454. The English You Want vs. The English You Have – How to Close the Gap!

I've been living here for a year. I teach English, I know how to learn a language effectively, and yet I'm here not being able to use the language. And it's really freaking frustrating because I'm supposed to be at a different place. Probably there is something in you that is also frustrated like me. And you also want to be at a different place. And I get that. So I want to share with you some things that I'm saying to myself because what I'm going to talk about today is not strategy. I really want to talk about the mindset of learning a language.

Hey, you're listening to the Influency podcast. I'm Hadar, your host, a pronunciation expert, fluency coach, and a proud non native speaker with over 16 years of experience teaching. I am here to share with you all my secrets. I on how to show up in English clearly with confidence and freedom. On this podcast, I'll provide step by step strategies, lessons, stories and practical tips to keep you inspired and motivated on your English journey.

Are you ready? Let's do it. So you know this thing where you put in a lot of work into your English and you might even have a lot of experience using English. Maybe you immigrated to an English speaking country and yet that heavy feeling when communicating is still there. That feeling of. It's just, it's not there yet. It just doesn't feel like it's mine, it's not accessible, it's not available, it doesn't roll off my tongue, it's just still hard. And you know, all the conversation that you might have in your head about your ability to learn languages, the fact that you're not doing the work, you're not good enough, maybe you start really beating yourself up for not being where you want to be. God, that, that gap, right? Like, oh, I've been living here for a year, I should have been at a much better place by now. I know this because I'm experiencing this right now. In fact, the other day I had a Spanish class because I'm learning Spanish and I'm also a non native speaker of English. So I have learned English in the past, but I've had a lot of experience using it and this is why I'm teaching it right now. But now I'm learning Spanish because I've moved to Barcelona a year ago and the other day I had a class after quite a few weeks that I haven't taken any classes and it felt like all the Spanish was gone from my head, like I couldn't form one practical sentence. And then I even tried to explain to my teacher that I feel frustrated, and I didn't even know how to do that properly. And I felt like all the progress that I've made is gone. And I couldn't say anything, and all I could think about was, how is it even possible? I've been living here for a year. I teach English. I know how to learn a language effectively, and yet I'm here not being able to use the language. And it's really freaking frustrating because I'm supposed to be at a different place. It needs to be different for me. And I kind of, like, didn't want my teacher to see that I'm starting to tear up and to get emotional about it. So I tried to change it because I felt uncomfortable and I didn't want to feel, like, all weird about it. But then I was thinking to myself, like, first of all, I know why I was where I was, because I haven't done the work needed. Right. I didn't feel like I'm incapable or something like that, which is good. I know that I can learn a language. I know that I can master this language. I also know that I was really busy and I didn't have time to do it, and I prioritized other things. I know all of that. It's still freaking frustrating. And I'm sure you can relate if you're here watching my videos. Probably. There is some something in you that is also frustrated, like me. And you also want to be at a different place, and I get that. So I want to share with you some things that I'm saying to myself in my Spanish journey, and I've been saying to my students, and I know that it has helped them, because what I'm going to talk about today is not strategy, because they teach you that a lot, and it's not, you know, pronunciation. I really want to talk about the mindset of learning a language because I think it is as critical as doing everything else. It's as critical as learning grammar. It's as critical as working on your pronunciation. It's as critical as practicing speaking. In fact, it's interconnected. So I want to talk about the mindset because most people don't talk about it. And I think that is the one thing that we can change instantly. Well, maybe not instantly, but repeatedly with the power of our thoughts, and no one else can do that for us. I want to share with you the things I know and the things that have helped me with English and the things that are helping me now. With Spanish and the things that are helping my students. And I want to share that with you because I want this to be easier for you. I want this to be possible. I want you to feel less frustrated in your English. That is why I'm here. That is my mission. And I think that shifting the way you think and feel in English can change everything. This is why I always talk about mindset in my videos. This is why I have an entire program about mindset, and this is why it's a free fundamental element of all of my programs. Because you can't make a real change without changing your attitude towards it and how you think about yourself and what's possible for you. So I want to start by talking about the gap, and I want to acknowledge it. Like the gap of where you are and where you had hoped to be by this time. Do you know what I'm talking about? Can you relate? Have you ever said to yourself, by the end of 2024 or by the beginning of 2025, English would no longer be an