#Goals

Hey, everyone. Hello, hello, Hello. Welcome to day one of the Start Strong challenge. We are here together. It is the beginning of 2024 and we are going to make this year the best year we've ever had. Are you in? Are you on board with me? And during this week, during the this seven day challenge, we are going to make sure that we're setting ourselves up for success. I am so happy that you're here. Say hi in the comments. Hello. Hello, Hello. So good to see you all. It's so good to start the new year. I know it's not exactly the new year. We are almost at the end of January, but you guys, the beginning of January is so busy with events and things and getting back on track after the long holiday and. And this is it for those of you who celebrate the holidays at the end of December. So this is why we wanted to give you some time and right before you get back into the rut, the regular routine, and right before you forget all the things that you wish for yourself at the beginning of the year, we are going to pull you back and we are going to make magic happen. Are we? Good? Good. So let me know right now in the chat what your name is and where you're from. Now I can see your name. If you're watching this on Facebook, inside our Facebook group, you can click the link that is right above my video so that you. I can actually see your name because I can't always see your name. It just always shows up as Facebook user. And if you're watching this on the website, then I can see your name. I can see your YouTube user. Okay, good. Alexander from Ukraine. Hello. Hello. Amar from Egypt. Farima from Nicaragua. We have Laura from Madagascar and Nastique from. Wait, wait. From. I lost it. It's going so fast. Olga from Ukraine. Hello. Anna from Spain. Hello. Hello. Hello. Suya from Ireland. Welcome. Alina originally from unspecified. Okay. France, from France. Hello, friends. And Davide from Italy. Vanessa from Colombia. Welcome, Vanessa. Claudia is here. Francel from Canada. Diallo from Germany. Hello. Claudia from Connecticut. Oh, yeah. Thank you. And good. Look at us, my friends. This is the essence of the global world we live in. Look at what's possible in a given second. You can connect from with all of these incredible people from around the world. This makes me so happy. I'm so grateful, so honored that you decided to join this challenge you today, this month, this year. Now here's the thing. The idea of this challenge is to set a clear vision for this year. I'm going to give you Some tips on how to stick to your goals throughout the year. Also, it's a great opportunity to connect, to make friends, to be a part of a strong community that will get you into the groove of practicing your English, speaking with other people and hopefully even make connections that would last until the end of the year and beyond. So the purpose is for you to do things differently, to get out of your comfort zone, to get excited about your English practice, to find joy in your English practice and to do this work. Because if you do this work, then you are going to see results and I want to be here to see your results. I want you to come back at the end of the year and tell me Hadar I have achieved my goals. And goals by the way, is the topic of today's session and now just a quick preview about regarding the challenge and how it's going to work every day for the next five days, including today. So until Friday, Monday through Friday, I'm going to go live exactly at this time every single day. It's going to be about 20, 30 minutes. I'm going to give you the some tips on how to approach the daily topic. And then also we are going to have your workbook with a checklist where you'll be invited to complete the daily tasks. The first one is to do the daily sprint. You can do it first thing in the morning. It's even recommended. A sprint is a 10 minute pronunciation practice designed to boost your pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary. So you'll have a 10 minute sprint to kick off your day. Okay. Then you also would be invited to attend conversation groups. We have a couple conversation groups every single day. So each choose the time zone, the the the time that is good for you. You don't have to attend all conversation groups. You can if you want to, but you really don't have to if you can attend 1, 2, 3 throughout the entire challenge. That's amazing. You have plenty to choose from and of course you can choose more. But go to the calendar and make sure that you add to your own personal calendar the sessions that you would like to attend. Okay, so you have the daily checklist, you can join the conversation groups, you have the daily sprint. And after my live, you're going to be I'm going to direct you back to the checklist to answer some questions related to the daily topic. So today we are talking about goals and we are going to get started with that. So here's the thing. I know that for a lot of you, when you think about your English or when you Think about what you want for yourself. The first thing that comes up. Okay. What is the first thing that comes up? Let me ask you this before I tell you what you think, right? When you think about improving your English. Put all the words that come to