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 Galante! |
| Peter: Hi everyone! Peter here. |
| Becky: Listeners, every now and then, your motivation will dip. So how do successful learners deal with this? |
| Peter: Today you’ll learn all about “How To Achieve Your Language Goal When Your Motivation is Low” |
| Body |
| Becky: In last month's Inner Circle, we gave you 3 secrets for staying motivated to accomplish your language goals. |
| Peter: If you remember, I not only reached my March goal... but I doubled it to 10 minutes! |
| Becky: Yeah, your motivation was through the roof last time. How are you doing now? |
| Peter: Well Becky... it’s been 4 months already, can you believe it? |
| Becky: No, time is flying. |
| Peter: So uh, I’m still at it. |
| Becky: Uh, oh. Is your honeymoon phase wearing off though? |
| Peter: Ah, right, I did call it a honeymoon phase last time, right? Well, let’s just say I’m pushing along. |
| Becky: Peter, It sounds like your motivational honeymoon wore off. I’m just being honest. How was your April goal? |
| Peter: Well, I’m up to 14 minutes from last month’s 10 minute goal.. |
| Becky: Oh, so 4 extra minutes. Not bad. But it’s not the same amount of progress you made last time. |
| Peter: Right, there was no insane boost of progress this month. |
| Becky: What happened to your motivation? You accomplished your goal but it seems like you struggled through it. |
| Peter: You’re right Becky, it slipped. But even though it slipped and I was heading down, I bottomed out and I found a way to get it back. And listeners, that’s what we’re going to cover this time. |
| Becky: We’re going to cover “How To Achieve Your Language Goal When Your Motivation is Low” |
| Peter: There are 4 ways to regain your motivation and keep it going. |
| Becky: And here they are: |
| Peter: 1) Find a way to enjoy learning |
| Becky: 2) See your progress |
| Peter: 3) Have something to lose |
| Becky: and 4) Do it regardless of how you feel. Peter, Is this what you did this past April to regain motivation and keep going? |
| Peter: It is. I got the motivation back. But first, let me tell you exactly what happened this month. So, for the first half of April, I was successfully sitting down for every one of my lessons. And then... there came a day when I just wanted to watch the game Becky. I couldn’t miss the Nets game. |
| Becky: For our non-American listeners, the basketball playoffs have started this month. |
| Peter: So, I took a day off. You know... what’s one day? And Becky, once you take that first day off... |
| Becky: ...There’ll be more days off, I know,I know this feeling very well. |
| Peter: And you know, my tutor was NOT happy with me taking days off. |
| . |
| Becky: Well, as long as you told her ahead of time, isn’t that OK? |
| Peter: Actually, I told her on the day of the lesson. And I actually ended up canceling 3 lessons. |
| Becky: 3 Lessons!? Sounds like a problem, you know, if she bases her schedule on you! |
| Peter: You’re 100% right. I just get busy and things come up. Life happens. |
| Becky: So, What happened next? |
| Peter: Well, my first lesson back, she said “you wasted your time and my time, you’re going to pay me $90 dollars.” Becky, this was double the amount of our lessons. |
| Becky: Double! |
| Peter: Double the amount of the lessons! |
| Becky: Wow, so on top of the lessons you’ve missed, you’re paying double? |
| Peter: Well, I had no choice. I forgot about the deal I made with the tutor. I told her that if I was to do this, I would pay her double. |
| Becky: And she held you to that? |
| Peter: That’s where I was kind of surprised. I was not expecting double the juice. Like, I expect those types of rates from Las Vegas, not from my tutor. |
| Becky: Oh, that hurts! |
| Peter: See, even you can feel the pain. But I’ll tell you why this is so critical for motivation later. Listeners, you’ll want to hear this. |
| Becky: So this month it sounds like you procrastinated until you had to measure up to the 14-minute goal, right? |
| Peter: That’s right. I barely, barely made it. I barely hit 14 minutes. And if it wasn’t for getting that motivation back. I would’ve missed the goal. But the truth is Becky, I should’ve been at 18 minutes. |
| Becky: I bet that was because of all the lessons you’ve skipped over. |
| Peter: That’s true and barely reaching my goal after doubling my progress last month... that was actually de-motivating. |
| Becky: Yeah I can understand, I think ALL beginning learners lose motivation if they experience these kinds of setbacks. |
| Peter: Listeners, motivation is a common issue for learners... but it doesn’t mean you have to fail. |
| Becky: So here are 4 ways to achieving your goal when your motivation is low. |
| Peter: And one of them, you’ve already taken care of. I applied these rules when I was learning Japanese and again, when I was learning Chinese. |
| Becky: So did you forget them with Italian? |
| Peter: I did! But ...I didn’t. This one’s a tricky question, Becky. But the important point is, I’m applying them now to Italian. |
| Becky: Alright, let’s get into it! |
| Peter: #1: Enjoy the learning process. My first issue was that, at the end of the day, watching a basketball game sounded like a lot more fun than opening a book. |
| Becky: I can see why! So how did you fix this issue? |