obstacle? And here we are at the beginning of 2025, and maybe it still is. Maybe you're still not where you want to be. Okay? So that gap is real. And I think that gap is real with every single thing that we want for ourselves in our lives, because our wishes for ourselves have a different rhythm and pace than our ability to keep up with it. And that is how it needs to be. I think that when you recognize that gap, you have two choices. One is to let it bum you out and get you frustrated and to make you feel disappointed of yourself and demotivated, okay? And be like, what's the point? All the work that I'm doing is not getting me anywhere. I'm still behind. What's the point? Nothing's working right. Option one. Option two is to recognize that gap and use it as a source for motivation. Because the only reason it exists is to remind you that you still haven't achieved something that you want for yourself and that it is possible. Because if you want it for yourself, it is possible. Let me tell you this. Especially when it comes to learning another language, it is possible for you to master English and to speak it confidently and to feel at home in English. It is possible for you. I know that for a fact. If you need someone to tell you that, here I am telling you, you can do it. No matter how old you are, no matter what language you speak you, no matter what your experience is and how many native speakers you have around it, it is possible for you no doubt now that gap could be interpreted as the reason for why you should keep going, as why it is still possible for you. And maybe it's like a little bit of a kick in the butt to tell you, well, you haven't done the work. And this is exactly what I experienced when I wanted to cry in my Spanish class and when I nearly cried here at the beginning of the video. It was not because I don't think it's possible for me. It's because I recognize the gap. I feel it. And sometimes we need to feel it so much and it has to hurt us a little bit until we just really have to take action, until we realize that we can't procrastinate it anymore, until we realize that what we're doing now is not working and maybe we need to try something different. Okay? That gap is there to wake you up and tell you change something. Because what has got you here will not get you to your next level. That is why that gap here, it's not there to tell you it's never going to work out for you or it's not possible, or to keep you unmotivated. On the contrary, you can use that gap to draw motivation and say, this is a non negotiable for me. And that is what I did. I have made a decision to spend 30 minutes every single day on my Spanish, no matter what, before I start my day. That is my non negotiable because once I start my day, I get too busy, too many things are on my plate and then I don't get to it. And if I don't get to it, how do I expect myself to be able to use it confidently? So unless it becomes so incredibly critical for you, you are probably not going to make a change. Okay? So the first thing I want you to do is to reframe that gap and start treating it like the motivation that you need to do the work needed or to change something. Another thing that I want to talk about is that sometimes when we feel a certain emotion around something, for example stress or anxiety or fear around English, sometimes when we feel it again and again and again and again and again, we're going to talk about why we feel it in a minute. But when we feel it again and again and again, we start associating the language with a feeling. And when you feel something again and again and again, in a way the body becomes addicted to that feeling, to that feeling of stress, to that feeling of fear. And it's really hard for you to engage in anything related to English without experiencing that, because you already have that habit of feeling a certain feeling whenever you're about to speak or whenever you think about English or whenever you're thinking about learning it. So if you tend to experience this weight on your chest or fear sweaty palms, we when you speak English or when you think about using English, even if it's mild, okay, maybe you still speak, but you just feel this uneasy feeling, I want you to recognize it and see if you can a, understand why that is. What is the thought, the limiting belief that gets you to feel that feeling? And two, is there a way for you to change that feeling or to become aware that your body is just used to feeling it for no good reason? Because speaking English is not going to put you in danger. No one's going to hate you if you speak English. And even if someone might criticize you one day, so freaking what? Okay? When we think about it, so what? So what? So what if you make a mistake, right? But that anxiety is something that you can't shake off without intentional work, okay? So I want you to recognize it and I want you to understand that sometimes you can't change a feeling just by learning more because you already have the habit of having this feeling because you are addicted. Your body is addicted to stress, your body's addicted to anxiety when it comes to learning a language. Now, I'm going to put some resources on how you can start changing that. Not my resources, but books that I've read and podcasts that I've listened to that can help you change that. Because I'm not going to talk about that now. But if you recognize that that might be the case for you, I highly recommend for you to look for ways to start changing that. But because it's not just going to change your English, it's going to change your life when you recognize that you're addicted to an emotion that doesn't serve you. Now, what caused these feelings to begin with are