Feeling fake | Mindset Talk with Hadar

Hey, everyone. Hello. Hello. Hello. Welcome to our daily mindset Talk. This is day four. How are you doing? I'm gonna give a minute for everyone to join. If you're watching the replay, thank you for watching. I'm so happy and grateful that you're here. I do not take it for granted, especially since doing something a few days in a row is already an achievement. So well done for still being here. Hello, everyone. So today I'm broadcasting from my home. My younger daughter is not feeling well, so she's sleeping in the living room, and I'm here with her, working and broadcasting. I'm going to be back at the studio for today's core training, which is going to be about prosody, intonation, rhythm, and stress. And I really hope to see you there. Before I talk about feeling fake, which is the topic of today's talk, I want to tell you a quick story. I just got a message on Instagram from a follower. Her name is Hilda, and she was asking me something about the pronunciation challenge. And then she left me a voice memo. And she said, do you remember in the last event? So in October, we had the Fluency Festival. We have that every year, and it's a similar event where we have a lot of activities. And she said, on the first day, you invited us to make a move, because that was the theme of the first day. Make a move and do something that you don't usually do. Do something different. Do something that requires you to dare. And she told me that now because of that, she made a move and she did something that was really scary for her, which was to look for a job in English, and she landed a job as an interpreter, and she's so thrilled about it, and she said it all started with that invitation to make a move. So before. And even though it's not the theme of this challenge, because it's a pronunciation challenge, ultimately what we're doing here is building confidence and showing you that there is a lot more possible for you than just, you know, just working in your pronunciation for the sake of pronunciation. It is designed to open doors for you, and to be able to do that, to be able to get into that door, you have to make a move. So today, because of that, I invite you to make a move and do something different. That maybe you've been procrastinating, maybe you've been waiting for the right minute, but you know that it will create a better opportunity for you and better circumstances. And, of course, you know, if it has to do with English, but not even so today I'm inviting you to make a move. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about feeling fake. And I actually have another story from Instagram. I posted a clip from my weekly YouTube video where I shared my fear of feeling like an imposter when I first started teaching. And that person was really very much against the idea of teaching pronunciation or specifically American accent. And I actually agree with that. I think that no one needs to learn specifically to like, no one needs to lose their accents or to an acquire perfect American accent unless they're actors working for a specific role. But other than that, it's all about clarity over accuracy. And you know that. You know, I always say that here, but of course, on Instagram, if you don't go deeper, it's really hard for you to get the message. And then that person said something that really kind of like triggered me, even though I actually under agreed with some of the things they said. It's better for people not to work on their accents because then they just sound phony, which is the topic of today's talk. It's about feeling fake now. And I said what I think about that, you know, observation that it's judgmental in and of itself. Just like someone would judge someone else's foreign accent, judging other person's authenticity and whether or not they feel fake is also a privileged perspective. But that perspective is a lot of times what prevents us from actually doing this type of work. Because when you work on your pronunciation, you are bound to feel fake because you're doing something that is not natural. You're changing the way you pronounce things. That means that you're changing habits. And think about it. Let's say you are used to walking a certain way, and now I tell you, oh, no, you have to walk with your toes curled inside, right? It. Because that's the healthiest way for you to walk. Otherwise you would, I don't know, you would lose your ability to walk. Then it would feel fake at the beginning, and then it would feel less fake. And then, you know, I, I don't think it's the most natural thing to do. But ultimately, when you do something enough times, you develop a new habit and it stops feeling fake. But there is a point, especially with pronunciation, where it does feel fake and artificial. And a lot of times people stop at that point because it doesn't feel like themselves anyway. Speaking in a second language may make you feel inauthentic, and as a result, you may stop, you may feel like, oh, this is not right. It doesn't feel right because your authenticity radar or meter will say, no, no, no, this is wrong anyway. I don't feel, I don't feel. It doesn't feel right. And I want you to embrace that feeling and to know that it's a natural part of this process. So on one hand you have how you feel when you practice, but on the other hand, you have that voice of people like the person who made that comment about, oh, they sound phony, or, or maybe your friends or family who might say, that doesn't sound like you. Who are you trying to be? Who are you trying to pretend to be? Who do you think you are? And even if they might not say it sometimes that's the inner critic that may have, like, say these things, right? So we're both feeling in inauthentic and artificial, but we're also afraid of people actually validating that fear. And as a result, what it does is that it really, it becomes such an obstacle for people to actually do the work and get past that stage. And then people get stuck in that stage because they're not, they're not willing to push themselves to go beyond the feeling fake until they make it their own. It's also a matter of habit. It's also a matter of consistency, persistence, all of that good stuff, right? But it's also the mental understanding of, oh, people might think that I'm different and they wouldn't accept me, or they would think, who do you think you are? So I'm not saying that this is not a real thing. It is a real thing. But you have to understand that, first of all, going back to what we said today, other people's opinions are their business. They're entitled to have their opinions, but they shouldn't determine how we operate or the decisions that we make, or it shouldn't affect the outcome of our lives or the things that we do. Right? We want to see certain results in our lives, and they should be the outcome of what we do and not the outcome of what they think. So remember that if you keep doing the work. And again, seven days is not enough to get past the feeling of fakeness and the artificial feeling. It does take a little bit more time, but it does happen for me, you know, and this was not my accent 20 years ago. And there was a point where it felt really, really fake for me to speak with a different accent or with the accent that I used to have, where the, the old pronunciation would now feel fake because this is my, my natural, this is how I feel. Most authentic. And the last thing I want to mention is that when there is a gap between who you are inside and how you feel you are portrayed, then it really kicks off the imposter syndrome. This feeling like you're not good enough. This feeling that people are going to find out that you're a fraud. Now, I have a lot to say about the imposter syndrome. If you're in my English mindset course, then you've already gone through this training, probably. And I have a podcast episode about it that I'm going to link to it because, like, if you want to dive deep into this concept, but it's a psychological pattern that prevents you from being able to celebrate your achievements, to acknowledge your achievements. And you. You're constantly in this fear that people are going to discover that you're a fraud. And it happens anyway when we speak a second language, because we're never going to be in English like we are in our first language, and even more so if we have that additional barrier of feeling fake because of our pronunciation. So I wanted to use this time to tell you that it's a perfectly fine to feel artificial. In fact, it means that you're doing a good job because you're not supposed to feel comfortable at first when you work on your pronunciation. Second, do it enough times and you will make it your own and it will no longer feel phony and artificial. And three, if you're afraid of other people's opinions and afraid of this judgment of, oh, you sound fake, you sound phony, you sound artificial, then remember that you're doing things for yourself and not for them. And while feedback is always great to get if it's done in the right way, it's important to remember that you should stay in your lane, do your thing and get the results that you're after. All right, my friends here, Amar, just shared the episode for the imposter syndrome. Thank you, Amar. So you can go ahead and listen to it if you want to explore it a bit more. And that's it for today. These are 10 minutes about mindset, so I'd love to hear your thoughts about it. If you're watching this, even the replay, let me know in the comments what you think and I will see you later in the daily training about intonation rhythm, stress, connected speech, and all of that good stuff. Super excited for that. Have a good day and I'll talk to you all very soon. Thank you so much for being here.