Give a listen and stretch yourself!

Ever find yourself wanting to learn more to stretch your mind and get out of the rut of a life that everyday living can bring? You want to have more to talk about with others and even more, you just want to have more in your head to feel you aren’t just being stagnant with your own education or ideas.

There is actually a pretty simple solution to this. Books. I’m not talking about books you don’t care about and books someone else thinks you should read. I’m talking about all kinds of books that you have heard about but never bothered to read. You have been too busy and how could you possibly take time to read for fun and to stretch yourself on a variety of topics.

Once again let me say it. There is a very simple solution to this. Books. But don’t read them, listen to them. Use some of the time that you have to yourself to listen to a good book of fiction, a classic book you always wondered about but never bothered to read, or a book on a topic of interest to you now.

How do you find the time? Well, one good way is to get out there and walk regularly and when you do just listen to a book instead of music all the time. Music is great and you would never want to give that up but you could get some great insights on life by just listening to a book sometimes while you walk. And with no one around and your body is stimulated by walking, your mind is free and your emotions can react to what you are hearing and feeling.

Another great time to listen is when you are driving alone in the car, or traveling on the bus or subway or train. Put in those earbuds or put on those headphones in public transportation or just use the Bluetooth on your phone to play through your car speakers when driving.  You’d be surprised how many books you can listen to just in the time you drive somewhere over a period of time.

Also, you can listen while you are home. Instead of watching a TV show you don’t really care about you can listen to a book that you are already interested in by listening to it while you walk or drive. 

You might be wondering how to get these books to listen to and how expensive it will be. Well, your public library has a lot of audiobooks these days. You can download them on your phone without even leaving home. There are simple apps for your phone to use to play them. It’s really quite easy. You can even request that the library purchases the book that you are interested in and they will check it out and if they buy it you will be given the first opportunity to listen to it.

Of course, you can buy audiobooks as well to get whatever you want. So many books are put out on audio these days. Audible is a very good company for books and if you don’t like the book you can even return it and get another one that hopefully you will enjoy. They also have a few free books to choose from every month along with the book you get with your subscription. Or you don’t have to pay for a regular subscription you can just buy the ones you like.

Another good company is Scribd. They let you check out as many books as you want to listen to each month for a fee. You can unsubscribe at any time. They have books to read as well that you can read on a Kindle or other reading device. But they have lots of audiobooks and you can splurge and feel like you are getting more than your money’s worth if you have lots of time to listen during the month.

So don’t miss out on learning! Challenge yourself to personal growth and you will be surprised how much you can take in through audiobooks in a year. You will look back and see just how many you were able to listen to and along the way feel invigorated by walking if you take that route, so to speak.