(to improve your English and find the best job for you)
People often ask me how long will it take to:
- Improve their English
- Become fluent
- Speak like a native
- Master the language
Well, I’ve been learning English for 42 years and I’m still mastering the language.
To be more productive, I would say that you need to take advantage of both short-term AND long-term goals.
When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.
– Lao Tzu
Short Term Goals (STG’s)
STG’s help to focus the mind on getting results in a short space of time, whereas long-term goals, because they are so far away, can seem less concrete and more like a dream.
With clearly defined STG’s, it doesn’t take us long to see results, so we’re less likely to get disheartened and give up.
When we see results quickly, we get an extra boost of motivation, which starts a virtuous cycle.
We become more confident and therefore more willing to put in that extra shift of concentrated effort to reach a certain level by a certain date.
Parkinson’s Law says work expands to fill the time given. If we think we have years to reach a goal, we tend to put off the work until later.
This is why deadlines are so useful; they create urgency and move us to action. If you have an important event coming up, such as a job interview or work presentation, it will push you to work harder to perform as well as possible.
If you don’t have a real-life event coming up, but still want to improve quickly, make something up: challenge yourself to post a live video, or schedule a conversation with an English-speaking colleague.
The key is to find the right level of stress to push you forward (known as eustress). Too much pressure and you may break, not enough and you won’t do anything differently.
Remember, the massive effort required for reaching a really challenging short term goal is not sustainable over the long term.
Once you’ve completed a short cycle of heightened effort, take a break. Otherwise, you will soon burn out.
But make sure you plan a time to come back. The danger of overwork to reach STG’s is that we just stop because we can’t keep it up, resulting in the loss of much of our hard work.
Long Term Goals (LTG’s)
LTG’s are what you need to create and sustain massive improvement over for a long period of time.
Mastery of a language is a life-long pursuit, so long-term strategies are the real key.
To avoid letting our language level slip back down after a period of intense practise, build habits that will last.
You need to be consistent – start with short, easy-to-follow routines, then build up the intensity and duration.
Use apps or software such as Daily Life Tracker to keep you on track.
If your short-term goal got you a job in which you’re suddenly using your English much more, this will push you to learn and improve anyway.
But perhaps your company just wanted you to have a good level of English, even though you won’t be using it regularly.
In this case, make sure you keep up your English by doings things that you enjoy, so the practice is not a chore. Find an aspect of the language that you love and build on that – maybe it’s old movies, talk shows, gossip columns, sport, literature, language exchange, or regular lessons with a favourite tutor.
You can schedule periods of intense short-term activity into your longer-term plan. Just make sure you take breaks. During those breaks, review the previous period – what went well, what not, and what do you need to change?
You know the story of the hare and the tortoise – slow and steady wins the race, right? But let’s face it, that’s over simplified – if the hare had a better strategy (or coach) it would win the race!
The thing with job interviews and presentations or important work projects is… they often come up at the last minute.
People get in touch with me and want to prepare for an interview that is coming up at the end of the week. There’s not enough time to make much difference other than help them arrange what they already know and give them confidence that they are ready.
It is far better to do it over a longer (but still short-term) period, ideally 2-3 months. Then we can make sure you hit the ground running when the big day comes.
If you know you want to find a better job using English in future, make the commitment now. As the saying goes, “when student the is ready, the teacher will appear”.
I say “when the candidate is ready, the right job will appear.”
It’s time to start getting ready.