بزرگترین درس های 2017 - قسمت دوم

115 - Biggest Lessons of 2017 - Part 2

Hello there, Kevin here, with another episode of the Feel Good English podcast!

The podcast that blends, mixes, English learning with personal development. Making your time spent with English more inspiring, enlightening, and…exciting?

This is the last episode of 2017, well, it’s literally the first episode of 2018, but I am still going to touch on a couple ideas from 2017, two BIG ideas I shared with you that I consider to be so important.

Both of these are ideas are really simple, straight to the point, but can have a big impact on behavior. And I’m going to go into these two ideas, going to review them with you today because you can take these two concepts and apply them to your life this coming year. They can help you stay strong and help you stay focused, two things I often need help with.

And before I do start, I just want to thank you for listening to my show.

This has been a big year of changes here at Feel Good English, and if you’ve been listening to me a while, I am so grateful for your continued interest in what I do. The emails I get from you all, the messages, and even just knowing you’re out there somewhere in the world listening to my podcast makes it all worth it for me. The connection we have, my voice and my music with your ears is special, and I thank you for being part of that connection. And if you’re new here, well thank you too! I hope you stick around!

2 So you ready to dive into today’s lesson? You are? Oh, you aren’t? One minute? Oh, you are now? Let’s go.

I’m going to put you in a situation. I want you to use your imagination and follow me on this.

So you’re at a restaurant. But not just any restaurant, a restaurant in the US. You’re in, let’s say, Miami, at a small restaurant for lunch. You’re alone, traveling alone, but having a great time. Miami is a beautiful city, and full of diversity and energy. A bit crazy too, but that’s not important right now.

So you’re at this restaurant, sitting at a booth by yourself, looking at your phone browsing Instagram. You just ordered your lunch, a BLT sandwich. Americans love sandwiches you know. And have you ever heard of a BLT? A BLT is a sandwich with bacon (the B), lettuce, (the L) and tomato, (the T).

So your lunch is ordered. You’re sitting there, bored but acting like you’re busy on Instagram doing really important things, and the server of the restaurant walks up to you to fill your water glass. We drink tons of ice water here in the US. If you’ve ever been here you’ve experienced that.

And the server is bored too, you can tell. The server was just hanging out near the bar for a few minutes before coming up to your table.

By the way, the server is blond and a bit chubby, so you know they’re American. Not all Americans are chubby, but some are. A lot of hamburgers and pizza. Anyway, the server is right there at your table, filling your water, and you have this urge to talk to this person. You have nothing to do, they have nothing to do, and you have this feeling inside you that you should say something to the server, ask a simple question like where you from, or are you from Miami, anything to strike up a conversation. Because you’ve got nothing to do, they’ve got nothing to do, and you want to connect. You want to use your English to meet someone new, and even more so, you feel it’d be the friendly thing to do.

But you’re hesitant. You’re scared to speak up, and don’t want to say something wrong in English, because it’ll be totally embarrassing. Your heart starts racing, beating fast, you get nervous, your breathing has sped up…. It’s the moment of truth! What are you going to do, stay silent and pretend that what you’re looking at on Instagram is actually important, or are you going to take the courageous path and speak up?

What are you going to do?

Back in episode #104, I talked about an idea that I found to be crucial in reaching the goals we set for ourselves. Our brains, our bodies have been programmed over time to try to stay comfortable, safe, familiar.

Our brains want things to be comfortable because it means we are safe, and our brains want us to survive. This is based on how we evolved. We don’t usually accept change, discomfort, and unfamiliar situations gracefully. We naturally resist change, and challenges, fear.

Avoiding what scares us is instinctual.

But here’s the thing, humans take a looooong time to evolve. Like hundreds of thousands of years. We are basically the same species that we were thousands and thousands of years ago, but our lives have completely changed. We have to do so much more now. Back in the day you’d wake up, find food, eat, have sex, repeat. That’s about it. I don’t even think they had Facebook back in prehistoric times, did they?

A lot of us have so much more to aspire to than just surviving. We want to travel, build careers, have nice things, raise a family and be able to educate our children, learn foreign languages.

And this is where we find the dilemma. To achieve those things, to live an extraordinary life, we need to become good at doing things, build skills. And if we want to get really good at something we have to do it a lot, even when we don’t feel like doing it.

Instead of listening to our internal system of keeping us safe and comfortable, we need to outsmart ourselves. We need to do the difficult thing, the scary thing, which is often full of uncertainty.

Mel Robbins, an author and speaker, came up with something called the 5Second Rule. It’s so simple, yet so powerful. This is one of the biggest things I’ve learned this year, and it goes like this: When you face a situation that makes you feel uncomfortable, that challenges you, you have five seconds to decide to act or not. That’s it, five seconds. If you don’t decide to take action within those 5 seconds you’ll often go back to safe mode an end up not doing what could have been the action that made the difference. We have to be smarter than our instincts, and “trick” our natural resistance to doing the uncomfortable thing.

