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072 - The Obstacle is the Way - Part 2

Hello there, Kevin here! And welcome to another episode of the FeelGood English podcast. The podcast that is making you more fluent in English, at the same time you are becoming more fluent in life, business relationships, entrepreneurship, whatever that may be.

The other day we had a lesson on the book, “The Obstacle is The Way” how to deal with obstacles, how to make obstacles work for you as opposed to trying to resist them. Episode – 1 part – 1 was on perception. How we perceive obstacles is the first step to making them not so scary, not so negative!

Today I have part two of this series from the book “The Obstacle is The Way” by Ryan Holiday. After you have a different perspective on your obstacles, after you don’t see them as things that will completely keep you from getting what you want done, from achieving your goals, but actually can help you achieve your goals. Remember I talked about flipping the obstacle on its head. You have an obstacle, let’s say you just lost your job, and you just think oh my God! My world is over. Flip the obstacle on its head. Now, look at the opportunities that you have.

You can spend more time with your family until you get another job.

You can rest, maybe you were needing to rest a lot. You can do some things that you didn’t ever have time to do and you have the opportunity to find a totally new job. Learn something new, build new skills, find a better job, all of that. And also, remember, you’re not going to die because you lost your job, you’re going to die one day. But even though you are going through something very difficult, you still are alive! Keep that in mind.

Today’s part – 2 episode is on what to do next. Taking action! After we have a clear head, obstacles aren’t so scary we need to take action.

What kind of action? Well, we need to take right action. I’m going to talk more about that in today’s episode.

Remember, if you want a transcript to this and other Feel Good English episodes, go to www.feelgoodenglish.com there you will find different options for different packages to transcripts. A very easy, yet excellent way to take action with your English learning is to read the transcripts. You could read them before, you could read them during, you could read them after, there are different ways to do it. But, go to www.feelgoodenglish.com and learn how you can get free transcripts to episodes.

So, do that after the episode, and now let’s get into part – 2 of the Obstacle is The Way by Ryan Holiday!

So, like I mentioned a minute ago, perceiving the obstacle as a positive thing or something that can help you or give you more creativity in difficult situations is the first step. Part – 2; we need to take action. I’m going to list some different things you can do to help you take action.

Some of these will resonate with you. Some of them not so much. But these are some ideas that can help you take action.

The first one is very, very important, especially if you’re learning English, if you’re learning a language, I see this all the time. So, pay attention because this is important. You need to focus on the process and not the end result. I’ve mentioned this before. I’ve taught my coaching clients this. What happens? You get frustrated. You want to be fluent in English, Now! You want things to happen now, or you want them to happen in a week or you even want them to happen in a month. Then you have a big idea; if I go to the US, I study English for a month in the US then I will become an excellent fluent English speaker. But what happens; you don’t see the results you are looking for in that short amount of time. So, you get frustrated, you get disappointed. Sometimes students even give up. They just don’t know what to do because they’re focused on the end result. Focusing on the process not only makes you less frustrated but it brings better results because you will stay consistent and persistent. Focusing on the process with English is focusing on each day. What can I do today to improve my English? And it’s not that hard guys. Listening to a podcast, reading an article, talking on italki or Cambly speaking with a native speaker, speaking with a non-native speaker, doing something every day, that’s the process. And before you know it, you will see the results. But, you get frustrated if you focus on the result and this could be used in businesses, this could be used in a lot of areas of your life.

If you’re going to the gym you want to build muscle; you’re thinking one day I want to be huge. Well, after two months you been going to the gym five days a week, you’re not huge yet! So then you think oh, this is not worth my time. I’m going to stop going to the gym and start going back to the bar. As opposed to focusing on the process you go to the gym five days a week, all you do is you try to do your best every time you go to the gym for that one day – that’s it! Half the time, the biggest battle is just getting to the gym. So, that’s focusing on the process, not the result. Persistence is key. You have to keep doing something over and over and over and if you get discouraged by not seeing the quick results that you mistakenly were hoping for, you won’t be able to stay persistent. So, starting small doing something every day, even if it’s a little is huge!

You also have to have realistic expectations. Often times people don’t know how fast their English can improve or they don’t know how fast they can build muscle and they ask; I’ve heard this so many times, “Kevin, how long does it take to learn English?” What kind of question is that? I have no idea how long it’s going to take you to learn English.

So be realistic. Let’s say in three months, I want to feel that I have improved with my English skills, whatever that may be. I want to feel that I’m understanding native speakers better. I’m not hesitating as much as I used to hesitate when I’m speaking. I want to know 20 phrasal verbs in the next month. These are realistic expectations.

There is nothing wrong with making realistic expectations and more than anything, it helps you achieve the results that you set for yourself. Instead of setting big unrealistic expectations like going to the US for a month and becoming a fluent English speaker, because you’ve never done it before. Plus, it doesn’t really happen with most people that go to an English-speaking country for a month. You could have a realistic expectation like I’m going to go to the US for month study English, it will be very fun. I will meet new people. I will experience a different culture and I will improve my listening because I will be surrounded by English every day. So, when I come back to my country, I will notice that my listening has improved. That’s a realistic expectation.

