Knowledge disappear without habits. How do you actually apply and preserve knowledge you get from the different sources?

Probably not a very popular opinion here, but I’m going to be honest about something that started bothering me

Last year, I set a goal of becoming better by reading the books, 2 books per month. I hit 24. For some of you, it may not be a huge number, but I felt great about it.

At the same time, some friends were asking me which book I liked the most - I was able to say that I really enjoyed books like "Think like a monk" or "Surrounded by idiots", but actually, I could only remember a few things that I actually tried in practice, everything else feels like wasted time.

Here’s what I realized: Sometimes I wasn’t reading to grow. I was reading to feel like I was growing, to complete my 2 books/month goal. There’s a huge difference.

What books do I actually remember the best? They’re the ones where I took knowledge and started to transform it into habits. When I read How to Win Friends and Influence People and immediately used the empathy technique in communication with strangers, boom, I am still able to make friends with a much higher chance than before, really helped!!!. When I read Man’s Search for Meaning and journaled about my own purpose that same evening - still with me, repeated it a few more times, and now even without journaling, I am achieving exactly what I wanted. Related not only to books, but also to videos, reels, TikTok, etc.

This year, I want to change my approach completely by applying the knowledge in practice and building lasting habits, already working on a tool that should help me in this!

Has anyone else experienced this? How do you guys get the most out of the resources (not just books)? Really curious, probably it will help me with my tool, thanks in advance!