S5E26: What’s on your plate at the moment?

Full transcript:

Good morning 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, I have a super quick exercise for you that will make sure you go into the week with fair and most of all compassionate expectations for your language learning.

I’ve chosen this topic because one of the things I’ve noticed about myself is that sometimes when I feel like nothing is moving, it’s because just like with the intermediate plateau, old methods aren’t working any more, the learning curve has got steeper, maybe your expectations have grown, and all of those things. The plateau is in the language process. But the other likely cause of that lag in progress is that life stuff is happening, my energy is going to all these different places, and I haven’t really noticed. So I’m still measuring myself and my progress as though nothing has changed, when in fact, I’m really scattered, or really depleted, and I don’t think I’m alone here. How many of us look back over our week and think “what did we even do, why am I so tired, I haven’t dine anything, and I’ve barely ticked anything off my list” and we give ourselves a really hard time about it.

So today, I have an exercise for you: 

As you plan this week, ask yourself, what’s on your plate at the moment?

It might be fun to actually draw yourself a plate. And put everything on it that you’re doing or focusing on or thinking intensely about or worrying about at the moment, all the things that are taking up your time, energy, headspace. Write them, draw them, and most of all, just let yourself acknowledge all the things that you have going on for you right now. It doesn’t have to be bad stuff, some of it might be really good. All we’re looking at is what’s asking for your energy at the moment?

And then, first things, first, are you happy with your plate? And by that I mean, I know there might well be things on there that you aren’t looking forward to or might not particularly enjoy, but within your circumstances right now, does your plate look doable? Does it look like everything on there is being given the right amount of priority? Is there anything that, given the circumstances that you’re in, you want to take off for the moment? Anything you want to be doing less of? Anything you want to be doing more of? Anything you could ask for support with, doesn’t need to formal, but even just things you want to mention to your accountability partner or a quick question a forum could answer?

And then look really carefully at your plate, because it’s basically your landscape for your language learning right now. What does your plate tell you about what you can plan in your language learning this week? And this isn’t just a question of how much time you’re going to have, it’s also, and probably more so, a question of energy. How many things on your plate drain your energy? How many of them make you tired or frustrated or uncomfortable? And on the other side, how many of them give you energy, or replenish your resources, or bring you in contact with inspiring or creative or happy people and ideas? And it won’t necessarily be one or the other, the same task or activity or people might doing a bit of both.

And then when you plan your tasks and activities, how are you going to take all this information into account? It might be that language learning needs to take a bit of backseat this week, but it also might be that, if life is a bit chaotic at the moment, some adaptations would make all the difference. Do you need shorter tasks, but more of them? Do you need to relax your own personal rule this week about say… studying for an hour every single day? Would you schedule some fun, passive input at the end of your busiest day, and keep the learning of new things to the days where you have more headspace? Do you want this week to be more creative, more restorative, more about revision than covering new ground?

Whatever you decide to do remember that you are making progress, and every tiny thing you are doing counts towards you end goals. So be kind to yourselves, language learners, look after yourself this week, and I will see you tomorrow.