After chopping my hair off along with all of the trauma of 2020 and 2021 and three hours in the salon, I posted a selfie to Instagram. I came upon an ad for a class for Jim Kwik about how to read faster and use your mind as a superpower. I have been on a journey to expand my mind and body from yoga to Aikido to EFT to an energetic blueprint, learning other languages and dipping my toes in Reiki. I am seeing books upon books piling up on my bedside about educational materials while yearning to read just for fun and escapism, and feeling like I need to spend more time with my children, husband and friends… and don’t forget to walk the dogs and clean up after everyone and all of our animals…we have a mini zoo in our household. But I digress.
There is so much to learn in this world, with more and more being created every day, that the only way to absorb more, is by reading faster so that you can have more time for yourself and expand your mind creatively and for your business without having digital overload.
I have always read as fast or faster than my peers (not that that is saying much), so I never thought I needed a boost, and speed reading, or skimming diminished the fun of reading a book, because you cant savor the emotions, and some of the messages aren’t conveyed as clearly. My brother who had reading issues because of dyslexia took a speed reading course years ago. He shared the tools with me, but I found that I had already implemented the tools naturally, and didn’t find them beneficial.
After speaking to other women in my kids’ groups, and my hairdresser. I am finding out that many people are reading over one book a week, and even as fast as one book in a couple of hours. I realized that I needed to setup up my game from about one book a month – which I thought was pretty great – since many people don’t read books at all anymore.
Just watching this free masterclass, which is, of course, more about what is attainable and about Jim Kwik rather than actually learning to read faster, (because they want you to sign up), but it does help you pick up a couple of extra skills. I followed along and increased my wpm 40%. This was only from using my finger, without friction, and angling the book, (not my head) so that the words were more easily visible, and not at an angle. The next step they covered was sub-vocalization – where you can hear your voice in your head while you read.
I have wrestled with subvocalization because I can feel it slowing my reading down, which leads the mind to wander and less comprehension. I need to sign up for the class to learn how to break this habit, but one tip I read on Quora was to tap a beat while you read so that you don’t say the words in your head. I just tried this and increased it by another 10%. This was kind of difficult while holding my book with both hands so, I tapped my foot. This didn’t feel very natural, so I kept reverting back, but then had to remind myself not to subvocalize. I also used a soft eye focus, which was very helpful. Basically, don’t focus on one word, but let your eyes relax while you are reading. I really felt more as if I was in a trans-like state, like when playing music that you know by heart or you are swept into a great book. I am excited to try practicing this more and trying to read faaster. I will probably sign up for this course because I can only find good things about his class.
Thanks for coming along with my journey- I’ll get back to you with my improvements. Now if I could only type as fast as I think, I could really get somewhere
Here is a link to the course on Mind Valley: https://www.mindvalley.com/superreading/live?a=4970c104-a052-4927-aebd-81b70d446b7d
Or Jim Kwik’s website: https://kwikbrain.com/