generally thoughts or beliefs that you have about yourself in your English. For example, I'll never be able to improve or I can't make mistakes because people are going to think I'm not intelligent or people are going to laugh at me if I speak with my own accent or if I don't live in an English speaking country, I'm never going to be able to improve. So all of these things, thoughts that you might think that these are just your, you know, you're perceiving the reality around you. No, these are thoughts and beliefs that are yours. And not everyone has these thoughts. And these thoughts are more likely to generate a negative emotion rather than positive emotion. And when you have a negative emotion, you are less likely to do positive things. You're less likely to speak. You are less likely to communicate with others to say yes to an opportunity to speak, or to go to a job interview, or to say hi to your neighbor or to join an online group to speak English. Right? You're less likely to do it when you experience a negative emotion that is the result of a negative thought or a limiting belief. So another thing you can do is start monitoring your thoughts and your beliefs and asking yourself, is this real? Are these beliefs true? Or am I just thinking that because that's something that I've heard before or that I, you know, I've come to believe in them, but they're not real. These are not facts. So when you recognize that there is the reality and there are thoughts about the reality, and sometimes they're not the same, if these thoughts are not serving you, the best thing you can do. I know it sounds simple and it's not. The best thing you can do is change those thoughts or at least acknowledge that these are just thoughts and they're not real. So now I want to talk about some common beliefs and thoughts that you might have that are holding you back. And let's address that. And if it's going to help you change even one little thing about the way you think about English, I have done my job here. Okay, so the first one is don't sit around and wait for others to speak to you. If you want to improve your fluency and your English, you want to practice speaking, but a lot of times people just wait around for others to speak to them and they don't initiate the conversation. I want to tell you that you can increase the amount of time you speak, your confidence, and your friendships if you just make the very basic decision of speaking more and initiating conversations. I know that you might think, oh, what if they don't want to talk to me? What if they don't answer back? What if they will answer in a rude way? What if they will? What if? So what? What's going to happen? You're not going to die, right? And if that is the case, the benefit of you initiating more in creating more situations for yourself to speak are far bigger and better than the possibility of getting hurt. Okay? You just have to suck it up and say, I am going to be the one initiating. Because that guarantees that you are in charge of your own destiny, of Your own journey and of your own English, okay? So be the initiator. Do not be just a passive learner or a passive conversationalist waiting for people to have a conversation with you, okay? The next thing, it's. And that's also about being passive versus being active. Don't wait for an opportunity to come to start improving your English. A lot of you are passive learners. Maybe you're watching my videos every now and then or listening to the podcast, catching, you know, content on Instagram, but you're not doing something really actively. You're not actively learning every single day. Because maybe you're saying to yourself, well, I don't have a good enough reason to learn, but if I get a job offer or if I do move to a different country, then I will start learning English. So let me tell you this. First, opportunities don't come unless you're really ready for them. Luck is when preparation meets opportunity, you gotta be prepared. And then when the opportunity comes, you are ready to nail it. Imagine that an opportunity comes, but your English will not be ready. Then you won't be able to take advantage of the situation. The idea is to be ready before the opportunity comes, so when it comes, you can do it. You are ready. Okay? So don't wait for a reason, an external reason, to start changing things that you're unhappy about in your life. I'm telling you, and that is not just about English. That's pretty much about everything. But don't sit around and wait, because by the time the opportunity comes and you're not ready, it's too late now. By the way, if you want to learn how, you can do that with me in a few days. I'm opening doors to New Sound, which is my training transformational program. You can bet that mindset is a big part of this training program. So if you want to learn how you can actually start making a change now to transform your English before the opportunity comes, click the link to learn more. If doors are open, I'd be happy to see you there. And if not, you can get on the wait list, okay? But the point is that don't wait for external reasons to push you, because it's only when you push yourself that's how you see change. Another really critical thing is the fear of making mistakes. Listen, this is something fundamental. You have to make yourself believe that mistakes are not bad, that it's not bad to make mistakes, that it's okay to make mistakes. In fact, I always say to my students, mistakes are the currency of fluency. I Always ask them to imagine, as if they have to. It's like a video game, right, where you have X amount of mistakes that you just have to make on your path to fluency. And unless you make every single one of those mistakes, you won't