S5E53: Am I just wasting my time?

Full transcript:

Good morning, happy Wednesday 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 will be the perfect episode for you if you have been asking yourself, probably quite frustrated, “how do I know if I’m just wasting my time?”.

Because sometimes in the language world, there can be a bit of a tension between:

Everything you do is worth your time, because it all contributes to the bigger picture of learning this whole language and you never know what might be useful down the line

And:

But I feel like everything I’m doing is a waste of time!

So how can we reconcile that conflict and separate things just not happening yet from things that aren’t happening at all? How do we know the difference between “this is just a mindset issue, of course what I’m doing is worth my time” and “actually, the inner critic might well have a point”?

Because this is is the problem with phrases like “every step is growth”. Yes, in the biggest picture of humanity where nothing that we do really matters and all knowledge is good, it’s probably true. But most of us have an outcome in mind when we set about pursuing our knowledge, and when we are in the right sort of knowledge ballpark but we aren’t chasing our goal, things really can start to feel like they’re unravelling for us. And no amount of positive thinking will quieten those voices because, well, they’re right and on a certain level, they know it and they’re frustrated. 

It’s like stacking bricks on top of each other, sure, every brick is progress, but what are you building? Is it a tower? A wall? A castle? Progress has to go in the direction you want it to go in, so unless your goal is just “build something, anything”, the inner critic is going to speak out. 

The trouble is, the inner critic only does all or nothing black and white thinking. She doesn’t really do nuance. So she won’t gently suggest you might need to regroup and get your strategy solidified before you carry on. She’ll tell you that you’re wasting your time, that it’s never going to happen, your efforts are meaningless, and look at your neighbour who’s just built a whole house.

It’s about knowing, with razor-sharp clarity, what outcome you’re looking for, by the end of this study session, by the end of today, by the end of the week, and then what the top of that mountain is for you. And that shouldn’t be four different, random decisions. Each one should feed into a long chain of links that all show you what time well spent looks like for you, personally, right now in this moment.

 So with your language, is the goal just “learn something, anything”? Or is it to build something specific? What do you want your language to do for you? And are your bricks reflecting that? And that is how I tell myself that my time is being spent as well as I know how.

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, and of course, I’m still on Instagram at @teawithemily. 

Good luck, language learners. I know it can feel like a long road sometimes, but you’re doing it, and your hard work will pay off. Keep going, keep looking after yourselves, and I will see you tomorrow.