351. Mindset Talk: Managing your thoughts about your accent

Hey, everyone, it's Hadar, and this is episode number 351 of the Influency podcast. And today we're going to talk about how to manage your thoughts about your accent.

Hey.

Hey, everyone. Thank you so much for being here today. And today we're going to have a quick mindset, talk about the way we think about our English and in particular, the way we think about our accent and how we sound. Sometimes we think that the thoughts we have about our accent and about our English are just observations of the world around us. But the reality is, is that these thoughts are not helping you feel free and confident in English if those thoughts are negative, and unfortunately, they generally are from my experience working with so many different people around the world. And today I'm going to ask you some questions or talk about a few things that will help you reflect about your own thoughts about your English. So I hope this is going to be a good opportunity for you to start thinking about your thoughts and to maybe rethink some of them. And by the way, speaking of mindset and speaking of reaching a breakthrough, I have a masterclass coming up on September 12th and 13th. And in this masterclass I'm going to talk about some bad advice you usually hear out there. And some of the things that I'm going to share are going to be things that you might be doing as well, because I'm going to talk about some very popular advice. And I'm also going to share three powerful strategies for going from avoiding English completely or partially to speaking English with confidence and with impact. The masterclass is absolutely free and it's for a limited time only. So I'm going to post the link in the description if you'd like to sign up and get some practical tools on how you too can transform your English and see results in your English still in 2023, which is exciting. All right, let's go ahead and listen to today's episode about the way we think about our acc.

Today we're going to talk about your thoughts around your accent and your sounds and your pronunciation and how it may or may not affect you. For those of you who are new to this type of mindset work, or maybe you haven't trained with me in the past, I want to introduce you to a model that I've learned from a life coach called Burke Castillo. And it's the self coaching model. And it says this. First, you have the circumstances. Circumstances are things that you cannot change. These are facts, things that happen to you that you have no Control over, for example, the fact that you weren't born into English and you don't speak English as your first language. That is a fact. There is nothing you can do to change that. But then there are the thoughts about that fact, things that you have acquired from, you know, your family, your teachers, your friends or yourself. Thoughts that you have developed about the fact that you have an accent or that you don't speak English as a second language. Thoughts are created in your brain. And ultimately, even though we feel like we have no control over our thoughts, you can control your thoughts or at least change them. Your thoughts actually affect how you feel. Because if you have a negative thought, obviously you're not going to feel amazing, you're going to feel bad or upset. And if you have good thoughts, positive thoughts, obviously that's going to affect your feelings and your emotions. So your feelings are actually controlled by your thoughts. And then ultimately, when you feel something, you are either more motivated or less motivated to take action. So the action that you take in your life is ultimately, for most cases a result of your state of being, your emotions. Because when you feel down or frustrated or defeated, like I said, you're less likely to take action. And whether or not you take action is what is going to influence your life and the results that you see in your life in your new circumstances. So we want to acknowledge this pattern. Of course there are exceptions. It's not always the case. But when it comes to what I'm going to talk about today, I think that this model is really helpful. So we all. If you're a non native speaker of English, for most people who are non native speakers of English, they may have an accent that is not the standard accent. Even native speakers of English may not have the standard accent. There are so many different accents in English that are associated with a geographical location, with a certain status. There are so many things that affect a person's accent. But when you speak a second language, another language, and then you speak a second language, what happens is that you bring the phonological rules and sounds of your first language unto that second language. In our case it's English. And then you may have opinions about how you sound in English. And this is what I want to talk about today. Because when you have negative thoughts about your accent, about your pronunciation, in the work that we're doing, which is pronunciation work and learning how to communicate more effectively, it is going to 100% increase, impact your ability to change, to improve, or to just learn. Because when in your head you have opinions about for example, like something that I hear from my students, it's really hard for me to work on my pronunciation because of my first language. Because we don't have those sounds in Spanish, because we don't have those sounds in French, we don't have those sounds in Japanese, and I might hear those things. And because of my first language, it's really hard for me to understand and speak English. And the thing is that when you enter this type of work with that mindset, what do you think? How are you going to feel if you already set yourself up for failure? Oh, it's really hard for me because here is something that I cannot change because of that. How willing will you be really to make a change? Or how easy is it going to be for you if you've already declared to your brain that it's really, really hard for you because of your first language, because of something you cannot change? So when you enter that, with that mindset, when you enter this type of work, whether it's fluency work or pronunciation work, you are less likely to succeed. Your brain is going to get closed up, and it's going to be hard for you to really make a change. Right? Like, the brain is not going to be as elastic because you've already kind of, like, declared to yourself that it's going to be really, really hard. Okay. I also hear things like, oh, because of my accent, I don't sound sophisticated. I even hear people saying, I sound stupid. It sounds horrible. My accent is so bad.

