When you feel like you aren’t making progress it’s because you got lost in the daydream of where you’re going. The best thing you can do is look back at how far you’ve come.
The difficult task I’ve been tackling for the past year is the 4 skills around learning a new language, specifically learning German. Reading, writing, listening, and the most difficult among them, Speaking, are the common skills around a language that you are tested on. Living in Germany makes learning a new language easier, but this is still one of the most difficult things I’ve done in my life. The difficulty comes from the length of time it takes to master it, learning each of these skills takes time and an immense amount of dedication, it’s not an overnight success story.
Completing difficult tasks takes a long time and this is often an undetermined length of time. These situations are the most difficult, (and often the easiest place to lose yourself) because you don’t have a clear finish line you can look ahead to. Trying to look at your timeline of progress can even be muddy, only knowing where you’ve started but not quite sure how much more you have to go.
Look back at how far you’ve come, this is your first win when you’re feeling unmotivated or discouraged about continuing. Next, clearly define your goal. For my example, I will conform to the 4 skills of learning a language. This is the proficiency I’m shooting for to reach my goal of ‘Learning German’.
Reading: to be comfortable reading novels in German that I would read in English. I won’t know every word, but I can understand 99% and only need to look up uncommon words.
Writing: I can communicate through text and email in German comfortably
Listening: Listening to German music I understand the words. I watch TV/Movies in German. I go to Stand-Up comedy shows in German. *Most importantly I can understand what someone is saying to me in casual conversation.
Speaking: I am comfortable having conversations in German. I make friends in German and we speak in German together. I can keep up with German word games or puzzles.
These are long goals and my current progress is still elementary, but I want to be completely confident surrounded by German for my finish line.
I will send updates throughout my progress in this journey. Let me know, what long/difficult tasks have you been working on?
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Photo is some lily pads from a park in Germany. The word Lily pad in German is Seerosenblatt. I used to look at German words and be intimidated by their length, but once you understand the reason it’s not intimidating anymore. I’ll talk about this in a blog post in the future.