530. The 3 things I regret not starting sooner (this is one of them!)

Are there things that you are not doing because you don't feel your English is ready for them? Are you preventing yourself from doing things that you want to do, like apply for a job that is in English, or post videos on social media, or just speak more with people, and you're not doing it because you feel like your English is not ready? If yes, then I think you're going to like this video because today I'm going to talk about the 3 things that I didn't do because I hadn't felt ready. I ended up doing them, but it took me a long to do them because I was waiting to be ready. So I'm going to share with you what those are and why I regret not starting on time, and my advice to you if you're still waiting to be ready as well to do important things that you want. Hi everyone, if you're new to me, my name is Hadar. I'm a non-native speaker of English. I help my students and my followers to speak English with clarity, confidence, and freedom. We do it through pronunciation work, intonation work, fluency work, and mindset work, and all the work that is needed to be the best version of yourself in English. Follow me on social media for daily lessons and definitely check out my website for a ton of free resources at hadarshemesh.com. Okay, the 3 things I regret not starting on time because I felt my English wasn't ready for them. The first one was to teach in English. So I started teaching pronunciation, but I wasn't teaching it in English. I was teaching it in Hebrew, which is my first language. I started teaching pronunciation one-on-one. It was in my living room. I put a little note on a bulletin board in a busy area, and someone called me and they were like, oh, do you teach pronunciation? And, and that's how it all started. And I started teaching, but I explained everything except for the sounds in Hebrew. And I did that because I wasn't confident. I was confident in the sounds that I was making, but I wasn't confident in having like fluent explanations about all the things and all the sounds. It was a lot easier for me to do it in Hebrew because when I started teaching, it was after I hadn't been using English regularly for quite a few years. So I'd been living in Tel Aviv and I wasn't using English regularly and I didn't feel confident to use it. You know, when you don't use it, you lose it. And that's nice. When you don't use it, you lose it. And I knew that it wasn't good for my students, but most importantly, I knew that it wasn't good for me because I was keeping myself small. I was not getting myself out of my comfort zone because I was afraid that A, I wasn't ready, and B, that I would be judged and that it would be easy for me to pronounce single sounds and single words, but I would potentially mispronounce things when I spoke for a long time. And there was a point where I said, Hadar, you're playing small, you have to change it. But it was probably 6 months after I first thought about it, and all of that was going on in my head until one day I said, I am going to start speaking in English. And I shifted to English, and lo and behold, it was not as hard. It was a little strange at the beginning, especially with the students who had already known me, but I was like, okay, it's actually— I'm actually not terrible. It took me some time to bring the language into a more accessible place, but it felt natural and it felt like the right step and it felt like it was helping me grow. And I was like, why did I start doing this so late? So silly. I was just waiting for no reason. I was like just suffering throughout those 6 months for no good reason. So that is the first thing that I regret not doing because I didn't feel ready and it was just in my head, totally in my head. The second thing was starting a YouTube channel. Same thing. I started recording those short videos on my computer and when I saw that it started picking up, I was like, Oh, maybe I should start a YouTube channel. And I think that was back in 2012. I started posting regularly November 2015 because I remember I was 9 months pregnant and I did it because for years I said to myself, I have to start posting regularly. I have to build a YouTube channel. I need to do it. I need to do it. And I said to myself, I'm not ready. It's not going to be good. I'm going to get judged teaching pronunciation. As a non-native speaker, I mean, like, you know, what if I get criticized? What if I don't have time? What if, you know, I already had one daughter and I was like, what if? And then at some point I said, I can't anymore. I have to just do it. And I did it. I did it when I was 9 months pregnant because I said to myself, if I don't do it now, I'm not going to do it ever because I'm going to have 2 little girls and I'm not gonna have time. So I'm going to make a commitment right now, which is what I did. Thankfully, I recorded like 9 videos before giving birth. And then after that, because I said I'm now going to post every single week, I've made a public commitment. So I was kind of like obliged to continue doing that. And I'm so glad that I did. And I wasn't ready But I learned how to do it on the go, and I got better at it. I wasn't great at the beginning, but I got better at it. And it was just from the act of doing it again and again that I was able to improve