S4E10: Enjoy your current achievements first

Full transcript:

Good morning, happy Friday and welcome to the LCP, the daily dose of language courage for people who love languages, and those who really don’t, but have to learn one anyway. And today, as we reach the end of the week, I just wanted to pop in with a quick reminder that if you’ve achieved something great this week, you do not need to pile the pressure on to top that achievement next week.

Now, I know so many of us around here are overachievers, and it is so easy to fall into the trap of hitting a goal, breathing a sigh of relief and then immediately moving the goalpost. That for a lot of us, as soon as we’ve hit that target, it goes from being that shiny aspirational thing that it was yesterday to “a thing we did once, no big deal” today, and we forget how hard we worked and how much we put into it. It just becomes a fact about ourselves, and we shift our focus almost immediately to the next target, and we tell ourselves, that one is going to feel really awesome when we’ve done it. 

I know it feels like the world needs you to be constantly working, constantly improving, and constantly striving for more. And I know how easy it is to tell ourselves that this thing we’ve just achieved, actually wasn’t that important, and it’s the next stage that’s going to bring us the real satisfaction and the real sense of achievement. But it’s a trap, language learners, and yet we tell ourselves over and over again, next time, next time, next time.

But that is exactly how we end up exhausted, burned out, and resentful of the very thing we are working towards.

It’s okay to be proud of this thing. And it’s okay to want to top that achievement. But before you move straight onto the next thing, give yourself time to recognise what you’ve done this time round, to recuperate, and to have a bit of time where there isn’t that pressure to do more or score higher or up the ante. Give yourself credit for doing what you said you would do, for putting the work in. If you promised yourself a reward of some kind, see that you get it. Make sure that you build that trust within yourself that when you do the difficult stuff, there’s something good at the end of it, whatever that might look like for you.

What you did now, is good. And what you will do next, will also be good. And what you do after that, will also be good. But all of those need celebrating.

And if you like what I do, please support me! The Language Confidence project is growing and all sorts of exciting things are happening in the next few months, and I need your help to make all of this happen. There are so many ways that you could lend a hand right now. If you know someone who would benefit from listening to this podcast, send them a quick message with the episode attached. If you work in or know someone in a language school or a university language department, suggest this podcast for both them and their students. If you can and you want to, support me on Patreon, because I have a Patreon now, and the link is in my bio! And finally, if you’re new around here or I haven’t met you yet, or come and talk to me! Leave a comment on today’s episode on a positit on Instagram, send me a DM, or even better, book a call as part of the 100 Conversations Project with me! The link to that is also in my Instagram bio at @teawithemily. I would love to hear from you.

Your achievements matter, language learners, and everything you do is getting you closer to where you want to be.

Have a wonderful weekend, and I will see you bright and early at 7am, UK time on Monday.