Make Reading a Ritual

Right now, the Rugby World Cup is being played Down Under. This is a bit like baseball's World Series, except that "world" means, well, the world.

The sport played at the Rugby World Cup is rugby union, not to be mistaken for rugby league. Rugby union, the Melbourne Age recently explained, "is a 15-a-side game containing amorphous huddles of large, oblong men who step on each other. Rugby league, on the other hand, is a 13-a-side game, in which large, square men run full pelt into each other. As you can see, the differences are vital."

When I was a kid, rugby players talked in grunts and trained by jogging with a sheep under each arm. But in 1995 the game turned professional. These days, top players are sophisticated folk who drink cappucinos and even read books.

Which is more than you can say for many business and professional people. Most of my clients were avid readers when they were kids, but are no longer. Sure, they still read the daily newspaper and TV Guide, but when it comes to books, the odd John Grisham is about it. They tell me they just don't have time to read. 

The issue isn't really one of time; it is one of priorities. They find time to work out because they see care of the body as important. But reading? - no, it feels like an indulgence, and when it comes to indulgences, TV ranks as one, two, and three.

In The Power of Full Engagement, high-performance coaches Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz explain that we need to nurture four sources of energy: physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. They see rituals as the key to energy recovery. It is by defining precise behaviors and performing them at very specific times each day or week that we can best build and sustain our energy.  (See http://www.poweroffullengagement.com.)

You may already have an exercise ritual. How about instituting a reading ritual as well? If you're too tired to read when you go to bed, design a routine that works for you. Take a book to work, for example, and read for 20 minutes three lunchtimes a week. Or if you fly a lot, resolve to read instead of work on the plane.

Why is reading books a need, not an indulgence? If you're a successful person who wants something more from life, the only way to find that "something more" is to explore. Good books, as Guy Claxton once wrote, "are sketch maps and travel journals left behind for our guidance by earlier explorers."

And if you want to read something truly hi-brow, there's always the Rugby World Cup website: www.rugbyworldcupcom/RugbyWorldCup/EN/

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