and learn what I want to talk about and get better. And I think only after a year of posting videos regularly, I found my voice, and I was like starting to feel more comfortable and happier with my content. So that is another thing that I felt like I wasn't ready for, and I was waiting for way too long, and I shouldn't have. Because once I made that decision, it was— first of all, it was like a weight has lifted off of my shoulders, and I did the thing that I wanted. And I wasn't better because I was waiting for 2 years. I wasn't any better. I wasn't like— I was waiting to be ready, but I wasn't any better. I was exactly the same as I had been. You know, had I done it two years prior? That's the thing about readiness. It's like you learn from doing. You learn from taking action. And the third thing—it's pretty similar, but I'm going to say it because I haven't learned my lesson. The third thing was starting my podcast in 2020. I started the Influency Podcast, which now is very much the same as what I post on YouTube. But back then, it was more of a personal channel to share episodes that are more conversational. I was addressing different things and I wanted to talk about deeper things and have deeper conversations on the podcast. And on YouTube, I was just, you know, teaching and sharing ideas and, and I was teaching pronunciation and I was telling stories on the podcast. That's what I wanted. I wanted another outlet to share content. And I think I wanted to start that podcast around— I started having thoughts about starting a podcast in 2019. And even though I had been creating content consistently on YouTube up until that point, because I started my YouTube channel in 2015, 4 years of creating content on YouTube, you would have thought that I'd be like, sure, content, no problem. Podcast video. The idea of having that intimacy with a microphone and just talking about my stories and my thoughts, and that was so scary to me. I felt like I wasn't ready again. I was like, "I'm gonna be judged. I'm gonna make mistakes. People are going to notice. It's it's gonna be." And that was like 2020. I mean, it's six years ago, but I was already very much experienced in teaching in English. I had a big community. community by then, and still I had that fear in me, and I was postponing it and postponing it and postponing it and postponing it until I said to myself— it was the beginning of 2020— I was like, that is my New Year's resolution. I have to do it. And I did it. And once I did it, it created a completely new connection with my audience. People responded to it in such a special way. And all the fears that I've had and all the concerns, they just disappeared. And I was like, okay, it's actually not that bad. And I can edit my recordings, so even if I make mistakes, I can fix it. It's not a problem. Why did I have to feel so bad about it? Why did I feel like I'm going to confront my deepest Demons and enemies and like, what, what, what was going on in my head that made me wait for so long to do something that I really wanted? I did it. And I've learned to be forgiving with myself and to not be overly critical and not to, you know, be so nitpicky about everything and not to be perfect. That is what Recording episodes for the podcast has taught me, and again, that would not have been possible had I not decided to just go ahead and do it. I wasn't ready. I wasn't more ready one year later than I was one year prior. It was just a decision that had been made. I'm telling you all of this because the concept of being ready is big. I hear it all the time. I'm not ready to join your program, Hadar, because. I need to first improve my English. I'm not ready to speak with people. I'm not ready to post on social media. I'm not ready to start my business. I'm not ready to apply for a job. I'm like, why wait? Readiness comes from action, from mindset, from circumstances, and the wait or the expectation to be ready is a limiting belief that is holding you back from actually doing the things that you want. And the thing is that it makes you feel miserable when that happens. When you wait to be ready and you wanna do something, but you feel like you're not ready, it's almost like someone is pulling you back when you wanna move forward. And that's painful and that's frustrating and that makes you feel small. And I remember those experiences and I remember how miserable I felt and how incompetent I felt and I had shame, and none of that had to happen had I just said to myself, okay, let's just do it. Let's effing do it. We're just gonna do it. I'm telling you all of this because this is my invitation to you to do one thing that scares you, that you feel like you're not ready for, that you are waiting for something to happen to do it. I'm inviting you today to make a list of all those things that you're waiting to be ready for, whether it has to do with English or with something else, and just decide to do it because you will be surprised how ready you actually are once you do it. And if you want to share what it is that you're going to do, let me know in the comments below, and I really hope that it's going to actually get you to do Something. All right, that's it for today. I hope you enjoyed it, my story. Have a beautiful, beautiful rest of the day, and I will see you next week in the next video. Bye!