S5E24: If you can’t imagine ever reaching your goal

Full transcript:

Good morning and welcome to the Language Confidence Project, the daily dose of language courage for people who love languages, and people who really don’t, but have to learn one anyway. And today is a super quick reminder if you’re losing the faith a bit that just because you can’t imagine it happening for you, it doesn't mean it won’t.

I know that I often talk about using your big goal, the golden glowy vision of Future You using your language in exactly the way you want to be using it, as your North Star in your language learning. That crystal clear image of who you’re with, where you are, what you’re talking or writing or reading about, and how you’re feeling while you use your language. That vision guides what you learn, how you learn it and gives you your reason to put that work in.

But what happens when the vision fades away? What happens when it almost feels like it’s mocking you, that it’d be nice, but it’s just not possible? If you try to keep holding it in your mind’s eye, it feels embarrassing, cringey, egotistical, and maybe you know other people who have succeeded but they feel so different to you. Or maybe it’s the opposite and other people have told you in grim detail about their stories of having the same goal and never being able to reach it. Maybe they even gave up.

And if this is where you’re at right now, I just wanted to come in and remind you that yes, it feels like it’s outside the scope of your reality. And yes, I bet your brain is giving you dozens of compelling reasons why this will never happen for you, or spinning a whole load of narratives about what people like you can and can’t achieve. But, and I can’t say this enough, just because you’re struggling doesn’t mean you’re failing. And just because you can’t imagine a time when this comes easily to you, it doesn’t mean that time isn’t coming.

Just because you can’t imagine ever speaking your language fluently, it doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It’s not. Even if you’ve started your language well into adulthood, even if you’ve never learned a language before, or even if you’ve tried and given up on other languages before. It is doable, and no it’s not easy but if you keep trying and you keep working at it, you keep trying new things and putting yourself out there, more and more fluent conversations are possible, are inevitable, and it’s like each one of those fluent conversations is another square that you’re knitting for your patchwork quilt of fluency.

And just because it’s hard now, it doesn’t mean it’s going to be hard forever. Just because you don’t get it now, doesn’t mean it won’t come really naturally to you this time in a few months. For so many of us, we can never visualise being able to do something that we can’t do now, and that’s not because we never will, it’s not even because our imaginations aren’t that good, it’s just because our imaginations get sabotaged by our inner critic.  

It is coming. Just keep believing, keep going and promise yourself that you won’t give up because you deserve to get through the other side. You deserve to see the time when this gets easier. And you can do this.

Good luck today, and I will see you tomorrow.