I have been out of touch with my reading habit (or maybe all good habits in general, courtesy: pathetic work-life balance) for as long as I can remember. I slipped from being a person who read a book a week to not being able to finish a book, and trust me, it hurts to become aware of that.
When I was gifted a copy of Ikigai, on my 24th birthday, I was elated! Back then, I was an international student living in Brighton, United Kingdom and trying to save every penny because I couldn’t get over currency conversion in my head (Hey! It’s real.) Because I wasn’t buying books, getting one gifted seemed like the perfect opportunity to restart and truth be told, I picked it up 5 times that year, only to stop at 2 pages. I still haven’t finished it, I will soon.
A few weeks ago when I decided to rebuild my reading habit (thanks to random Youtube strolling), I came across Ali Abdaal’s brilliant video on books that changed his life! That’s where I came across this book!
This book is brutally honest, extremely funny and super duper useful for anyone who is looking to build a space online, starting a business, is looking to bring out their creative side to the world, or simply just looking for rebuilding lost self- confidence. My reason to pick it up was simply to add one more finished read to my list (it’s a short book), but it has definitely become one that I will buy a physical copy of, gift to as many people as I can and re-read multiple times.
My favorite thing about this book is that reading it makes you feel like: YOU’VE GOT THIS! Because sometimes, we become deaf to our own voices telling us, we’ve got this and we need some validation. Let that validation not come from outside you, from people who might not really care about you. Let that validation come from a more confident you, the YOU who’s got this! That’s what this book did for me, I hope it does the same for you.
It’s really hard to pick a favourite line from this one because I loved so many lines, so here’s one of the many:
The worst troll is the one that lives in your head.
Austin Kleon, Show Your Work, Page 75
I am going to try to defeat the trolls in my head, thanks to the learnings from this book. What about you?
P.S. This is Austin’s blog, you should totally check it out!
Photo by Christin Hume on Unsplash
