S4E32: If you think your wins don’t count

Full transcript:

Good morning, happy Tuesday and welcome to the Language Confidence Project, the only daily podcast to get unstuck us in our language learning and enjoy the process just a little bit more. And today, I just wanted to talk about what we can do when documenting our wins takes a bit of a dark turn.

So, one of the things that we talk about a lot on this podcast is that the single best antidote to feeling like you’re not doing anything, not achieving anything, not making progress is documenting your wins. Because we are so good at ignoring them and brushing them under the carpet, and minimising them, that we often need a reminder that actually, we have done so much more than we think we have, and it’s making a lot more of a difference than we think it is.

So we say, celebrate your wins, and keep them as a bank of evidence of your successes. Keep them as a record that you can show up, finish the things you start, be courageous in the face of something that scares you, whatever it is that you’re tracking.

But the thing is, we can never outrun our inner critic. When we make a move towards something positive, it works for a while, and then, she gets wise to it.

So for a while, we can stall her with our jar of evidence. We proudly acknowledge our wins, we give ourselves rewards, and it works. And it feels amazing.

Well, it works until it doesn’t. 

Because the inner critic adapts. And the inner critic says “look at all those things you did, and you still haven’t got there, have you?” All the bravery, all that showing up, and where has it got you? You’re still not fluent. You’ve still not hit your goal. How much braver, how much more showing up must all the successful people have done? This, she triumphantly concludes, is a testament to the fact that being brave isn’t enough. Being hardworking isn’t enough. Finishing that thing, meant nothing. Just how many levels of perfect are you going to have to be to actually succeed?

And if this is where you are right now, I wanted to send you this message to say, whatever you do, do not stop counting your wins on account of your inner critic. Because here are two things about your inner critic. 

1.     Your inner critic is going to think everything is a failure until you reach your biggest, grandest, most ultimate, pinnacle-of-life end goal.

And even then she’ll probably complain that the goal wasn’t that hard or it took too long anyway.

It’s a lot easier to see when we frame this as a car journey with physical milestones and landmarks to document. When you are documenting your wins, what you’re collecting is evidence of your milestones on your journey. And your inner critic is completely blinkered to the milestones.

But just because she’s choosing not to see them, or is completely downplaying their significance, it doesn’t mean they don’t exist.  All that’s happening right now is that you’re pointing out that you’ve passed this monument and that service station and these forests and she’s saying “well, if it mattered that much, you’d be there by now”.

It’s clearly not true. So don’t let her tell you it is.

Your inner critic has no idea how big your goals are

Your inner critic only really sees in all-or-nothing, success and failure terms and she wants success and she wants it now. Anything else is just further evidence that you’re useless and it’s impossible. But the thing is, she has no idea how big your goals are. She sees a ticklist but she sees no real timeframes. Learning a language is a really big goal, and it’s unfortunate for her but she’s going to have to be patient. You aren’t slow, you aren’t behind, but the process is a gradual one, it’s going to take time, it’s going to take patience, and she’s just going to have to deal with that.

So when the inner critic pipes up, just treat it like impatience

Treat it like a very long, very trying car journey with a small child asking “are we there yet” every five minutes. Your inner critic, I know she gets personal and I know she knows exactly what buttons to press to make you feel like you are the worst and most incompetent person in the world. But guess what. This is just a much more sophisticated way of saying “are we there yet?” No, we’re not there yet. Because the journey is many hundreds of miles over all sorts of terrain, and we’ve been in the car less than an hour. Stop it.

So if there’s one takeaway from this episode, language learners, it is this: do not stop acknowledging and tracking and documenting and celebrating your wins. Don’t let your inner critic tell you that they aren’t worth anything, because it’s false. Do not let her tell you that everyone else is passing those milestones too and they’re doing it faster and better because yes, lots of people pass those forests and those service stations every day but guess what? They’re not going where you’re going. Their mere presence in the vicinity of that spot doesn’t invalidate your right to also be there. Your wins are so, so important. Don’t stop looking for signs of progress, and don’t stop celebrating when you find them. Have a wonderful day, and I will see you tomorrow.