world. And there was usually just one way, the teacher’s way, to see the real answers or meaning of a book. The theme or the lesson. How did this book move the teacher? How does the majority feel the impact?

The summer library program also carried the message that more is better. How many books could you finish by the end of the season?

So we carry that mindset forward. We count books. We set annual reading goals. We stack them like trophies.

But real reading begins when evaluation ends.

Elon Musk is a voracious reader. He read widely about physics and engineering long before he built rockets. He has stated that he “was raised by books.”

In his 2013 letter to shareholders, Warren Buffett acknowledged that the single best investment he ever made was a single book by his mentor Benjamin Graham, The Intelligent Investor.

Neither of them read to pass a test. They read to build a life.

That is the shift.

You are no longer reading to prove something. You are ready to read to construct something.

Begin With the End in Mind

Before you open a book, ask a more serious question than “Is this good?”

Ask, “Why am I reading this?”

What future version of me does this serve?

What problem am I trying to solve?

What kind of thinker am I trying to become?

If you do not clarify the “why,” the book becomes entertainment at best and noise at worst. You will highlight everything because you have not decided what matters.

The question is not “What is important?”

The question is “Important for what?”

That reframing changes everything.

For years, I struggled with Gary Keller’s idea about focusing on the one action that makes other actions easier or unnecessary. Intuitively, I sensed the power in that idea, but the phrasing never quite landed.

Then I encountered Harvard professors Bill Burnett and Dave Evans and their life-design framework. They talk about prototyping your future, about taking the next small step that moves you in the direction you want to live. It is not about mastering everything. It is about directional progress.

Suddenly, the fog lifted.

Reading is not about consuming everything that is interesting. It is about identifying the one idea that moves you forward.

That is the “one thing” in each book, or maybe even each chapter.

Fiction, Nonfiction, and the Truth

We sometimes treat nonfiction as truth and fiction as entertainment. That is naïve.

Fiction often reveals emotional truth with greater clarity than argument. Depending on the fiction, I sometimes think of fiction as mind candy. A way to splurge on the sweet stuff without diving too deep into a specific purpose. But it often does a bit more than that... especially in good literature. It mirrors my mood. Am I looking for adventure? For love and meaning? Do I want to lose myself in mystery or suspense?

Nonfiction can clarify reality—or reinforce misconceptions if we read it uncritically.

Both genres can sharpen your thinking.

But only if you read actively.

Active reading means entering into a conversation with the author or the characters. It means writing questions in the margins. It means disagreeing. It means connecting one author’s argument to another’s. It means noticing when something unsettles you or even shakes the very ground you stand on.

You are not a storage device. You are a mind, body, and soul.

And a mind grows through friction. A heart grows through understanding. The soul is the witness of it all.

Stop Counting Books. Start Counting Meaning

Here is where I corrected myself.

I used to believe that finishing a book was an accomplishment in itself. I was wrong.

Finishing a book just to finish it is not meaningful.

Extracting meaning is.

If a book gives you one idea that genuinely alters your thinking, it has succeeded. If you read thirty books in a year and apply nothing, you have simply rehearsed literacy.

Think of yourself less as a collector and more as a pollinator. A hummingbird does not feed on one flower. A bee moves from field to field. Both cross-pollinate. The power is not in staying. It is through reading widely that ideas unique to your perception are generated.

That said, do not confuse difficulty with uselessness. Some books are meant to stretch you. Like exercise, reading has resistance levels. Start easy and gradually increase the difficulty. Angela Duckworth, the author of Grit, explains that starting with easy tasks to build momentum and then moving on to harder work is key to long-term success. This allows you to focus right now on what feels natural, energizing, and enjoyable rather than immediate struggle. Set yourself up for success.

Remember, the measure is not “Did I finish?”

The measure is “Who am I becoming?”

A Word About Focus and ADHD

Now we need to talk about the obstacle many people quietly carry.

If you have ADHD—or simply a highly associative, easily stimulated mind—reading can feel like swimming upstream. You are drawn toward novelty. Your mind leaps to connections. You may highlight entire pages because everything feels alive. You may abandon books halfway through if something shinier comes along.

This is not a moral failure.

It is a neurological pattern.

But it requires a design change or a shift in the framework.

First, give your mind a clear purpose before you begin. An ADHD mind struggles with vague tasks. “Read this book” is vague. “Find one idea in this chapter that I can apply to my work this week” is concrete.

Second, engage more than your eyes. Pair reading with movement. I often listen to an audiobook while walking.

Another game-changer for me has been reading a physical book while also listening to the audio version. When my thoughts drift, and my eyes leave the page, I keep hearing the audio, which keeps me engaged in the flow of thought until I self-correct and return my focus to the page in front of me. Adjusting the speed is also helpful. I can go slower when I need more time that day to process or increase the speed of the words to push me through faster on dialogue that is too weighty, and I can easily glide over without losing the meaning.

If you are reading on a Kindle, adjust the font size a bit larger than you normally would. This allows for swiping through the pages at a quicker rate. Like pulling the handle of a slot machine, the swipe seems to generate a dopamine push as you move through.

Deliberately involve your senses and establish a routine—lighting a candle and sounds for focus. This could be binaural beats with headphones or even quiet, relaxing ‘study’ music you can find on YouTube. Amy Tan talked about listening to soundtracks that matched her mood in her writing to help her enter her story. I think the idea is the same here.

Third, reduce the stakes. Start with shorter forms if attention feels brittle. Graphic novels count. Short stories count. Young adult fiction counts and is just as suitable for any age adult—just sayin. Build stamina gradually. Build difficulty gradually.

Fourth, externalize your thinking. Write one paragraph in your journal at the end of each reading session. Not a summary. A response. What did this provoke? What question remains? What might I try because of it? Writing stabilizes attention.

Share your thoughts on your reading. Teaching others helps us learn about ourselves.

Fifth, allow strategic quitting—but define it carefully. Don’t worry about quitting a book that you don’t like for whatever reason. It may not be the right time or the right book.

Finally, measure consistency, not completion. Ten focused minutes a day will change you more than 100 books in a summer rush to a gold star.

An ADHD mind is often curious, creative, and capable of deep hyperfocus when properly engaged. The goal is not to suppress its nature but to harness it.

Becoming a Reader

To become a reader is not to accumulate pages. It is to enter into a relationship with ideas. It is to allow friction. It is to practice discernment. It is to extract meaning and apply it.

Becoming a reader means you choose the book over the screen. You carry a book with you, always ready to engage in the minutes around the edges of everything else. You can’t wait to flip through the pages.

Books are not china. They are friends, even mentors. The best of them are pushing our buttons and making us think more critically. The best is encouraging us and sharing ideas and philosophies. The best keeps us up late at night, way past our bedtime, breathless and wanting for resolution.

Open a book that pulls you in for whatever reason. Trust yourself in knowing what to read next. Follow the wonder.

And measure your reading not by the number of spines you conquer, but by the quiet shifts in your thinking that no one else can see.

The moment you begin reading for meaning rather than completion, you stop aspiring to be a reader.

You become one.

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For the Margin

• Finishing books is not the goal. Extracting meaning is.

• Ask “Important for what?” before you start highlighting.

• Read with a purpose, not for performance.

• One applied idea outweighs fifty completed books.

• Engage the author. Argue. Connect. Respond.

• Build reading stamina gradually, start with something easy.

• Design your reading environment if focus is a challenge.

• Measure who you are becoming, not how many books you finish.