| Peter: Ask yourself this: What interests you and what do you like talking about? Take my interests,in this case baseketball and base your language learning on that. So to get my motivation back, I searched for sports-related lessons on ItalianPod101.com to start with. So, she was happy to talk about sports in Italian, in this case basketball. |
| Becky: Yeah, I remember you saying how important it is to have a good tutor last time. But will that really help you choose between a basketball game and the lessons? |
| Peter: You want the honest answer Becky? |
| Becky: Yeah? |
| Peter: No. Simply put, no. But it does help Becky. Because, if I can speak about things that I’m interested in, it really does increase motivation to do the lesson. |
| Becky: I can see that. The easiest way to keep going is to enjoy what you do. Okay, what’s Rule #2? |
| Peter: ....Is you must see your progress. |
| Becky: This actually ties into the first rule. |
| Peter: That’s right, because there’s nothing more fun than seeing, or in this case, hearing your progress. |
| Becky: And there’s nothing more motivating than seeing progress. |
| Peter: That’s exactly why I have my tutor write a few notes about how I did each lesson. |
| Becky: Yeah, not getting any feedback would be pretty demotivating. |
| Peter: So when I hit rock bottom, what I did was, I looked back at my first lesson. Remember I told you, Becky? What was the feedback from my tutor? |
| Becky: Lowest level. |
| Peter: So, I used that negative feedback to fuel my rapid progress. Then, I got some really positive feedback from my tutor. This time, I used the positive feedback to get me motivated when I hit rock bottom. |
| Becky: So did you go back and compare the feedback from the first lesson to the positive feedback later? |
| Peter: That’s exactly it. It’s quite motivating when you read your teacher’s comments. “Lowest level, needs work in all areas” to “rapidly progressing, today we can actually have a conversation without using the dictionary.” |
| Becky: That’s really impressive. |
| Peter: And I re-read these to get motivated again when I finally got back into the routine. |
| Becky: Sounds like a great way to get back on track. Sounds like it worked for you. |
| Ok, so what do we have for Rule #3. |
| Peter: Rule 3 is a definitely off the beaten track. A little unusual. |
| Becky: A little crazy? |
| Peter: Alright, you called me. Yes. You must have something to lose. |
| Becky: That sounds a bit harsh! |
| Peter: It does, but avoiding loss is a powerful motivator. And this is what I was talking about before, with double the juice, two times the payment....if I miss my lessons, because, did you know people strongly prefer to avoid losing even more than trying to win? |
| Becky: No! I haven’t thought about it like that. I mean it hurts a lot more to lose $10 than to gain $10. |
| Peter: That’s exactly why Becky. That’s why I told the tutor to do that if i missed a lesson and I kinda forgot about it. And let me tell you, when she billed me for 2 times the amount of my lessons... that hurt! When I paid her, it hurt! When she joked about it, it hurt! So, it was very, very motivating. |
| Becky: I can see that. So have you missed a lesson since? |
| Peter: Becky, ever since she fined me, I’m online 10 minutes before the lesson, with my homework in hand, and I am, as she says, a very good student. |
| Becky: I’m glad you to hear you reformed through this process. Listeners, since you’ve already invested in our program... |
| Peter: ...you’ve already taken care of this rule. Investing...something like time or money, keeps you motivated to continue. You put value in and you want to get value back. |
| Becky: Alright, lets move onto rule # 4: Do it regardless of how you feel. |
| Peter: This rule is the one that’ll give you the most out of your progress. I guarantee you. |
| Becky: The fact is... some days, you’re going to feel tired. It will happen. |
| Peter: Some days, your mind will be elsewhere. |
| Becky: And some days, life will happen. Things are going to pop up. |
| Peter: But, do it anyway. |
| Becky: It’s like going to the gym. You turn your mind off and you just push through. |
| Peter: And the best thing about these hard times, they’re the ones you really remember. You always remember the toughest parts, the toughest days of when you were trying to reach your goal. Am I right, Becky? |
| Becky: Yeah, I always look back and remember it as when I learned the most. |
| Peter: And if you could make through those days, chances are really good you’ll make it through the easy days. |
| Becky: So Peter, what’s the monthly goal for May? |
| Peter: Okay, since I’m up to 14 minutes now, I’ll be aiming for 18 minutes. |
| Becky: Ah, I almost forgot to ask: how do you feel about barely reaching this month’s goal? |
| Peter: It’s strange. I was doing so well in March and I’ll admit I was in a bit of a slump for the middle part of April, but I’m feeling confident now. |
| Becky: Really? Why? |
| Peter: Well, I think setbacks happen to Every. Single. Learner. I mean, It’s the natural path to mastering a language. Plus I experienced this when I was learning Chinese and Japanese, so, so I know what to do when setbacks happen. |
| Becky: Hmm. Dealing with setbacks. Sounds like a good topic for the next Inner Circle. |
| Peter: I think that’s a very good idea, so, we may just do that next time. |
Outro
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| Becky: Okay, well that’s going to do it for this special Inner Circle lesson! |
| Peter: Bye everyone! |
| Becky: Thanks for listening, and we’ll see you next time. |
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