be fluent. So when you make a mistake, don't think of it as if, oh, you know, you're just stuck or you're staying behind or you're actually progressing. You're on your way to reaching fluency. Because if you make mistakes, it means that you're speaking. Now, of course, you need to learn what to do with that mistake. And I'm not going to get into that here, but I do teach that in my videos and my programs. It just means that you're using it and you can learn from the mistake and then you can improve, but you have to make the mistake to learn what's not clear to you, what's not working and what you need to work on. So mistakes are a golden opportunity for improvement. And if you look at it as if it's, you know, a source of shame and humiliation and proof that you're not good enough and that you are behind, then what have we done about that? Like what? How is that going to serve you right? How is that going to serve you? So just think of things in a way that helps you feel motivated, positive and excited about speaking. Because, oh my God, we get enough shit from the outside world about how we're not good enough and how we're not strong enough or tall enough or pretty enough or we don't have a good enough English. We hear that all the time. Don't play that over and over and over in your head because it's just going to keep you stuck and keep you small. And that is not what we are here for. And the last thing I want to talk about today is this feeling that you might have when you have when you speak a second language for most people, it's not for everyone, but for most people that it's not like it is in your first language. There will always be a gap. That's just how it is. Don't work so hard killing yourself to bridge that gap between how you are in your first language and how you are in English or the second language that you learn, or third or fourth. Don't kill yourself over making it the same. It's okay if it's not. You can just honour it. You can just. This is how I am in my first language and this is how I am in English. And I love Both parts of me, both manifestations of me. I honor both. I've worked hard for both. And it's okay that it's not exactly the same. Because that competition that you might have just with yourself about your first language in English, again, it's not serving you. And again, recognizing that it's not going to be the same, there is something very calming about it. You can give yourself some grace and say it's okay if English feels a little strange, if it doesn't feel like a perfectly fitted suit, but it still looks freaking good on me and I can still wear it and show up confidently and I can still feel like I belong in that language and that language belongs to me, even if it doesn't feel exactly like it is in my first language. And maybe, just maybe, you can explore things in that other language, English, in our case, that you can't explore in your first language. Maybe you can develop a different type of humor. Maybe your voice might be a little different and you'll feel good about it. Maybe you will find yourself being more expressive or using the melody of your voice differently and exploring what's possible for your voice because English allows it. Maybe it's a good thing that it's slightly different and not the same. And maybe if you manage to see the good things that exist in that difference, it's going to help you thrive rather than make you wilt. And like I said, as long as you know that it's possible for you and English belongs to you and you're allowed to use it with or without mistakes, or with an American accent, British accent, or a non native accent, it's yours and you are an equal to anyone else who is using it, whether they're natives or not, native speakers or not, once you understand that you are creating for yourself the best circumstances to succeed and to actually enjoy this journey, this slinguist journey. And I can tell you I have done it once with English and I'm working freaking hard to do the same thing with Spanish. In fact, I'm not working hard enough. I'm just thinking that I need to work hard. I'm not doing it yet, but I'm working hard at getting myself to a place where I make that commitment. And I know I have made that commitment with myself. That 2025 is is the year where I commit myself to doing something different because I don't want to wait any longer. And if that is the case for you in English and I want to help you as well, and I invite you to join inside New Sound because in New Sound, I can help you do that. So if you're thinking about making a change in your English, New Sound is a transformative program that is going to help you get there. Now, I don't know if by the time you're watching this video, doors are open or not. I'm going to put the link in the description. If doors are open, like I said, I'd be happy to welcome you and you can learn more about the program there. And if not, you can get on the wait list or go to my website to see how else I can help you. But in the meantime, just know that I'm here for you. Also, with my weekly videos and podcast episodes, I want to make sure that you know that it is possible for you to speak English with clarity, confidence and freedom. Now, I would love to hear what you think. So please share with me your thoughts in the comments. And I just wanted to tell you that I really, really appreciate you. Thank you so much for being a part of this community. Thank you for spending the time, investing the time in learning with me. The fact that you're here means that you know it is possible for you. Maybe you just need a little push and that's why I'm here. Okay, Have a beautiful, beautiful rest of the day and I'll see you next week in the next video.

Bye.