Many people sometimes feel overwhelmed by learning another language because their ultimate goal is so huge.
‘Being able to speak Japanese’ – it sounds impossible, doesn’t it?! How about ‘learning and being able to use five verbs in speech’? It sounds much less scary, doesn’t it?
Setting smart goals is helpful because you can break your big goal into smaller ones and tackle them one by one.
We’ve found this technique incredibly useful and rewarding – it’s so much easier to look back and celebrate your achievements when you set small goals, as opposed to just having one big one.
If your only goal is to speak Spanish fluently, when are you ever going to celebrate? And how many times? Once? We don’t recommend it!
Recording your learning in the motivation journal
Using the motivation journal to track your language learning progress is great to celebrate your little successes and plan how you’re going to tackle future language challenges. Try to use the journal weekly to record:
1. What’s gone well
2. What’s made you proud
3. What you’d like to improve on
This will help you keep your language learning more focused, have specific goals that you can review frequently and keep track of your progress.
Each week of the journal should start with something inspiring, like a motivational quote, so that’ll be a great way to stay motivated and focused whenever you’re feeling a bit stuck.
