Reading books brings a lot of advantages, in particular a boost in intellectual and psychological abilities. Every book that is read reveals new opportunities to research and learn new ideas.
Next, let’s consider how reading can directly benefit career development.
Reading about different types of people and their difficulties helps us understand others better and develops empathy which is certainly important in a career, regardless of the field of activity. Research shows that when we read about other people's lives, we tend to identify ourselves with them.
Empathy is considered to be one of the most important skills which a person may develop. In the business world, understanding the feelings and opinions of other people is an important condition for strengthening relations with employees, improving the working environment, and also leads to bigger employee engagement. Empathy may help managers make agreements and build customer loyalty.
It’s not a surprise that reading helps a person expand their vocabulary. What’s more, due to constant exposure to different sentence structures, styles and delivery methods, written and verbal communication skills are also improved. Readers usually communicate in a more professional, confident and easy way. All of the above-mentioned factors make a person who loves reading a great communicator in business and other fields.
Expanded vocabulary helps improve written and verbal communication at the workplace. Developing your vocabulary and deepening your understanding of the language helps you display intelligence and helps colleagues and management respect you. The more words you understand and use, the stronger your ability to communicate will be. The ability to say what you mean helps get your message across in the clearest and most direct way and it is an important skill in any field.
Writers come up with interesting topics for stories, and reading them helps you do the same at work. A lot of scientists such as Kitty Hayes, Raymond Marlowe and others did research on this topic and proved that fiction literature readers get mental stimulation and expand their way of thinking. These are the key parts of generating creative ideas.
Creativity is something that everyone uses every day. When you have to solve some problems at the workplace, you may need to be creative in finding the right solution.
Creativity is also embedded in such business tasks as work organization where maybe you have to find innovative ways to optimize time and resources in limited situations.
Sometimes you need to run away from your own problems and immerse yourself in someone else's. Reading is a perfect way to get distracted from reality and as a result to decrease the level of stress. Distancing yourself from potential stress factors will help you stay calm and get ready for an important working day or relax after your day is over.
It's no secret that you have to deal with burnout in the workplace, otherwise productivity decreases which can lead to professional burnout. The library for the employees may be one of the ways to encourage them to read and give the colleagues the opportunity to take a break from everyday responsibilities.
Reading helps us process information better and enables us to deal with ambiguity.
Every day, we make numerous decisions in the workplace related to our professional activities, which have an impact not only on us, but also on other people. Any hasty or thoughtless decision can negatively affect the results. Reading improves decision-making by reducing the need to make urgent decisions, creates conditions for better information acquisition and helps to avoid irrational judgments.
Reading stimulates the analytical part of our brain, makes us think more, expands our horizons, helps us grow as individuals, and can even provide transformative experiences. Reading expands our knowledge and helps us see patterns, analyze what we read, and meaningfully criticize it.
By improving our analytical skills, we become more efficient and can add more value to our work.
There are a lot of ways to improve your reading skills. You can practice fast reading or take notes every time you come across an unfamiliar word.
Practice is one of the most effective ways to develop your skills. That’s enough to allocate 10-15 minutes for reading. You can read news, fiction, magazine articles, or any text.
You can set reading goals to expand your vocabulary, get deeper understanding of different texts and improve your ability to make connections between what you read and your own perspective and ideas.
For example, you can set a goal to learn the vocabulary related to a major topic, such as business management, technology, or another subject that interests you. Then you can find the meaning of unfamiliar words that will help you increase your vocabulary while reading. And then you can increase the level of complexity of the texts.
Previewing and scanning texts can be another step towards improving reading skills. You can apply this strategy previewing titles, captions, and other text elements to get an idea of what you're reading. This can help you get a general idea of the text before you start reading it.
Reading different texts, practice determining the purpose. Think about why different texts were written and what meanings or topics can be understood from the text. Moreover, you can also define the purpose for which you are reading, such as to find information, to follow instructions in a manual, or to enjoy the story.
When reading texts, there are several key strategies that can be used to improve comprehension. For example, when previewing a text, you can define the structure of the text as informational, persuasive, or educational. It is also possible to identify key elements of different texts, such as central themes, problems and solutions, or comparative ideas.
Another very effective way to improve your reading skills is to take notes. Effective note-taking can urge you to ask questions and make connections with what you read. Summarizing makes you remember specific details and central themes of what you read in your own words and from your unique perspective.
In conclusion, as you improve your reading skills, your communication and overall ability to interact with others at work will also improve.