your brain when. When you think about what you wish for yourself for 2024. Just write it down. I'm going to read it out loud as we go through it. Okay? What do you wish for yourself when it comes to your. The things that you want for yourself in English in 2024? Grammar. Fluency. Fear. Probably you don't want fear. You want to avoid fear. Right? Fluency. Express my thoughts. Listening. Confidence. Fluent. Right. Speaking. Freedom. Now I know I tricked you because I said one word, which is fantastic. That's what I wanted. More vocabulary. Danielle used two words. You can use more than one word. It's okay. Happiness. Love it. The purpose. The main purpose. Happiness. Joy. Opportunities. Right. Being confident. Confidence. Confidence. Confidence. We get a lot of confidence here. Improve my English and speak fluently. Free speaking. Love it. Clarity. Communication from. With people all over the world, my friend. You are going to achieve that this week already. So you can cross off your goals for 2024. Because if you'll be in this challenge, you will be communicating with people from around the world. Okay? Frustration. So probably avoid frustration, right? This is. You don't want frustration anymore. Confidence. Social skills. Health. Beautiful. Like so much ties into communicating confidently in a second language, right? Especially if you live in an English speaking country. Especially if you've immigrated. Especially if you work at a global company. Especially if you aspire to study at a global university or work at a global company, right? Like there is so much at stake when it comes to English. But sometimes a lot of you wrote comments. But I'm sure that a lot of you watching haven't written any comments or any, any, any words or anything. Because. Because in many cases people have this general feel that they want to improve their English, but they don't know exactly what it would look like for them. They don't know what their goals are. So they want to move forward, but they don't know exactly what forward looks like. They don't have a clear vision of what they want. And this is critical because if you want to move forward, if you want to get somewhere, you have to imagine that somewhere so you'll know where to go. There is so much that is directed at us throughout the day, right? Information. Opportunities. What's the word? I forgot. Not threats. Completely lost the word. Wait. Distractions. Yeah, Threats. The Word that came up was threats, because to me, a distraction is a threat, right? But distractions, things that get us to, like, you know, we want to do one thing, one thing, but other things get in the way. So we have all of that coming at us during the day. And sometimes we think that just being in motion is progress, but it's not. Because if you don't have a clear vision where to, where you want to go, you might be in motion, but you might be going in all sorts of directions. Not moving forward at all, moving sideways, upwards, downwards, but that's it. Think of it as if you are getting in your car and you start driving. So you're driving, you're in motion, but if you don't punch in the destination in your gps, how will you ever get there? So you first know what the destination is and what it looks like. So you know where to go. So you get the direction, so you take the action needed. You turn right, you turn left, you take the action needed to get to that destination, but you got to know that destination, right? Most importantly, and this is speaking from personal experience, when I set goals in my company, I don't do it just for, you know, achieving that goal. It's also for me to know what not to do. Because like I said, there are a lot of distractions, a lot of temptations. That's another good word that I wanted to use. A lot of temptations, a lot of things that we should, we think that we should do, that we might want to do, that we are interested in, we're curious, especially, you know, people like you, who are. You like to achieve things, you're curious, you like to learn on your own, you want to know everything. And then what happens is that you are all over the place, right? Like, and, and, and, and this is not helping you get to where you want to go. So even if you have a clear direction, if you don't take the necessary action, you probably won't get there. And even if you take the necessary action but you're not focused on it, you might be doing other things. And here's the thing, knowing where you want to go helps you know where not to go, what to say no to. Okay? Especially opportunities. Especially opportunities that, say, seem like good for you, but they're different than what you set for yourself. Now, listen, we are talking about our English goals, but it does not mean that you can't use this opportunity to set personal goals, professional goals, because ultimately, if we want to become better communicators, we need to feel like we are, you know, fulfilling ourselves. We're living our full potential. And it goes far beyond English. English is just a tool to live a better life, to live the life you want, right? To change your life and to say, this is what, what I, what I do now is what I want to do. Okay, so why am I saying all of that? Because today we are going