Intro
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| Becky: Welcome to a special Inner Circle Audio Lesson! I'm Becky and I'll be hosting today's lesson with my co-host, the founder of Innovative Language... Peter! |
| Peter: Hi everyone! Peter here. |
| Becky: Why do most learners fail at their New Years Resolutions or language learning goals? |
| Peter: Today you’ll learn the top 3 reasons why language goals fail, and what YOU can do to succeed with your resolution. |
| Body |
| Peter: So January’s almost over, but let me ask you a question Becky. Have you set a resolution for this year? |
| Becky: I was interested in learning Italian this year.. but I don’t know... New Years Resolutions don’t seem to work for me. |
| Peter: Really? I bet we can get to the core of it in today’s Inner Circle Episode. |
| Becky: Well... it’s almost like a joke nowadays. You set a resolution. You try to do it in January. And by February... there’s no progress and doing it isn’t fun anymore.... |
| Peter: ...so you quit and put it off until next year, right? |
| Becky: That’s right. Or... for someday in the future.. when I feel inspired to try Italian. |
| Peter: Sounds very familiar, don’t you think so listeners? Even I failed resolution after resolution of trying learning Chinese. Then I figured out 3 reasons why 90% of learners... including myself... have failed. |
| Becky: So what’s the problem with setting resolutions and why do we keep failing? |
| Peter: Well first of all, regardless of what most people say, setting resolutions or goals, is a GOOD thing. You have to know where you’re going and what you want to achieve, right? |
| Becky: That makes sense. Otherwise, we’d all be floating around aimlessly. |
| Peter: But with most resolutions... it’s usually something like “I want to master Chinese” “I want to lose weight” “I want to be fluent in Japanese”. |
| Becky: Those are the typical big goals most people set! |
| Peter: Exactly Becky. So based on these kind of goals, here are 3 reasons why 90% of New Years Resolutions fail. |
| Becky: So what’s the first reason? |
| Peter: First reason, Resolutions fail because they are are unspecific and unmeasurable. |
| Becky: What do you mean by that? |
| Peter: Take a goal like...“I want to master Chinese this year.” The problem is... that’s a very vague goal, right? What do you mean by master? And can you measure how much progress you need to “master” the language? |
| Becky: Well... no, you’re right. It doesn’t tell me anything about how much Chinese I should study. |
| Peter: The second reason is... New Year’s Resolutions fail because they are unrealistic. |
| Becky: But isn’t it good to set huge goals? You know, aim for the stars? |
| Peter: Oh, it’s not bad to want to go far... but if you say “I want to be fluent by September” and you just started learning a language today? |
| Becky: Sounds like I’d be setting myself up to fail from the start. |
| Peter: It’s NOT impossible Becky, but are you ready to commit yourself to nothing but language-learning? 6 to 8 hours a day, non-stop? |
| Becky: I don’t think that’s possible for me or for most busy learners. Okay! What’s the third reason? |
| Peter: The third one is... resolutions fail because, there is no action plan. The problem is... you will still fail even with a specific and realistic goal if you don’t know when and how you’re going to do it. For example: When will you study? How long will you study for every day? And how will you study? |
| Becky: Okay. These all makes sense. Then how do we set New Years Resolutions and actually succeed? |
| Peter: Good question Becky. Listeners, I will give you the 3 rules for successful goal setting, and I’ll use my own personal resolution to show you how to set your goals. |
| Peter: Listeners, remember,your goals must be specific and measurable,realistic and they must have an action plan. |
| Becky: Oh, so the complete opposite of the mistakes most learners usually make. |
| Peter: You got it Becky. Let’s take my Resolution for this year... I’m learning Italian just like you Becky, but my goal is to have a 30 minute conversation in Italian by December 31st. But, here’s the important part listeners. I break my resolution down into monthly goals. |
| Becky: 30 minutes of Italian conversation sounds a lot more doable than “master Italian.” So what’s your goal for the month? |
| Peter: My goal is to speak 3 minutes of Italian by March 1st. Now, here’s how I make my goal is specific and measurable, realistic, and has an action plan. |
| Becky: Listeners, ask yourself this. Is your monthly goal specific and measurable? |
| Peter: For my goal, 3 minutes of Italian by March 1st is specific. I can time myself and measure to see how far along I am. And I know the deadline of when I need to reach it. |
| Becky: Then, ask yourself... is your monthly goal realistic? Do you have the time to do this? |
| Peter: That will vary from learner to learner. But 3 minutes sounds very doable for me. I’m not looking to master the whole language... just reach the 3 minute conversation mark. |
| Becky: And finally listeners, do you have an action plan for this monthly goal? Answer these questions: |
| When will you study? |
| How long will you study every day? |
| Where do you plan to study? |
| How will you study? |
| What is your study schedule? |
| Peter: This is the most important part listeners because this tells you when and how to study. So... |
| When will you study? - I’ll study at 9PM on weekdays. After the kids are asleep and that’s 5 days a week. |
| How long will you study every day? - I’ll study for an hour. |
| Where do you plan to study? - I’ll study at home, in the living room, on my computer. |
| How will you study? - I‘ll listen to 1 ItalianPod101.com lesson a day, for 4 days. Then, every Friday, I’ll spend 15 minutes with an Italian tutor on skype. |
| What is your study schedule? |
| On Fridays, 15 minute skype lesson, and in preparation, 45 minutes of studying. |
| On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, I’ll study with ItalianPod101.com audio lessons. I’ll listen to the lesson, then go through the lesson notes, for 1 hour each day. |
| Becky: This makes a lot more sense now, doesn’t it listeners? |
| Peter: Finally listeners. Reward yourself. Studies have shown that giving yourself a reward after reaching a goal is crucial to creating lasting habits and continuing to conquer more goals. |
| Becky: And listeners if you haven’t already, set your monthly goal right now. |
| Peter: We’ve provided a Monthly Goal Success Checklist in the PDF Newsletter. Print it, write your goal down, sign it and keep it in front of you. |
| Becky: Putting your goal down in paper increases your chances of success by 90%. |
| Peter: And Listeners, in a month, tell us how you’ve achieved it. Send us an email at inner.circle@innovativelanguage.com. We want to hear your success stories and experiences. |
Outro
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| Becky: Okay, well that’s going to do it for this Innovative Language Inner Circle lesson! |
| Peter: Bye everyone! |
| Becky: Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you in February. |
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