And so often it is those small actions that make the difference. Quickly taking action is a huge factor in being productive, seeing progress, staying motivated, but according to the 5second rule you have to make that choice before you return to your natural reaction of wanting to stay comfortable.

I talk a lot about confidence, being a confident speaker. But you know what, you don’t have to be confident to become a confident speaker. If you’re not a real confident person in social situations, that’s OK.

Sometimes overly confident people are a bit annoying anyway, right?

But you do have to be courageous. Have the courage to speak up, take the next step, decide to do the hard thing, and if you use this idea from Mel Robbins, you have five seconds to decide to do the thing, or not.

After many of the these small courageous moments, you’ll build the confidence you need to get through any English situation.

And sometimes it’s just the smallest next step. Having the courage to pick up that book. To make that Skype call, to sign up for those classes. I think you’ll know what to do. I believe in you!

Now back to the restaurant in Miami. Remember, you’re there with you face in your phone, waiting on your BLT sandwich, and the blond American server is walking up to your table to fill you water glass. You want to speak up, ask them a question, have a real conversation in English, but you’re starting to freeze up. You’re getting nervous, and you’re already starting to think what you’ll do to avoid making any contact with the server. Here they are! And all you really have to do is say is something, “are you from Miami?”

You’ve got five seconds to take the plunge. These five seconds can change your life.

So let me ask you a couple questions. Answer these questions out loud, or in your head. Both work. Ready?

First question: what’s the 5second Rule?

Why do we need the 5second rule, based on our instincts?

When was the last time you should have used the 5second rule? And why didn’t you take action?

Want to become fluent? Speak confidently, effectively? Do you need English for work, school? Or maybe you’re already retired and you have personal reasons for learning English? Are you 16, or are you 60? Well, when learning a foreign language, more specifically when trying to become fluent in a foreign language, there’s one tactic, or strategy that will work for everyone, every time. I have taught hundreds of students and have seen so many success stories that prove the validity of this tactic.

What’s the tactic? You want to know? Before I tell you, you need to know this: this tactic is the easiest thing you can do, but also the hardest, most difficult thing to do. And that’s why not everyone becomes fluent.

Over the years of teaching you don’t know how many times I’ve had students c0me to me for class once or twice a week to learn and practice their speaking skills, but then they did absolutely nothing the rest of the week. So they put one to two hours of intention into becoming a better speaker, but that’s it. This left 110 hours or so in the week (taking away sleep time) of NOT putting any intention into English, or at best, very casual learning.

2 hours of learning, 110 hours of not learning each week. It’s pretty crazy if you think about it. Now I know people work, and have classes, and families, and responsibilities, which take up a lot of time during the week, so no, you don’t have 110 hours to do whatever you want, but how about… 10 hours? That would leave you with 100.

But whatever. I don’t want to get too specific with numbers here. That would get boring real quick!

But my point is this: if you want to get good at something, like speaking English, you have to put intention into learning that new skill much more often than just two hours a week. You have to put it at the top of your priority list. You can have other priorities, but that has to be near the top.

Have you ever heard, or have you ever said, “Sorry, I just didn’t have time to do that this week” Of course you’ve said that, and of course I have said that too! But when you say you didn’t have time to do something, like you didn’t have time to study all week, you’re lying.

You’re not lying to that other person, you’re lying to yourself. Of course you could have made time for anything if you wanted to. The fact of the matter is whatever you didn’t do wasn’t a priority. You didn’t think it was that important to do. You did do plenty of other things, and if you investigate how you spend your time you’ll see what your priorities are.

Didn’t do something, obviously not a priority.

So that brings me back to that one tactic. Here we go, finally! The “neverfail” tactic that’ll help you become fluent? You have to make English a priority. Put it at the top of your list. But what does that exactly mean? It means spending time with English as much as possible. Like almost every day, or every day which is even better. That’s how you get good, good at anything really.

Now right now you might be thinking, “Damn Kevin, this is not new to me at all. I’ve heard this a million times before. Life isn’t simple, my life is full, and stop boring me with your typical ‘study English every day’ talk!”

I know, sorry about that. But here’s the message that’s worth hearing and why I am reviewing it and selecting it as one of the biggest of the year. Ready? Here we go….

What I just talked about is the HOW behind learning English. If you want to become a great speaker, how do you do it? Well, you connect with the language every day. And the deeper you go with the HOW, and the smarter you get with finding the right resources, tools and courses, the faster you’ll reach fluency. Some people are much smarter with the HOW than others; they know what to spend time on. But remember how I said anyone can reach fluency with this one tactic the one tactic being connect as much as possible with English? Well, it’s true, anyone can, but it’s not in the HOW, it’s in the WHY. Repeating, just knowing HOW to learn doesn’t cut it, you have to know the Why. Your Why.

In episode #111, I talked about a Ted Talk and book called “Start with Why”, where the speaker Simon Sinek talks about the reason some companies, organizations, and leaders were able to be as effective as they were and start movements; they focused on their Why. Their purpose.

Now I took his “Start with Why” message and connected it with learning.