to set our goals and we're going to set English goals, but you can also set personal or professional goals. What I'm going to be teaching you is going to be related to, you know, being able to achieve these goals. Of course I'm going to connect it to English. But like I said, this is your opportunity to gain clarity and, and, and understand your vision for 2024. Now, the fact that this is January doesn't make it any more special than any other date, okay? Because ultimately, at any given time, you can say to yourself, in the next 90 days, I want to achieve this. In the next 12 months, I want to achieve that. It's perfectly fine. I just think that the momentum of the beginning of the year is a good opportunity because usually at the end of the year, we reflect back, we look back and we say to ourselves, you know, I achieved what I wanted or not. And then we set goals. And hey, sometimes you change your goal. Sometimes you need to set a goal just to understand that it's not the right goal. And then you might need to shift and then you might need to change it. And that is also okay. We gotta be agile and compassionate. In our company. We set a lot of goals. So right before, right, last week, we had a two day annual session of our company. We use this system to manage our company. It's called EOS Entrepreneurial Operating System. And we looked back at some of the goals that we've set at the beginning of 2023. And let me tell you this, some of the things that were on that list, we haven't achieved them. And I was perfectly okay with it because halfway through the year I realized that it's actually, we have set the wrong goal. Right? So sometimes that happens. You shouldn't be too hard on yourself. You just understand it and you keep going and you have better clarity and, and focus for next time. So right now, like as part of today's, today's work, I want you to also think about goals that you haven't achieved in 2023 and ask yourself why that is. Maybe it was just not a good enough goal. Maybe it was too ambitious. Maybe it was just not interesting enough for you. And maybe you changed your mind and that is okay too. Okay, so that is something that I'm adding to today's homework. To think about goals that you haven't achieved before and try to understand why that is. Okay, good. Let me take a minute and look at the chat. Good, good, good. You know what happened to me once? I was so passionate about saying something in one of the lives, and then only after I checked the messages, and then, you know, I see hundreds of comments saying, we can't hear you. Hadar. No audio. Can someone hear her? No, we can't. And then I was like talking for 10 minutes and everyone was just like looking at me. Okay, I'm glad this is not the case. So now we're going to talk about goals and how to set them. Because today's homework is to set your three goals for 2024. Why three? Because research shows that if you focus on less, you tend to achieve it. So I'm not a fan of adding like 10 goals for the next year. It's good to have it. But if you're focused on three big goals and even less, you are more likely to achieve them. And also if you commit to it publicly, you're more likely to achieve it. So we're gonna set goals today, three goals. And I encourage you also to share it in the group or with people around you. You can share it with your family, you can share it with your friends so that it will. You are. You will be more likely to actually commit to it. Because we're human beings and we need people to hold us accountable, right? To. To feel like we're obligated, obliged, it's like internal obligation to do this, not just for ourselves, but to make sure that, you know, to. To show other people that we do what we say we're going to do. So now let's talk about the goals. And if you haven't heard me talk about this, I want to talk about smart goals. Do you know what smart goals are? And these are the goals that we're going to set for today. Put yes or no. If you know, if you don't, that's perfectly fine. But the thing about goals is that when I asked you, Mamadou, yes, you can absolutely set goals that are not related to English. And moreover, I'm going to tell you that I'm assuming that a lot of the goals that you have. Wait, let me change it a little bit. A lot of the goals that you have for yourself, you might need English for. So, for example, you might say, hey, I Want to get a better job, right? Land an international job. So obviously it's not about English, but you might need English for it because you might need to go through an interview or move to a different country. Same thing. Okay, so it doesn't particularly has to be about English, not at all. But it would be a good opportunity to think about the things that English can help you with, help you achieve. Okay, so a lot of times, and also today, good, you know this, you know this. Good for you. Okay, good. Some no's. So I will go through this really quickly and just explain how that looks like when it comes to English. So a lot of times when I asked you, when I ask people, what do you want to achieve in 2024, for example, I hear I want to be more fluent, more vocabulary, more confidence. And all of that is great. It's like a strong emotion or a strong