Fortunately, keeping up a blog a week wasn’t a resolution for 2021 as I missed last week’s. In fact, as you may have gathered from the post of 6th January I haven’t actually made ANY resolutions for this year, or set any goals or made any grand plans. Yes there are things I want to do, but goal setting is a problem. I want to visit the US this year. That’s a goal, but I either do or I don’t, I book a holiday and go, or I don’t. No in betweens, no “I nearly made it”.
But with a lot of other goals getting 80% or 90% of the way there can still be an achievement (learning a new skill/language/musical instrument for instance), the problem here is: How do you set a goal in the first place? How do I know how fast I can learn to play an instrument or to speak a language? Anyway, what do I mean by that? Do I want to be able to get by in Italian on holiday or speak it fluently to live there? How would I measure this anyway? It’s very easy to understand everything one day and feel like a novice the next because you are up against a strong accent or an unfamiliar topic.
As I said last time, all you can do is set a mini goal of (say) practising 1 hour a day (in the right way) and see what happens. Setting a long term goal could well be limiting or demoralizing. Some people are inspired by visualizing themselves playing a piece of music or having a conversation with a native speaker, just as many would advise you to stick a photo of what you want on the fridge to keep yourself motivated. But what if that just highlights the gap between where you are now and where you want to be in the future. Just because something works for someone else doesn’t mean it will work for you.
My technique is to just do have a list of things I want to do / organize / improve; and then when I have some spare time do something on it, anything to progress me in a direction I want to go. I know I will improve, but without a goal there is no pressure on me. Many would point out that there is a lack of accountability or ask how I motivate myself without a long term goal, but I would argue that having these things doesn’t work well for me.
This week I caught part of a program on C4 about dieting, showing research into designing a computer app which replaced willpower with habit. Users got accustomed to selecting healthy options on screen and weirdly this translated into making healthy choices in the real world. This is how I do it with language learning, keeping fit etc. Once things become a habit you don’t need will power, it’s just automatic.
Have a great week
Paul