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From Reading to Doing: A Different Kind of Book Club
We’ve all done it. Bought a self-help book, read it with good intentions, maybe even highlighted a few pages… and then put it down and carried on as normal.
It’s not that the advice isn’t good. It’s just that nothing really changes unless we do something with it.
That’s exactly what sparked a conversation in a recent Creating Active Lives podcast episode. Out of that came a simple idea—what if a book club wasn’t just about reading and discussing, but actually about putting things into practice?
This “alternative book club” keeps things deliberately simple. Instead of trying to overhaul your entire life, each person chooses just one thing from the book to try. That’s it. One small, manageable change.
And that’s where it works.
Because the reality is, most people don’t struggle with knowing what to do—they struggle with doing too much at once. Big plans sound great in theory, but they quickly become overwhelming. Choosing one thing feels doable. And when something feels doable, you’re far more likely to stick with it.
There’s also something really powerful about the group element. Knowing you’re going to come back and talk about how you got on changes your mindset. It’s not about pressure or being judged—it’s more that you want to follow through. You want to be able to say, “Yeah, I did that.”
What’s been interesting is how quickly the conversations go beyond the book itself. People start sharing what’s actually going on in their lives—what’s working, what isn’t, what they’ve tried before. Someone might mention they’re struggling with something, and someone else will say, “I had that too—this helped me.” You can’t really get that from reading on your own.
Another thing that came up was the idea of not just stopping habits, but replacing them. It’s easy to say, “I’m not going to do this anymore,” but that usually leaves a gap—and gaps tend to get filled. Swapping one habit for another, even something small, makes it much easier to stick.
What I like most about this approach is that it takes the pressure off. It’s not about massive transformations or doing everything perfectly. It’s about small steps, building confidence, and finding things that actually fit into your life.
For one person, that might be doing press-ups every morning. For someone else, it could be drinking more water, getting outside for a short walk, or just taking a few minutes to pause in the day.
None of it sounds dramatic. But that’s kind of the point.
Because those small things? They add up.
And sometimes, that’s all it takes to get things moving.
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