concept of what needs to be improved. But if the goal is improve my vocabulary, how will you know that you have achieved it? If the goal is to be more confident, how will you know? The tricky thing about progress is that every time you progress a little bit, it always feels like it's not enough. It always feels like you have so much more to learn and you forget that you've actually progressed. Right? And then we also tend to gravitate towards the negative. And then what happens is that we always feel like we're not doing enough even though we have progressed. So this is why it's really important to set smart goals, measurable goals, practical goals that we'd be able to look and say yes or no. Okay, goals that there is only one yes to or one no to. Have I improved my confidence 80%? Yes, 20 no. It's not good enough for us because, because, and, and remember, like the, the purpose is to achieve the goal, but also the purpose is to move towards your goal. So even if you don't achieve that goal by the end of 2024, and you're very close to it, you have still, you know, made significant improvement and made a difference in your life. So this is a smart goal, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound. So the last part is solved for us because we're setting goals for 2024. If you want to get fancy, you can also set specific goals for each quarter. I'm going to talk about that in a second to break it down. But right now we're setting goals for 2024. So the deadline is December 31, 2024, time bound. That means that there is A quick. A clear deadline. Consider yourself. I want to improve my English without the buy part. Then it's too general. But also, you know, when will you be able to say, now, I'm gonna, you know, I cross it off my list. So I'll start with the first one. Specific. It has to be very specific. That's like a clear, you know, you know what that looks like. So, for example, improve my vocabulary is a little general. So if you can say something like, increase the. The. The professional vocabulary I use in meeting, session or in meetings at work by 20%. Okay? So it's a bit more specific and it's also measurable. Okay? Or another example, specific and measurable. And I like to connect them together because specific is like, you know exactly what it means. And measurable, you can measure it. If you feel like you get stuck very often, you can say to yourself, I want to be able to speak in English about myself or my work experience for five minutes without getting stuck for more than 10 seconds. Okay? So let's say now you get stuck for 20 seconds, 30 seconds. You can say to yourself, okay, this is what I want to achieve, right? Or I want to be able to give a presentation in front of a group of more than 10 people at my work. Okay? Specific. You can even be more specific. A presentation about our project or our product for more than 10 people in person. Very specific. Measurable. Because there is like, that one day that you would be delivering that. That presentation. Achievable. Okay? So you could have that goal. But let's say you are just starting out in English, you don't have any work experience, and this is your goal. It's not that it's not achievable overall, but is it achievable within the next 11 months? Right? Or I want to give a TED Talk in front of 5,000 people about something that you are currently pursuing in your studies. Not impossible, right? But to be able to have the satisfaction of actually achieving it, it has to be achieved. Like, you have to make it realistic, okay? You have to make it realistic and something that you can actually achieve within 12 months. Now, don't play small, okay? It's okay to have to set goals that are a stretch. I love setting stretch goals. My team doesn't always love it when I set stretch goals because then we just don't. We don't achieve them. But I love also setting stretch goals because it makes you think big. It makes you also, you know, shoot really, really far. And where you end up landing is also pretty amazing. Right. So I'm not saying play small, but also make sure that it's something that you can actually achieve, that it's not dependent on so many aspects or elements that would make it impossible for you to achieve. So specific, measurable, so you can measure it. Okay. Time, percentage, so on and so forth. It has to be relevant, so relevant for your life. I want world peace by the end of 2024 is an amazing goal to have, especially in the days that we are living these days. However, it may not be relevant, probably not achievable as well. So you know, you want to make it relevant to you, to your life and about you. So it's not about other people. It's not something that is dependent on other people. I want to get my visa approved by, you know, this and that. So like it something that you can actually accomplish. Although this is a pretty good goal, like if you're applying for a visa. So this is me just saying everything that comes to my mind. So smart goals, specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time bound. Do you have any questions about this? Now, I think that when it comes to English specifically, it's sometimes harder to set measurable or achievable goals. And this is where you can actually decide