S6E16: How do we get unstuck after we hit a wall?
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 wanted to start the conversation with you about another topic that I think is so important and isn't being talked about enough and not enough advice is being shared. And that is, when you feel like you're hitting a wall over and over, when you feel like your world is getting smaller, or you feel cornered like you just don't have any options or your options are really limited, how do you open your mind to new possibilities again?
And I am not even talking necessarily here about crisis points or rock bottom type interventions where we need to turn our whole lives upside down in order to move forwards. Because sure, there, we definitely need help to see new paths. But what about the quieter, more mundane times where we unknowingly box ourselves in? The times when we say to ourselves,
Well, I'm not especially happy with my current routine, or the way things are right now, but it's the best I can do.
Or, I don't love what I'm doing. It's fine though, so I don't hate it, so guess we'll stick with it.
What about the times where we just commit to gritting our teeth and getting through, without even looking to see if something better suited to us is available?
And the times where we just go in the same loop over and over again between options that aren't really offering us anything, like a fly that keeps hitting all four corners of a closed window and never even looks for the door that it is.
So this is something that I've been thinking about, but really this is a conversation that I am starting, so it might well be that we revisit it later in this season or in a future one. And if you have any thoughts, I would also so appreciate it if you leave a message on my Instagram at @Teawithemily. I would love to hear what you have to say.
But so far I have three things that I would say are key to opening your mind to new possibilities again and looking at the question differently or, if you don't mind the expression, “thinking outside the box”, when all of the things that you've been looking at inside the box aren't working.
1) Keep bringing the random in.
We all know that story about Steve Jobs and how that one calligraphy course at university came in handy in so many ways when he started Apple. And bringing the random in can look like so many different things. It might be going down YouTube rabbit holes that you would never have thought about before. Things like periods of history that you didn't even know existed, looking at other countries, listening to pop music from other countries, big artists over there. It might be making sure that you go and visit a new art gallery, or that you go and watch a film that isn't something that you would normally pick. It might be going to a library and just picking a book at random without thinking about whether it's going to interest you or not, and just reading a page or two of it just to see if any ideas come. Bringing the random in isn't about finding an immediate solution, but it is about keeping your mind moving and keeping the world big and your thinking expansive. And it's something that I try to do every single week and it's something that is really important to me. to make sure that I don't get stuck in the same ways of thinking and the same mental loops. It's something I could not recommend enough.
2) Keep listening to other people's stories.
Just like with that idea of bringing the random in, you need outside energy. And not just from people learning your language, not even just from linguists at all, but all sorts of people on long journeys, all sorts of people who are carving their own path, who might be struggling with, well, anything comparable. The more you collect wisdom from parallel journeys rather than similar ones, so for us, for me, that's people on creative journeys, people who are starting businesses, writing books, training for sports or marathons. The more you take in solutions or possible solutions that the inner critic can't filter out by saying, yeah, but this person is different to you somehow, or yeah, but this person is more naturally talented than you, or all of those things that can block us when we are in that tunnel.
3) Keep talking, keep journaling in a linear way.
By linear, I mean any way that doesn't let it go round and round like that fly that keeps hitting the same window. That might be in bullet points, it might be recording yourself, finding people to talk to, asking questions on forums, asking questions on your social media.
But more importantly as we close here, keep remembering the message from Friday. The answer is already out there. The information is already out there. It might not take the form you expect, and it might not come exactly when you want it, but there will be a breakthrough and it's okay to go into this expecting that you will figure this out, and this isn't a forever problem. Have a wonderful day, and I will see you back here at 7 am tomorrow or at 2 pm UK time on YouTube. Good luck!