A reader once asked me about career-related questions. The question was quite broad, like "What should I do about finding a job right after graduation?" Just as I was thinking about it, they added a comment: "Because your story is more relatable, I wanted to know your thoughts."
I've been reflecting on this comment repeatedly over the past few weeks. In the past, I might have interpreted this as a "rate me" kind of question, but upon careful reflection, there really are too many overly impressive examples out there. After hearing their stories, you feel inspired and full of admiration in the moment, but when you calm down, you realize that you probably can't achieve the same things they did, and you start to retreat. So my rather ordinary life and daily routines should be exactly what most people can follow to quickly figure out how to transform their everyday approach.
Looking back at the methods that influenced me, the most important one is "reading." During my university years, I didn't read much because of my major. I was all about hands-on work—filming, recording, design, presentations. This gave me the ability to quickly present in front of an audience, but I hit a wall: "lack of depth." My writing was shallow and awkward too.
Showing a pet news article I wrote three years ago—I was laughing while reading it yesterday
"This cattle was destined from birth. One day when it grew up, it would be taken to a slaughterhouse to become food. Fearful, it spent its entire first half-life in dread. One day, it was put in a car, seemingly knowing it was about to be killed, so tears kept falling. It seemed so sad, as if saying goodbye to the world, which was quite heartbreaking. But unexpectedly, the car didn't go into the slaughterhouse—instead, it arrived at a vast grassland.
This is news, not a story. Reading my article three years later, it reads exactly like something a middle school student would write as fiction… Now look at my current writing:
"Already overloaded, yet unrealistically escaping the discomfort of body and mind under pressure, along with the current reality that effort yields no relative reward or achievement; more afraid of taking resistance actions, such as leaving or entering another phase, I convince my own desires, keeping myself in "the worst situation, telling myself everything will get better in the future," but this future has no stop-loss point. I can only escape from that psychological self that yearns for freedom, liberation, and rest."
Does it feel like two different people wrote these?
If you want to witness and feel your own transformation in a short time, the answer is massive reading combined with repeated reflection and deliberate practice to expand and shift your thinking. Over these three years, I've bought over a hundred books, averaging two books per month, covering psychology, management, sociology, entrepreneurship, workplace dynamics, and various other areas.
Currently, I choose books based on my own preferences. Later, I discovered that no matter what I chose, it was always related to business or the workplace. That's when I realized what I love exploring is actually this field. So reading not only changes your thinking, making you more mature and broadening your horizons, but also helps you discover your own interests.
Moving forward, I'll adopt a "deliberate book selection" approach—for example, reading only one author's books or sticking to related series, so I can specialize in a certain field and systematically catalog and deepen my knowledge of the books I already have.
However, if you just flip through a book and call it done, that's probably not enough. Without practicing the book's knowledge in your life, you'll feel those theories are hollow—just chicken soup for the soul with only short-term effects. But if you "deliberately practice," combining the book's knowledge with your life, thinking about what's useful for you and what isn't, summarizing for yourself and customizing your learning—that's truly the best way to grow.