to turn your goal into a practice goal. So this is something I often do with my students is I change it to from, you know, a specific goal that is related to the results. In English, I am more fluent, I use more words, I don't make grammar mistakes, which is also perfectly fine to have as a goal. But you can also set a goal to practice every week for three hours, right? Or practice every day forever. Now my mic has unplugged. Right? What happened? Okay, now I'm back. Can you hear me? Yes, all good. My, my. The battery died. Okay, good. Where was I? We talked about goals. Lost my train of thought. Okay, yes. Setting, setting clear goal, practice goals. Okay? So you can say to yourself, this is my goal to set a practice goal of practicing 10 minutes every day. At least 10 minutes, five days a week. Here's the thing, if you do that, your improvement is guaranteed, right? Especially if you also listen to some of the tips that I have to share with you here and also on my YouTube channel. Because if you practice every single day, that's the thing, right, my friends? That's the thing. You will improve. So even if you don't know how to quantify or measure your English progress, you can measure your practice, which is something very, very technical. Anna says passing a C1 Cambridge exam would be a smart goal. Absolutely. If you say passing a C1 Cambridge examination by the end of 2024. So the way we phrase it, it would be by the end of 2024, I will pass a C1 Cambridge exam. Okay. Or get a passing score. Absolutely. Great. Smart goal. Smart, smart goal. Let's. I'd like. So you can, you can start writing your goals. You're gonna need some time for it, so don't feel pressured to do it right now. You have the checklist. In the checklist, we will direct you on how to do it. But if you feel like you already have a clear idea, you can write it here and I can comment on it. I would like to chat with everyone every day. So I don't know if it's very achievable because chatting with everyone is, is a. Everyone who's like everyone in the world. I think maybe chatting with someone or speaking English every day. Because the reason why that could be. Not be achievable is because you're dependent on someone. What happens if one day you can't find someone to speak with or they're sick? Your conversation partner. So practice English speaking every single day. You can also do it on your own. So that is more achievable. Okay. And a bit more specific. Now landing a job in English is also a fantastic, fantastic goal. It's measurable, it's specific, it's achievable, relevant and time bound. Right. And the byproduct is that you would have to improve your English. You would have to practice for a job interview. You, you would have to do all those things that will end up leading you to achieving this goal. So it doesn't have to be specifically about English. It could also be about the, the outcome, the byproduct of you improving your English. The opportunity. I would like to turn my YouTube channel in English. Fantastic. You want to start your own YouTube channel. That's a great goal. Past ielts. It's, it's a really cool goal, at least for self confidence. For self confidence, for opportunities. Absolutely. You can even set a number with us. A seven score. Right? Okay, good. Nanak says by the end of 2024, I will be able to speak English with, without pause, without repeating myself. The level of fluency. I want it to be fantastic. Right. And even try to make it more specific or like have a little bit of grace there without pausing for more than you know. Because sometimes we pause even in our first language. So just to make it practical. Is thinking in English achievable goal. It's not, it's achievable, but it's not very specific and it's not very measurable because how do you measure your thoughts? But what would be the outcome of thinking in English? Speaking immediately, without hesitation, responding more often, engaging in conversations 100% more than what I'm engaging right now. Right. Making friends in English. Like what is it preventing you from doing? Right. Thinking in English and then maybe reverse engineer it. Say to yourself, because of that, I'm not speaking to my neighbors or I'm not making friends. How about, you know, I, I have five new friends who are English speakers or who are global speakers and I meet them for coffee. Right. And, and, and this is like the outcome or something that would be possible once you start thinking in English or once you build your confidence. So think. You can also reverse engineer it and think about the outcome of, of not having the challenge that you're facing with. Okay. Learn. Memorize four words daily. That's great. I would also, you know. Yeah, that's, that's a great goal. I would also maybe do it weekly. So you're not. So it's more realistic. Let's say one day you want to take off, speak clearly with all consonants in six months. Great. Okay. All consonants. Even try to be more specific because you don't need all consonants. Some of the consonants are not an issue for you, so you don't need to practice it. Maybe like the top three, four consonants that are posing a challenge for you. Okay, good. Yeah. If you have a connection issue, connectivity issue, it's probably on your end so you can disconnect and come back. Because they see that for some it's okay and for some is it's other others. Oh, memorize. Okay, let's sing with Fabio. Memorize. 