Highlighting a passage in a self-help book is satisfying in a very weird way. That satisfying swipe of neon across your favourite passage – oh the glory! It’s like saying to the universe, “Yes!
This is it.
I have found the magical words that will change my life.”
Ok, yeah, me too. The thing is, I love reading self-development books.
My shelf is crammed with broken-spined paperbacks featuring neon highlights throughout the margins. Advice on how to structure my mornings. How to form healthy habits.
How to bullet journal my life away. How to adopt a millionaire mindset. My Kindle isn’t much better.
My entire library is decorated with highlights. A glowing paper trail of everything I know that will make my life awesome… if I just start doing it. Yet, here I am.
Still snoozing my alarm six times each morning. Still cramming my taxes the night before they’re due. Still doom scrolling when I should be meditating or some crap that those ‘having it together’ types do with their spare time.
Don’t get me wrong, I WANT to make these changes. Hell yes I do. I buy every self-help book with the fiery passion of someone who absolutely WILL learn from their past mistakes.
This time it’ll be different. THIS book is the one. It’ll bring out the ultra-productive, emotionally intelligent, ripped physique who meal preps every Sunday and always remembers to floss DUDE inside of me.
‘Atomic Habits’ by James Clear? Swiped right across half that book. My favourite line – probably quoted me now but I’ve read it so many times I know it by heart – is that “improvements compound over time.
If you improve by 1% every day for a year, you’ll end up 37 times better.” GENIUS. GAME-CHANGING. EXACTLY THE BOOK I NEED RIGHT NOW.
Did I go do any habit stacking like he suggests? Of course not. Did I make sure the habits I wanted to introduce were obvious and satisfying like he says?
Hell no. Did I highlight those chapters like they were going out of style? YOU BET.
‘The 5AM Club’ by Robin Sharma sent me into a frenzy and I actually woke up at 5AM the next day like he said I would. I bought the bullshit hook, line and sinker. So many highlights about how the hours between 5 and 8am are ‘holy time’ and how this newfound predawn ritual will change my life.
I WILL BECOME A MACHINE. Well, alarm did indeed ring at 5AM sharp. Ask me how I know – I turned it off and went back to sleep until 8:30.
But holy shit do those highlights gleam at me when I open that book. Productivity books aren’t the only ones guilty as charged. My copy of ‘The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck’ is literally highlighted within an inch of its life.
Tips and tricks about picking what you want to care about and letting the rest slide. Guess who spent 40 minutes yesterday worrying that an email I sent my boss came off passive-aggressive? Psychologists call this the “illusion of progress”.
By simply highlighting that passage, I trick myself into thinking I’ve somehow absorbed it. Maybe even gone so far as to implement that advice. There’s a moment of “YES!
I UNDERSTAND NOW!” and then zero actual change. Friend of mine, Zoe, has a theory that maybe highlighting is just fancy procrastination. “You’re basically telling yourself, ‘Yes!
This is important,’ But not important enough for you to change your behaviour now,” she said to me over drinks last week. “Kind of like making a to-do list for your future self who you imagine will be wildly different (better) than your present self.”
I hate to sound like my mother, but she’s probably right. Future Kara is always going to be an awe-inspiring creature of productivity – nothing can change that.
She’ll meal prep on Sundays. Take strolls through the park on her lunch breaks. Always remember to floss.
Present Kara just wants to highlight some juicy shit and wash it down with a biscuit and a scroll through Twitter. And worst of all? I KNOW these books actually work.
I work with this girl – let’s call her Emma – who bought ‘Deep Work’ by Cal Newport around the same time I did. I sat there scrutinising every passage about removing distractions and scheduling deep work into my calendar. Emma just… went out and did it.
She blocked two hours every morning to absolutely crush it at work. She turned off all notifications on her phone and installed one of those stupid timed lockboxes that prevents you from using your phone until the time goes off. Both of us read that book at the exact same time, but six months later Emma had published the book she’d been saying she would write for years.
All while I had… a brand new incredibly highlighted copy of Deep Work and the same damn distracted brain I already had. Same goes for articles. Podcasts.
YouTube videos. I have a folder on my phone called ‘Notes’ where I dump any inspirational quote or tidbit I come across when I’m consuming content. Fold Notes open like a sacred church of self-betterment and then never look at them again.
