S5E60: “I did everything I could” is not a goal
Full transcript:
Good morning, happy Friday 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 is just a reminder that there is always going to be more to do, but that doesn’t mean you have to do it today.
I saw a post the other day by Her Incredible Mindset on Instagram and it said “A year from now, I want to be able to look back and say YES I worked hard. I did every possible thing I could have done and I am where I deserve to be.”
It’s a really lovely visualisation to do for a few moments. It’s quite empowering to sit in the present and imagine that moment, of how proud the you who is saying that must feel. But I’m not sure it’s a carrot to dangle or a goal to set.
Because will you ever think that?
I don’t think I could.
Will you ever be able to say you’ve done every possible thing you could?
Or will you instead just cast your mind back to a thing you watched, an afternoon you spent on hobbies or socialising, every time you went to bed early or got up late, every time you did three exercises but maybe you could have done four or a time where you could have had a conversation and chickened out? Because that’s the thing. There will always be something.
The thing is, when phrases like that catch us right, they are so affirming to all the hard work we’ve done so far and all the things we’ve already achieved. But when they catch us wrong, they stop us from resting, stop us from enjoying ourselves or indulging interests that lie outside of our immediate goals, because we feel like we should put that time and energy into the big goal, but then when we look back, we’re still not satisfied that we did everything we could because how can we?
There’s always going to be that thing we should have started earlier, or that thing we could have done better, or those days where we slept in instead of working or those times where we sat in front of our work but it just wouldn’t happen. And no matter what, there’s always going to be space for that nagging feeling that if we’d just done things slightly differently, better, faster, more confidently, whatever, we could be further ahead than where we are.
But that doesn’t mean we fell short. It doesn’t mean you should have done more. Doing everything you could possibly do, was never a goal to start with.
Rest matters. Your hobbies matter. Your people matter.
You don’t need to be able to tell yourself you did everything you could. You don’t need to say you optimised your studies to 100% efficiency. You don’t need to be able to say you dedicated a hundred percent of your waking hours to your goal. You just need to settle on what doing enough looks like, and then go for that.
You’re a whole person, language learners. Look after all of you while you go for your goals.
And as I mentioned yesterday, I am bringing back the 100 Conversations project that I started around this time last year, where I invited listeners of the podcast to book a 30-minute call with me, just to meet you, get to know you, and to find out how your language journey is going and what carving your own path means to you. And I would absolutely love to invite you to join me and have a call, both to meet new listeners and to hear how the wonderful people I met last year are getting on. Just as last year, these calls are not going to be recorded or used for marketing material, there won’t be any sales pitches, nothing like that, it’s just a chance for us to meet each other. So, if you’d like to book a call, either to speak for the first time or to update me on how things have been going for you since we spoke last year, head to my Instagram bio on @teawithemily or my website www.languageconfidenceproject.com and I hope we chat soon!