Week 1

Day 1: The first page.

Welcome to the first day of your reading practice. If you haven't already done so, please take time to complete your daily reading goal before coming to this prompt.

After you've read:

Take a few moments to check in with yourself. How did today's reading feel? Scary? Exciting? You may have found that your goal was a little ambitious, or perhaps it left you wanting more—don't worry! Feel free to adjust it now.

As with any ritual, the first page (or first day) can feel a little daunting. I want to remind you that all you're doing is making one small choice today that will compound into a consistent string of small choices.

Today we're going to attempt to reframe whatever worry you may have about this workshop with the following prompts:

List out any of the worries you have about your reading goal. Some examples:
What if I can't accomplish my goal every day?
What if I don't stick with it?
What if I don't like the book I chose?
Now spend a little time rationalizing with yourself—chances are, you have an answer to each of these questions.

My answer to pretty much any question is: you might [do the thing you're worried you'll do], and that's okay.

Instead of focusing on what could happen, why not focus on what's actually happening? You read today! That's something to celebrate! Take a moment to reflect:

How did accomplishing your goal make you feel?
Describe the physical, emotional, and spiritual sensations.

Day 2: Reading for self worth.

Like many highly sensitive kids (especially those with divorced parents), I grew up a people-pleaser. For a long time throughout adolescence and early adulthood, I fell into the same habits again and again. I'd chase the affection and approval from people who didn't really respect me. I was terrified to share an opinion of my own, and would try my best to say things I thought other people wanted me to say. Essentially, I had no sense of self-worth.

But something shifted. I realized I always had reading. Reading was my refuge, my tether. I would read everyday, I wrote for myself, for fun, and I read everything I could get my hands on—fiction, philosophy, memoirs, myths, it didn’t matter. It was my secret world. At a certain point in my twenties I realized my reading practice was truly mine. It was a crucial part of my identity, shaped by nobody, chosen by only me. It was my gateway into finding a sense of self worth, for ending patterns that didn't serve me, for healing this early trauma that I thought ruled me.

Reading was, and continues to be, an investment in myself. This is why I read. It’s an investment in my self-esteem, my brain, my worth, my imagination, my vocabulary, and the openness of my mind. Every word I read, every page, bolsters my confidence, makes me more certain of who I am.

It has been empowering to understand myself in this way, to know this about myself. The thing is, all reading is (for me) is an act of choosing myself. It’s a commitment to a ritual that puts my own self-worth and mental health above other obligations.

You may not have had an opportunity in your life to choose yourself like this, or maybe you never felt you deserved to pick yourself first. This is why your reading practice this month can, I think, shed some light on where and why you haven’t made time for rituals in your life. Or, it may show you all of the ways you’re already practicing them without even realizing it.

Let me just say, in closing, that reading might not be your thing. Reading, just for this month, is meant to be a tool. It’s supposed to show you what it feels like to commit to something simple everyday, and how that commitment contributes to a stronger sense of self-worth. By the end of the month, you might decide reading isn’t for you. That’s fine! But, hopefully, you’ll find that one specific act that brings you what reading brings me. That’s my hope for you.

Your assignment for today:

Reflect on your own sense of self worth and how reading plays into it. Is reading a refuge amidst the chaos? Did reading (or not reading) ever bring you a sense of shame in your life? Examine this. We'll be studying this nuanced relationship all week (and month).

Day 3: Find your motivation.

After reflecting on the concept of self-worth, I hope you have been able to make certain connections between your own worth and reading. Today we are going to let those realizations guide us toward our specific motivation for taking this workshop and committing to a daily reading practice.

Answer these questions in your journal:

What is the status of your self-worth right now? Is it high? Medium? Low?
Why did this specific status lead you to committing to a daily reading practice?
If you truly commit to a month of daily reading, how do you think your sense of self-worth will shift?
Peel back the layers of that shift. What's underneath it? Why do you think reading will shift it?
This answer is likely your motivation for reading. Underline it. If you want, write this motivation out on a piece of paper and use it as your bookmark.

Closing exercise:

Visualize this future version of yourself—the one sitting in your special Avid nook at the end of the month, having just successfully committed to a full month of reading. Write a small note to that person, telling them why you decided to commit, and why you decided to take care of them in this way.

Return to this note to self as often as you need to when you are in need of motivation.

Day 4: Priority inventory.

Make an honest list of your daily priorities, then make another—a list of how you wished you prioritized your day. An ideal day. Something helpful I do is make a square and divide it into 9 equal parts. I believe that we only have the bandwidth for 9 things on any given day (but maybe you have bandwidth for 16! or 4!)