It’s a digital graveyard of would’ve could’ve should’ve’s. My mum used to say to me growing up, “If you know and you don’t do, you know nothing at all.” When she first said it, I thought her and her cryptic mother sayings were stupid. The older I get, the more truth I find in that sentence.
All this knowledge I have decorating my shelf does me absolutely no good if I don’t apply it to my life. I think there’s also comfort in highlighting. We deceive ourselves into feeling like we’re changing our lives for the better without ever having to actually… change.
We can pat ourselves on the back for ‘learning’ this helpful tidbit without leaving our comfortable couch. Changeless change. All of the self-gratification that comes with personal development and zero of the hard work.
Last month I hit rock bottom. Sat there highlighting a book on how to stop procrastinating while I WAS procrastinating on an assignment due the next day. It was SO bad guys.
I looked in the mirror and literally laughed at myself. That was the point where I knew I had to do something. So, I decided to experiment.
Took one highlight from ‘Atomic Habits’ and decided I was going to actually DO it. For one whole week. It was simple stuff.
About how you can attach new habits to existing ones to make them feel less daunting. I decided I would do five push-ups every time I waited for my kettle to boil. Life changing?
No. Did I feel silly for investing such immeasurable grandeur into something so… insignificant? Absolutely not.
For the first time in forever, I actually took one piece of advice I had ‘learned’ and did it. Didn’t overthink it. Didn’t plan out my entire life based around this one hack.
I just did it. Sure my arms were fucking sore for about a week, but hey – Baby steps, right? I began to wonder why me – and I’m sure many others – fall into this cycle.
Why we feel the need to know everything about changing our lives but never actually doing anything about it. I think part of the problem is that highlighting feels productive. We trick ourselves into feeling like we’re making progress when all we’ve done is mark a line of text.
Highlighting is also so damn easy and REVERSIBLE. I highlight something I think sounds cool, but if I don’t use it or it doesn’t work? Poof.
Leave it unread and no one is the wiser. Now go actually CHANGE your behaviour based on some random book you read and you might just break a few habits along the way. It’s overwhelming, guys.
Self-development books are chock full of advice. How to implement it. How to change your mindset around it.
Exercises you can do. Journals to reflect on what you’ve read. How the FUCK are you supposed to know where to start?
And once you pick one thing to focus on – helloooooo thousand other ridiculously beneficial things you could be working on. I decided to try a new method with my recent reads. Sure I’ll still highlight away like a maniac (habits don’t die that easy hun), but after I finish a chapter or section, I’ll ask myself what ONE thing I can do right now to implement something I just read.
I write it on a sticky note and stick it to my wall where I’ll see it every day. Once that action becomes second nature, I may introduce another tip or two. Sure it’ll take me years to ‘readjack’ all my books, but at least I’ll be actually reading them instead of justhighlighting them.
I’ve also become very choosy about the books I allow myself to read. Before I purchase another enlightening memoir on human behaviour and bettering my life, I ask myself one question: “Am I willing to do what this book tells me?” Sure it might change my life, sure all the reviews say it’s a must-read, but if I’m not ready to actually change my behaviour based on its knowledge – then why buy it? Ok, look.
I’m not trying to preach at you. I bought ‘Digital Minimalism’ a few months back and caught myself highlighting about the importance of daily digital-detoxes WHILE I WAS ON TWITTER CHECKING IF SOMEBODY TOOK THE DOG OUT. It’s a process.
Forking up cash and buying a book you know will change your life is one thing. Actually doing it is a whole other ball game. I’m trying to be more conscious about the disconnect between knowledge and action.
Maybe that’s step one. Accepting that just because I highlight a passage, doesn’t mean its wisdom will magically consume my brain and better my life. So if you’ve got a bookshelf full of nicely highlighted tomes of self-help wisdom and feel like you haven’t bettered yourself one tiny ounce, you’re not alone.
Heck, we’re ALL out here just accumulating ounces of knowledge and expecting our lives to magically change.
Maybe self-help isn’t about reading one more chapter on how to improve your life. Maybe it’s about picking that one thing you know will change your life, highlighting the f*ck out of it – and actually doing it.
Need to know what five push-ups will do to your body? Trust me when I say you’ll feel them…. See you on the other side.
Kara.
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