I’d bet that most of you, dear readers, are deeply dissatisfied with the foreign language knowledge you acquired in school. Many of you have graduated from school, some from university, but if you’re reading this newsletter, it means you’re not entirely (to put it mildly) satisfied with what you learned during those years in educational institutions. Among you are also those who turned to tutors but found no satisfaction in the results.
So, who’s to blame? Maybe the teachers, who failed to teach us anything? Or perhaps it’s our own fault: our memory is useless, our language learning abilities are zero?
I’ll risk answering this question. My observations show that most people live, at best, like consumers. They hope that someone will come along, chew everything up for them, and put it right in their mouths. Even as a student, I was constantly amazed: why are students – supposedly adults – always waiting for something? Why are they passive? Why don’t they strive to master what they need on their own? The teacher is always to blame. And I don’t argue. Often, teachers are useless. They’re boring, they can’t ignite passion or inspire, they lack personal charisma, but…
I asked them: “What’s stopping you from learning English (or any other subject) on your own?” And they’d answer: “We can’t do it, we don’t know how. You’re the independent one, we need a teacher.” It seemed like utter kindergarten to me then, and it still does now.
And yet, most adults are essentially the same. They love complaining about life; someone else is always to blame for everything: the boss, the neighbor, people of Caucasian descent, the government. And they, supposedly, are the unjustly wronged…
Why am I bringing this up? The answer is simple. What do many of us lack to achieve success? That’s right – independence.
What is “independence”? It’s belief in yourself. It’s knowing and understanding yourself, knowing your strengths and weaknesses, but primarily, it’s the ability to set goals for yourself and find ways to achieve them.
A person chooses a goal. The goal makes the person.
If the goal is true, if it demands effort from a person, then, pursuing it, they rise to a new level, become different, more perfect, more harmonious.
Let’s look at ourselves. When did we last set goals worthy of our efforts? How many of them have we achieved? What stopped us from achieving them? Where are we now? Where are we going?
It might seem, what do my life goals have to do with the topic of this newsletter? Everything.
The goal “to learn a foreign language” is just one of the goals many of us pursue, and not even the hardest one.
Many of us (myself included) want everything from life: to be healthy and wealthy, successful and loved. Many want it, but not everyone gets it.
Why? For the same reason: lack of belief in themselves.
But where can this belief come from if everything we take on turns out to be beyond us?
But we must believe in ourselves, right? – We must. Where will we get this belief? From the very same place – from the successful achievement of one of our chosen goals.
In our case, that goal is the successful mastery of a foreign language. This goal is perfectly suited to be the one that, once achieved, makes us forever forget the bitter taste of defeat, finally believe in ourselves and in our destiny.
Do you want to know a foreign language? Really want it? Passionately want it? Then you will learn it! If your desire doesn’t burn but merely smolders, don’t even hope for success! Because passionate desire is POWER! It’s an immense force capable of moving mountains!
However, any force needs to be directed in the right way, and for that, one quality is needed – but a very important one: discipline.
What is discipline? – It’s freedom aimed at a goal. It’s the freedom to be yourself, the freedom to express yourself, to create yourself, and to create your own life!
So let us be creators! I wish you all strong, bright, and passionate desires, more faith in yourselves and in your success. You can do it!