70% of my vocabulary list I already built. Fantastic. So you already have a list. I love it. That you said. I want to focus on the list that I've built. I don't want to start collecting more words. I love it. I think it's. It's smart and smart. Okay. Learn. Get it. It's smart and a smart goal. Okay, good. Beautiful. So now you are committing by writing this to yourself that you are actually going to do this. And I a hundred percent believe in you. Now here's the thing. Once you write down those goals, you need three. I want you to put them somewhere visible, write it on a post it note or a blank piece of paper and put it in front of you. We often forget so you'll gain Momentum. We'll do some work with these goals in the next few days. Okay. You'll be sharing them. That's great. But then next week, the following month, in six months, it's so easy to forget. Put it somewhere that is visible. I always share that. I'm going to share that again. There was a time I don't do it anymore. I'm going to come back to it. That for a whole year I would write my 10 goals. It wasn't for a specific time, but things. 10 things I wanted to achieve. I wrote it every single day in the morning. And it really helped me focus my energy and focus my, my, my intention on those things. Because even not even within the week, within the day, you have all these different distractions and temptations. And starting the day with looking at your goals is a really great way to center yourself and to remind yourself what's important so you can keep taking action to achieve those goals, but also to say no to the things that are not getting you there. So, for example, if your goal is to land a job in English and now you're getting a job offer and you don't know if you should take it, and it's not in English and you're not like, it's a little better, but it's not really what you wanted, but you feel like it's time for a change, maybe it's. It would just distract you from working towards getting that one specific goal of getting the right job in English. Because also my friends know that when you work in English, that is the thing that is going to help you massively improve. A lot of times people say, I'm going to first improve my English, then I'm going to work in English, then I'm going to find a job. A lot of times I tell my students, if you can communicate, if you can pass the, the interview, have a conversation that will be sustained like that you can sustain in a job interview. You can probably do the job and improve yourself on the go. Okay. So don't be afraid of taking risks, especially when it comes. Because English improves when you need to use it. And working in English is, you know, is a great way to do it. Okay, good. Oh, I love that. To speak only English with my family the whole day, once a week. That's a cool goal for everyone to understand better. The courses in English I take online. Fantastic. Try to describe or not what understand better means, right? 80%, 90%, not having to go to the dictionary, blah, blah, blah. Like, try to even be more specific. This Is good, but try to be even more specific. Good. Okay, so to wrap up. Your goal for today is to do the sprint. If you haven't done it, someone asked me how to do it. You just follow along. Okay. It's like we're both practicing together. I know I go a little quickly, so. So I say sounds, words, phrases, and you just need to repeat after me. It's kind of like you're echoing me. And the idea of sprints is the repetition, repetition of sounds, grammatical structures, repetition of new words, phrases. Okay? So repetition is key, and you can slow it down. If you feel it's too fast, you can pause and repeat. But it was designed for you to just follow along. It does not have to be perfect. You might miss out some words, you might miss out some sounds, but it's okay. It's like really going to the gym. When I go to a dance class or a gym class, I'm always a little behind, right? Like, because I. I always say that in terms of movement, I feel a little dyslexic. Like, I. It's. I. I don't get that. So sometimes I'm behind, and I'm, like, kind of, like, not following all steps, and that is okay. This is how I want you to do the sprints. So you have the sprints, you have conversation groups, and lastly, you have the three goals to set for yourself and. And also all the other elements that are included in the workbook. Okay, my friends, that is it for today. Tomorrow, I'm gonna see you at the same time as we have met today. Thank you so much. You guys. Guys are amazing. Thank you for doing this. Thank you for believing in yourself. And don't be shy. Make connections, comments on comments on videos. Show up on video. Do things differently. What got you here won't get you there. So if you want to get somewhere that you haven't gotten to yet, new places, then you need to try different things. Okay? You got to put yourself out there and be vulnerable and be open and try out. Might not be that bad as you imagine it to be. Okay. Might even be fun. All right, my friends. Take care. I'll see you tomorrow.