Also very important, finishing is the most important thing. How often do we start something we get discouraged we don’t finish? In the book, Ryan Holiday talks about finishing is very important. Getting it done. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but the way that we can boost our momentum and boost our feelings about what we’re doing is by finishing something. That’s why too, if we set realistic expectations it will be easier to finish what we set out to do. We don’t have to wait months and years to finish. We can set short-term goals realistic expectations and make sure we finished that. Once we’re done, we can decide. Do we want to continue doing this? Do we want to try a different approach? But, I found this a lot with myself too. I have an idea and then I start with that idea. But then I get another idea to do something different and I never finish what I started on in the first place. What I’m learning to do and trying to do more is to focus on one thing until I get pretty good with that thing until I move on to the next thing. So, putting a lot of effort into something, making sure I fully understand it. I learn it, I repeat the process a few times. I have a realistic goal set for that. Maybe it’s an online course. I want to finish this course, review it three times. Take the main ideas and put that process into my weekly routine for a few weeks before I move onto the next thing. That is not easy. With all the things that I see online, and the business ideas, and the tactics, and the distractions or the ideas other people come to me with, it can be hard to stay focused, but taking this mindset from the “Obstacle is the Way Finish” what you’re working on alright?

One more very important idea from how to take action from this book, I will share this idea with you in just a couple minutes. First let’s hear from Alexandro about a service called italki, and why italki can help you take action.

Another strategy from this book is, to stay moving always. There is a quote from Theodore Roosevelt, “we must all either wear out or rust out every one of us. My choice is to wear out.” didn’t understand that?

Wait to the end of the episode. I will talk about that quote, some of the vocab there, but basically what we’re saying here is you have to keep moving. Attack problems in life with initiative and energy. Think about it. Think about the people around you at work, in business or at school. The ones that usually succeed are very energetic. They keep moving, the keep doing things. They don’t stop. How did they get this energy? Well, I do believe some people have more energy than others naturally, but if you don’t find yourself very energetic, go to the gym workout, exercise more. Exercising gives you energy. Drink a lot of coffee. I’m a coffee drinker, whatever it takes to just keep moving.

Also, if things seem overwhelming, remember you can take small action. Even small action is much more beneficial than no action. A lot of times the courage we need is simply in taking action. Starting we have ideas, we talk about what we want, what we want in the future, Sunday afternoon, we’re drinking a glass of wine and we’re saying, “wow! I would love to do this”, but then another week passes the next Sunday comes, you’re drinking a glass of wine and you say the same thing, nothing happened during that week. You didn’t take action.

Sometimes we just have to have the courage to push play. To push send, whatever that may be to just start. Saying yes to creating momentum will help you on your way to reaching your dreams.

Obstacles, and listen to this.

Lastly, obstacles seem more intimidating when we stop to look at them. Repeating, obstacles seem more intimidating when we stop to look at them! So think about it, you have an obstacle something is in your way. You sit at home thinking about it, worrying about it stressing about it, gets you nowhere, it makes that obstacle bigger. It makes that fear bigger, as opposed to what? Moving forward, getting out, taking action, getting online, looking for a new job going to the gym, working out, getting online, finding somebody to speak English with, taking action instead of sitting there letting your obstacle grow through your lack of action and looking at it and thinking about it too much – okay?

And that will do it for today’s episode. So, remember, after you don’t see your obstacle as an obstacle anymore, it’s time to take action. And with action focus on the process, not the result. Focus on every day.

What can you do today? Persistence is key. Also, make sure you have realistic expectations. It’s great to have big dreams, but make sure you have some expectations that are easier to meet. Not huge gold all of the time. We need both. And finish things. If you have an idea, you want to do something, you want to learn something new, or there is something in your life that you’re working on, finish it before moving on. This will help you to integrate it into your life, feel better about what you’re doing, and to really get good at that particular skill. That’s it for the lesson.

Part – 3 coming up next will be about ‘Will’. Your willpower! After you take action, you know what to do, we need to stay motivated and we need to have the motivation to keep going. So, stay tuned to the Feel Good English podcast to get part – 3 coming soon. And until then, I hope you have a wonderful week, a wonderful day and a wonderful hour. Put a smile on your face, if you don’t have one right now.

To keep in mind, keep that in mind is just to not forget. Somebody will tell you something and they’ll say hey, Kevin make sure you keep that in mind, don’t forget it. Keep thinking about it.

Another verb to resonate; if something resonates with you, it means it connected with you, it attracted you. The idea that attracted you or it caught your attention. Wow, that podcast really resonated with me! It really, I really connected with that.

Another of the verb; to boost B-O-O-S-T. To boost is to increase. Could be to increase rapidly. To boost your skills, to boost your muscles, to boost the economy; is to improve, to increase.

I also shared a quote from the great Theodore Roosevelt. He said, “we all must wear out or rust out.” Two phrasal verbs there. Wear w-e-a-r.

Wear is to like wear Jeans, wear some clothes. But when we add out, it means to deteriorate, to get weak. To wear out. You wear clothes a lot, eventually, they will wear out. They will become old, depleted, could mean energy. So maybe you’ve heard, I exercised all day today I am totally worn out. That would be the different verb tense, but to wear out is to get tired, to deplete, to use up. So, we wear out or rust out.

Rust is what happens to metal over time. It deteriorates to get the orange color on metal things, that’s rust. Using rust out is using it figuratively as people. If we don’t keep moving, if we don’t keep taking action, we too will become rusty like a car in a junkyard we will rust out – okay?

See you in the next episode of the Feel Good English podcast!