To be honest, I’m not that sure Simon’s message fully translates to what I’m teaching here, but how use his message really has impacted how I do things, more specifically how I am able to continue doing things. Like how I am able to continue working on things, every day, that I sometimes don’t feel like working on. I focus on the WHY, why I am doing what I’m doing? The underlying motivation, you could say.

Let me break this down for you a bit. Because we can look at the WHY on a macro level, and also get more specific on a micro level. Macro and micro.

For example, making these podcast episodes takes me a long time. It’s a lot of work. And no, I’m not rich, so I have other things I have to do to to make money, money to pay my bills. But I love creating this podcast and sharing it with you, and I just need to remind myself of the WHY behind Feel Good English to keep me going. What’s my why? Well, if you’ve been listening to me for awhile you should know. But if you’re new here I’ll give you the quickest explanation… do you feel good while listening to this podcast, good about life, and maybe even your English?

Well, if you do, then my WHY is working. ;)

So whenever I don’t feel like working on the podcast, when I am feeling burnt out, I remind myself of why I do it, and tell myself that even if I don’t feel like working, the Why is still there. And the WHY is more important than how I feel.

And that’s the main point. When you lose motivation, when you don’t feel like doing what you should be doing, what you planned on doing, remind yourself why you told yourself you should do it in the first place.

Remind yourself of the original feeling you had, and the reason you chose to start.

Do you see how this idea and the first idea I talked about in this episode are connected? Having a goal like learning a language is a big one. A longterm, challenging goal for most people. But it’s so important these days to speak English. It’s just the way the world currently is. And until they invent a very accurate and affordable bluetooth earbud that instantly translates the language of who you’re speaking to, with no errors, until that happens, you’ll have to speak English. And like I said, if you’re only going to follow one tactic, one strategy, it’s this: connect with English every day. There are so many ways to do this, and what I provide helps you connect with English on a deeper level, but what counts is that you do something every day. Or almost every day.

Here’s a quick lesson on what you put up to your ears to listen to music.

Earbuds, headphones, these things. Why am I teaching you this? Well it’s quite possible you confuse these words. My Brazilian wife, she speaks English very very well, but she’ll say things like “earphones” when talking about… headphones. I don’t know how many times I’ve corrected her after she said earphones, or ear speakers.

So, when you listen to music with the device that goes over your ears, you’re using headphones. Headphones are the bigger ones, like DJs use, and they cover your entire ear. It’s what I use while I’m recording these episodes and making music.

Now the more modern style are smaller, and they fit inside your ear.

They don’t cover your ear, they fit inside, like the ones you’d use at the gym, and the ones that come with a new phone. These are called earbuds. Earbuds. Buds, just buds, are also what a flower is before it’s a flower. It’s the round little tip, or the end on a plant that forms before a flower comes out of it. A bud. So earbuds. Here’s a quick way to remember this.Think of a flower growing out of you ear. This flower is your friend, and another word for friend in English is buddy. A buddy in your ear. Earbuds!

Are you listening to this right now with headphones, earbuds, or neither?

Lastly we have the biggest version of a headphone which you would wear if you were working in a very loud factory. This form doesn’t play music, it does the opposite. It prevents you from damaging your ears. It blocks out sound for safety reasons, like in a loud factory. These are called ear muffs. Ear muffs. They can also be used to keep your ears warm, winter ear muffs. But that’s enough about that.

You’ll often not feel like doing anything productive. You’ll sit on the couch and eat potato chips like a couch potato instead (by the way, I love being a couch potato sometimes) but you have to find that time for English, which should be at the top of your priority l ist. And to keep you going, to give you that boost of motivation, remind yourself of your WHY. Why you want to learn. How it will benefit your life, and the life of the people you love. How it will help you love yourself more.

And that’s all it takes sometimes. Sometimes all we need is a quick thought about the Why, a quick thought that’ll give you that boost of motivation to keep you going, moving forward. And tying that into the first lesson, you have about 5 seconds to make that happen.

So go right now! (say this fast)

Well that’s it for today, two powerful lessons to make you even more powerful. They go handinhand, meaning they are connected.

And don’t forget to always repeat these lessons. Repeating not only helps you naturally get better at English, including speaking, but it also helps these big ideas go deeper into your brain. You’ll think of different ways these ideas connect to your life, and that’s so important, connecting what I talk about to your life. Even the new vocab you hear here, hear here, needs to become personal for you. So repeat this lesson as many times as you can! And if you don’t feel like doing it, well, you know what to do.

I have a Premium Membership at Feel Good English. Premium Members get access to my Premium Lessons, which are lessons based on this podcast, this very episode, and go deeper into all the vocabulary, expressions and phrasal verbs used here, as well as give you the full transcript, materials to use if you have conversation classes or just like having conversations with yourself, and also gives you special discounts on future courses. To learn more about the Premium Membership go to www.feelgoodenglish.com/go

And that’ll do it. Thanks again for being here. For giving me your time, your energy, your positive vibrations. I can feel them, you know.

Until next time, keep working hard, and keep finding your freedom. And the last question for you, the last question of this year; what’s your WHY behind English? Why do you want to become a great English speaker?