Reading – Nourishment for the Brain

Reading – Nourishment for the Brain

I had little patience for reading when I was young because I struggled to stay focused. After becoming a mum, I began reading with my children when they were small to help them build a reading habit, aiming to nurture them into lifelong learners. In addition, it gave me the chance to relearn something I had missed during my childhood.

In my 40s, when I encountered challenges in parenting and setbacks in my career, I realized that my mindset wasn’t flexible enough to navigate these situations. Rather than bothering my friends, reading became my primary and most powerful support. It enriched my parenting approach and guided the mindset shifts I needed to cope with difficult moments at work. Reading broadened my horizons, deepened my wisdom, and continually offered food for thought. Although I was a busy working mum, I am grateful to my younger self for choosing to read, it helped me cultivate the right mindset and developed the foundation for my journey to becoming a Life Coach.

I began reading English books in early 2021, as living in Cambridge made it easy to access a wide range of relevant and inspiring titles. This opened the door to many excellent works by world-class authors. At first, the process was slow and time-consuming because I often had to check the dictionary, but over the past four years my comprehension and reading speed have improved significantly.

Just as our bodies need healthy food, our minds also need new ideas and perspectives to inspire creativity, flexibility, and innovative thinking. When our experiences and knowledge are limited, our imagination becomes limited too.

Personal growth has always been one of my core values, so I usually prioritize 20 to 30 minutes of reading each day to enrich my knowledge. I also encourage my coachees and mentees to develop a reading habit to broaden their perspectives, helping their minds become more flexible and creative when facing challenges.

Recently, one of my coachees recommended “The Let Them Theory” to me, a beautiful moment of witnessing her turn to reading to support herself in overcoming life’s hurdles. After discovering that the book has sold over six million copies, I decided to read it as well. I brought it with me on my recent trip to Prague, Barcelona, and Lisbon, and read it while waiting to board and on the planes.

閱讀 — 滋養大腦

我年輕的時候只有少許耐性閱讀，因為我很難集中注意力。成為母親之後，在我的孩子們還小的時候，我便開始和他們一起閱讀，希望幫助他們養成閱讀的習慣，目的是培養他們成為終身學習者。此外，它還讓我有機會重新學習一些我童年錯過了的東西。

到了我四十多歲時，我在育兒和事業上都遇到了挑戰，我意識到自己的思考方式不夠靈活，無法應付這些情況。與其打擾我的朋友，閱讀成為了我最主要及最有力的支持。閱讀豐富了我的育兒方式，也引導我轉變思維模式，以便更好地應對工作中的困境。閱讀拓寬了我的視野，增長了我的智慧，並不斷提供我思考的素材。即使那個階段我是一位忙碌的在職媽媽，現在的我仍是很感激年輕時的自己選擇了閱讀，它幫助我培養了正確的思維方式，也為我成為人生教練奠定了基礎。

我在2021年初開始閱讀英文書籍，因為住在劍橋讓我很容易接觸到各種相關且富有啟發性的書籍。這讓我有機會接觸到許多世界級作者的優秀作品。起初，閱讀過程非常緩慢且耗時，因為我經常需要查字典，但在過去四年裡，我的理解能力及閱讀速度都得到了顯著的提升。

就像我們的身體需要健康的食物一樣，我們的腦袋也需要新的想法和角度來啟發創造力、靈活性和創新思維。當我們的經驗和知識有限時，我們的想像力也會受到限制。

個人成長一直是我的核心價值之一，所以我通常每天都會抽出20到30分鐘閱讀，以豐富我的知識。我也鼓勵我的學員和學生培養閱讀的習慣，以拓寬視野，幫助他們在面對挑戰時變得更靈活和更有創造力。

最近，我的一位學員向我推薦了《隨他們去》（The Let Them Theory）這本書，這讓我非常感動，因為我見證了她透過閱讀來幫助自己克服生活中的障礙。在得知這本書的銷售量已超過六百萬冊後，我也決定讀一遍。所以我也帶了這本書一起去布拉格、巴塞隆拿和里斯本旅行，在候機和飛行途中閱讀。