Bad.

I sound foreign. I sound unintelligent. Now, I'm not saying that this is what you're feeling, but if a negative word has come up after I sound in your head in the past, or my accent is something, something, and you had things that are not positive, right? So if you said, my accent is amazing, I love it, great. You're probably, well, you might want to keep it. And then as a result, you might not want to change, and that is perfectly fine. We're all about clarity and confidence. So as long as you're clear and as long as you're confident, that's all that matters. But if whatever came after my accent is. Is negative, bad, annoying, hard to understand, foreign, not that foreign is negative, but if you associated a negative connotation to this word, then you are less likely to, first of all, feel confident, feel proud of what you have already achieved, and actually do the work for the reasons that I've shared. Right? Because when you'll start practicing your pronunciation and you'll try something, your brain is automatically going to go to the default understanding of, oh, I don't like how I sound. This is bad. And every time, you won't succeed. Because when you learn there are times where you do succeed and times where you don't, you'll be like, oh, proof here. This is validating my belief that it's hard for me because of my first language. Or here it doesn't sound good, my accent is horrible, or I sound bad, or this sounds so foreign it doesn't sound right. So it's gonna remove all the possible motivation that you might have for doing this work. Okay. And then, like, you'll use that to belittle yourself or to use that, like I said, as validation for those limiting beliefs, those beliefs that limit your potential. And why do I say that these are beliefs? Because they're not true. They're not true. You saying about yourself that my accent is horrible. Who says? Who says that? It's an opinion. Your opinion may be someone else's opinion, but it's just an opinion. And it's your choice whether or not you want to turn that into your narrative that is going to determine the results that you see in your life. So I want you to explore those thoughts around your accent. For example, start this my accent is and see what immediately comes up or what has come up in the past. If there are negative thoughts about it, then dive deeper and try to understand why that is. Here is another belief. When you have an accent, people. How would you complete it? People respect you more? Or is it people don't respect you? Is it when you have an accent, people are intrigued by you or people feel like you don't belong? Try to complete it in your head and see what comes up. And if it's something that might be limiting your potential and your ability to learn, go a little deeper and try to understand what that is. I also often give tools on how to reframe those thoughts, and I want to share with you two. Especially when it comes to pronunciation and your accent. Your accent or my accent means that I speak more than one language. When it comes to languages, I'm already more capable than most people around the world because not a lot of people speak 2, 3, 4, or 5 languages. Most people speak just one. So the fact that you have an accent, no matter how people might perceive you in your head or in real life, it already means that you're more capable than more people, linguistically at least. Right? And I love this quote by Amy Chua. Do you know what a foreign accent is? It's a sign of bravery, because it doesn't only mean that you speak another language, it also means that you have the courage to use it. And every time you get into that negative self talk of why it's bad that you have an accent, please remind yourself of that. And when you operate from a positive, encouraging belief, you are a lot more motivated to take action and to make real change in your English, in how you sound, but also in how you carry yourself in this world. All right, my friends. Love you all. See you later. Bye.