S5E51: Doubt isn’t made of brick

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. And today, I want to start the week with a really powerful message for you to get you unstuck this week.

And that is, never to let “I don’t know” tell you that “this isn’t possible”.

Because the thing is, doubt and frustration and “I don’t know” might feel like they’re blocking your whole way. They might feel like the hugest wall between where you are now and where you want to go, and they’re keeping all the light out, and everything you try is just bouncing off them.

But language learners, it’s all an illusion. Doubt and frustration aren’t made of brick. They’re more like a really thick fog. They aren’t blocking the way, they’re obscuring the way. You can keep moving, even if you can’t see where you’re going. You won’t hit anything. You can keep walking, even if it’s dark. And someday soon, the fog will clear a bit. And then it’ll clear a lot. And then the road will make sense again.

Don’t be scared off by doubt and frustration, language learners. The thing with both of the emotions is, although they feel so different to each other in the moment, both of them are saying “you can’t do this” or “it can’t be done”. Both of them whisper endlessly that it’s the end of the road if you let them. But it’s not true. Just behind the mist, there’s a whole path ahead and it’s stretching out to where you want to be.

That feeling of hitting a wall is temporary. Don’t let it tell you that it’ll always be there, because it won’t. Don’t let it tell you that there’s no possible way behind the wall, because there most definitely is. So keep going. You can do this.

And before I go, word of mouth is the absolute most powerful way to show your support to a podcast, and so I would love to ask that if you enjoy my work, please share it with someone else you know. Send them episodes that make you think of them, recommend me to language teachers or language students, and help me to grow so that more I can support more language learners. And just in case you haven’t heard, you can now follow the Language Confidence Project on Tiktok to get even shorter, even snappier daily doses of courage. Follow me there at @languageconfidence.

I’ll see you tomorrow.