Comparing yourself to others is something that goes beyond
language learning and can be applied to basically anything in life. A lot of
the time, comparison is something that we don’t necessarily want to do. It's
something that our brain does without our permission. There are some
people who find that comparisons work for them and others who don’t find them
useful. Just a reminder: this blog is not about convincing you
to do what I want. It's about giving you my honest opinion on what has and
hasn’t worked in my language learning, so you'll be able to make your own
decision.
Why I try not to compare myself to others:
Over the years, I've often found myself comparing myself
to others. Most of the time, I don’t want to do this, and most of the time, it
makes me feel bad. There'll always be someone in the world who is better than
you at something. Whether it's their language ability, their looks, their
ability to play football, or the amount of money they have. I've had these
thoughts of comparison about a lot of things in life, and it always made me
feel bad about myself.
Language learning is a real mental battle. The longer you
can stay motivated and positive, the better your chance of improving in that
language. When I compared myself with others, it was always in a negative way. “They
speak so much better Spanish than me”, “Look how easy it is for him to have a
conversation”, “How did they learn so quickly?” etc.
To quickly offer an alternative side to the argument,
some people find these comparisons helpful. This is because it motivates them
to work even harder with their own language learning, or whatever it is they
are comparing. If you're someone who can motivate themselves by comparing themselves with
others, then I won't stop you.
However, my thought process was more damaging. I wouldn’t be
motivated or driven; I'd instead feel down and demotivated. I'd always
think about how much effort I've put in, and I’m still not anywhere near as
good as this person or that person. The problem with this thought process is
that we always compare the result; we never compare the journey they've gone
through.
When we see someone in the gym with a much better body than us, we instantly compare that body to ours. We don’t consider the fact that maybe this person is a professional athlete and has to go to the gym for 3 hours every day to train. When we see someone with a lot more money than us, we see the amount of money they have and instantly compare it to ours. We don’t consider the fact that maybe this person started their own business 10 years ago and has been working 15 hours per day ever since to make it a success. When we hear someone speak a language a lot better than us, we hear that language and instantly compare it to our own. We don’t consider the fact that maybe this person has lived in that country for 20 years, with lessons every week.
This is an important part of comparing yourself to others. If
you can’t stop your brain from doing it, you need to think about the journey
that you and that other person are on. Everybody has a different situation, and
everyone will end up with a different result. This is why you need to focus on
yourself because you have control over your situation.
Manage your expectations:
As I mentioned before, learning a language is a mental
battle, and you have to be able to keep yourself positive and motivated. When our
brain makes us compare ourselves to others, this is something that will damage
our attitude.
To try to resolve this, you need to make sure you manage
your expectations in a reasonable way. Some people have a consistently super-positive
attitude and think that there'll be no problems along the way. I can respect
this approach because they're trying to be positive, but I think that
with everything in life, a good balance is essential.
Learning a language will not happen overnight. It will not happen in one week. It will not happen in one month. If you start to learn a language expecting miraculous results in a short period of time without any problems, you'll be in for a shock very soon. If you have a full-time job and a family, you won't have much free time. If you expect to be able to master a language in 3 months with only 10 minutes of practice per day, you'll seriously damage your self-confidence. If you're able to keep yourself positive and motivated while also accepting that you have to be realistic with your goals, I believe this'll be much better for you long-term.
Some people may look at me and think that I'm being too
negative, and maybe they’re right. However, this balance really helps keep me motivated because it means I can see people who speak languages much better than me or
have better bodies than me, and it won't demotivate me. This is because I'm
more capable of focussing on myself. Don’t get me wrong; we're all humans, and
we all make mistakes. Sometimes I find myself going back into that mindset
of comparing myself with others, and it doesn’t feel good. But I can quickly remind
myself that I have my own goals and my own expectations of what I can do.
Summary:
To stop comparing yourself to others is something that we
can describe as ‘easier said than done’ in English. This means that something
is very easy to say we will do – “For the next month, I am going to run 10
kilometres every day”. That was very easy to say, but when you actually have to
try to run 10 kilometres every day, it isn’t as easy to do.
Being able to tell yourself you'll stop comparing yourself
to others is a good start, but being able to apply it is more difficult, and
this is perfectly natural. It'll be hard at first, but if you're able to
manage your expectations and think about your own personal journey towards
success, it'll make it a lot easier.
Key vocabulary:
Permission – the action of allowing someone to do
something
Convincing – persuading someone to do something
Alternative – another option
Approach – in this example it basically means a way
of dealing with a situation
Essential – really important, crucial
Miraculous – incredible, remarkable, amazing
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