Here is an example of the 9 things I’m prioritizing today:

Rest
Reading
Nourishment
Hydration
My partner
Going for a walk
Taking my meds
My friendships
Doing the dishes

I’d like you to add “Reading” to your list every day this month :)

Take a moment to reflect on the differences you see in your two lists—what’s keeping you from putting your “ideal day” list into practice?

Day 5: Self commitment.

If you are following this workshop day by day, you have committed to yourself for five days in a row—something might be shifting inside of you. (If you're completing these tasks on a different schedule, don't worry about the specifics of "day five" ... I'm talking about the general momentum that occurs when you combine a daily practice with the follow-through of completing these small reflective tasks, so if you're not on your fifth day, the shift is still happening.)

This shift may feel like a small turning point for you. A deepening, where before you only felt like you were dabbling. You may be feeling inspired, on fire, and energized by the world around you.

However, self-commitment can also be more complicated than simple follow-through. If you grew up a people-pleaser or were shown that it's somehow shameful to put yourself first in any way, it can feel very unnatural and uncomfortable to do this. You may be sabotaging yourself without being fully aware that you're doing it. Day five might feel like swimming upstream. You might feel a strong sense of resistance at this point. This is normal, too. Often when we are faced with a closer relationship to ourselves, our first instinct is to run. The easier option is to turn around and go back to what you were doing before, which was not reading, not having a daily ritual, not learning more about yourself. But what if you took an extra pause right now and sat with your discomfort? What if you practiced accepting the fact that you’re uncomfortable, instead of shaming yourself for feeling it in the first place?

Here are some prompts to think about, depending on how you're feeling:

If you're feeling resistance, do just that. Let yourself resist! Take a few deep breaths. Check in with yourself. Ask: what am I really feeling? What's making me not want to do this today? Are you self-sabotaging? Are you double-booking yourself or making excuses as to why you can't complete your daily reading goal? Breathe. It's okay. Tend to yourself today. It's perfectly fine to reward yourself with a little treat. Maybe take a bath. Watch your favorite show. But remember: you can keep reading, even if you don't want to. If you don’t want to read, maybe think about something you do want to do: do you want to feel a sense of accomplishment that you’ll only get after you read? Focus on that, read a few sentences, then stop. Look back at the note you had written your future self as a reminder of why you’re doing this. Hang in there.
If you're feeling that deepening I mentioned before (AKA the opposite of resistance), let your intuition guide you today. Maybe you want to surpass your goal—do it! Open up your journal, set a timer for five minutes, and free-write to see what comes up. Don't let your pen leave the page (or if you're writing in a digital journal, don't stop typing). In other words, I'm asking you to give this deeper part of you a voice. The more we encourage the parts of ourselves that are truly inspired, the more often they will want to come to the surface.

Day 6: Extra 10%.

Get ready: today you're going to increase your reading goal by 10%.

If you're panicking, that's okay! Let that run its course, then take a breath to reset. 10% when you break it down is not very much, but I promise you're going to feel amazing when you finish it.

You may be wondering why I'm asking you to do this. Well, my goal is to help you get through this week. Statistically speaking, you're more likely to give up on your goal around day five or six when you're starting a new daily practice. By mixing it up a little and giving you a mini challenge, I'm keeping you on your toes. Sometimes all it takes is a little extra effort when you're starting to lose steam. The lack of enthusiasm you may be feeling in your subconscious mind, combined with the sense of achievement you'll feel after completing your daily goal + the extra 10% creates some sort of exponentially wonderful chemical compound in your brain. You'll feel like you accomplished something HUGE, instead of something little. And, in many ways, you did! You stuck it out for another day, and that's something to celebrate.

Happy reading! <3

Day 7: Sharing what you’ve read.

Today, after you complete your reading goal (you don't have to read an extra 10%, don't worry), I want you to simply share a recap of what you've read. You can share it with a friend, you can share it with yourself in your journal, you can share it with your followers on social media—whatever you want. Be as detailed or as general as you'd like. The goal here is less "book report" and more about being truly present with yourself as you commit to this daily act. When we reflect on our actions, we build new neural pathways and new muscle memory tied to that specific action. Essentially, when you get into the habit of reflecting like this, your brain will begin to crave reading with this sort of attention.

Moreover, it's a beautiful practice to close out the week sharing all of the interesting and incredible things you've been filling your brain with!

Congratulations on making it this far. I'm so glad you're here <3

Alyssa Natoci