S5E41: Telling the truth doesn’t mean ignoring the good

Full transcript:

Good morning, happy Monday and welcome to the Language Confidence Project, the daily dose of language courage for people who love languages and those who really don’t, but have to learn one anyway.

So, today, I wanted to start off the week by talking about a realisation that came from a really well-known quote by entrepreneurial coach Dan Sullivan. It’s one I hear a lot, and maybe you have too:

“All progress starts by telling the truth”

I love it, it’s on my wall, and I find it really useful. The problem isn’t the quote. The problem is my own brain. And probably not just mine, a lot of our brains, all jumping to do the same thing.

Here’s the issue:

If I say,

“Tell me the truth about your house”

Does your brain go immediately to the hidden dust and the repairs not done?

If I say,

“Tell me the truth about your career this year…”

Does your mind jump straight to a mistake you made or a nagging doubt you have? 

Why do so many of us have this idea that telling the truth means zooming right in on all the negatives? Is it because the only time we were told to tell the truth as children was when adults already suspected us of wrongdoing?

Why do so many of us hear this question and immediately break it down to:

What am I not doing?

How am I standing in my own way?

How are my numbers/grades/ metrics whatever else lower than they should be?

And then just stop, humbled, frustrated, maybe a bit embarrassed or ashamed, and vow to do better?

It’s like all the bad stuff just feels truthier than acknowledging the good things.

And then we feel like we’ve completely let ourselves down in life and nothing is going okay, and we don’t even jump in to defend ourselves because we just tell ourselves we’re finally facing the cold hard truth. We’re finally being real with ourselves. That’s what honesty is.

But that’s not the truth. It’s probably not even half the truth. It’s a few dark pieces of a full sized jigsaw puzzle. And that’s not about honesty, that’s just not fair.    

That’s not a good foundation for evaluating where our language learning is, and figuring out where we go from here.

All that quote means is that the real progress happens when we’re completely honest with ourselves about where we’re at right now, both in terms of the goal itself, our mindset and our current position. All progress starts when we have the full picture of what’s going on for us right now. We don’t zoom in on tiny tiny parts and then stay there, we zoom out and we see the whole system.

It’s not another opportunity to beat ourselves up about our perceived shortcomings or ignore everything that’s going well, that we are doing well.

So when you look for the truth in your language learning process, please, please look for the whole truth. You cannot make great decisions and great progress based only off the skeletons in your proverbial study closet. Look at what is working. Look at what you are doing and you have done and the results that are coming in, as well as acknowledging the rest of it, because you need all of it to truly see where you’re at and where you’re heading for. But also because, your efforts deserve to be recognised. You are doing an amazing job, and you’re allowed to give yourself credit for all the things you’re doing. Have a wonderful day, and I will see you tomorrow.