#Habits

Hello. Welcome to day four of the Start Strong challenge. How are you doing? What are you doing? Where are you at? How are you enjoying the challenge so far? Have you been following the process day by day by day? Have you been doing your homework? Have you been joining conversation groups? Let me know in the chat, so I know and I understand the sentiment and the vibe. I'm sure a lot of you are watching the replay, so you can comment on the website or inside the Facebook group if you're watching it after it goes live. But in the meantime. Hi, everyone. How come there is no sound? Okay, can you hear me? Seems like. Can you hear me? Someone said no sound, but maybe it's just you because I tested it. Yes. Okay. So I'm assuming you can. Okay, good. Guys, don't scare me. Check if your speaker is on first. All right, good, good, good. Let us know where you're from. Okay. Where are you connecting to us from right now? Let us know. I'm really, really curious. Good. My friends, today we are going to talk about habits. I know I talk a lot about habits, but first of all, some of you are new to me, so this is the first time you're training with me and trying to understand how we work, how I talk about things, how I talk about your English practice. So I'm. And also, it's never enough to hear about that. And here is why I want to talk about it first, because so far, we have touched upon very important things. We talked about setting goals, so you know where you go. Right. We also talked about how capable we are as human beings. We talked about our strengths. That was day two. So on day one, we set goals. On day two, we. We talked about our strengths, the things that we're really good at that are going to help us accomplish those goals. We need to remind ourselves of those things. We also started collected collecting some accomplishments and wins from 2023. We reminded ourselves what are the hard things that we were able to overcome to. To prove to ourselves that we have done a lot in the past and we're capable of doing a lot in the future. Right. Because we tend to forget. We tend to forget how well we are doing, actually. So we did that on day two. On day three, we started talking about mindset. We created a vision for who you want to be and how you need to feel and what you need to do once you get the things that you want, once you kind of like, become the person you want to become. So we created a vision, and we also selected three core values that you are going to come back to every time you have a question, every time you don't, you're not sure what you need to do, every time you're debating whether or not you should. Should go in a certain direction. And we said that we need goals on one hand to show us the way and to remind ourselves what to say no to, but also values so we remember what is really, really important for us. Okay. And when anything that comes up is just distracting us from sticking to our values and sticking to our goals, we just need to say no to. That's how you get done. Okay, I'm going to tell you that again. If you want to get stuff done, if you want to reach your goals, you need to learn how to say no to a lot of things. And that is also how to say no to a lot of people who want things from you and say more yes to yourself. And yes to yourself means saying no to other things and other people sometimes because you can't do it all. You can't. And if you decide to do it all, you may reach your goals, but probably not in 2024. So if you have goals for 2024, we need to commit to it. You need to keep your word to yourself, and you need to say no to things. And our goals and our values are going to help us with that. And the, the. The resilience that we've built and who we are as individuals, our mindset, our history, our ability to adapt to situations is what is going to help us persist and do the work needed. However. Because there's always a however. You may say to yourself, hadar, I have my goal. Hadar, I know where I'm going. Hadar, I know how I want to feel. But what if I lose motivation? What if I wake up one morning and I just don't feel like it? I don't feel like it. I don't. I don't want to practice. I don't feel like learning with another person or practicing English or speaking in English. And I don't feel like making that phone call in English. I'm just not motivated. I feel stuck. I feel like I'm in a plateau. What do I do? Here is the good news. You don't need motivation. You need motivation to get started. But motivation is not what's going to keep you going for the next 12 months. It just doesn't last. It's. It's because motivation is like a boost of energy and it's like peak performance, right? Like so. So usually do you know this thing where you start a new course or there is this challenge or. Or something fresh is happening. It's the beginning of the year, and you have this boost of motivation, and you're like, I feel like it can go like this forever. And then the days go by and all of a sudden all these things start coming up, and then there are more important things, and all of a sudden you're not as motivated, and then you kind of like get lazy, and then you forget to do it one day or you're, you know, you're like, should I really do it? Does that really help me? And then you stop doing it and then you go. You fall off track, right? Because motivation is not the source of energy and will not be able to give you the power to keep going for the long run. It gives you a boost, which is essential. We need it. This is why we're doing this challenge. A boost. But to maintain it, you got to have the right infrastructure. And that, my friends, is the habits that you need to build. Learning a language or speaking a second language or doing anything that is good for you that will help you develop as a human being means that you're going to have to do tedious things that you don't want to do, that you're going to get rewarded on them later on, right? Because when you practice English, you might feel accomplished for doing the work that you said, but you're not going to feel immediate improvement right after. You're not going to feel like you've used 20% new vocabulary. Like your vocabulary is not going to increase by 20% after one conversation, right? It's like gradual growth that you usually don't see the difference when it's day by day by day. And when you don't have that immediate reward, it's really hard to stick to it. But, and that's the thing, when you learn another language, building strong learning habits and practice habits is essential. And that is what we're going to talk about today. Now, not only that, speaking a second language is all about habits. It's not just about the learning habits. It's the thinking habits, right? The way you think about things, the way you think about your struggles, the way you think about mistakes, right? We need to change those habits. The way you use sounds in your mouth. Habits, grammar habits, sounds habits, vocabulary habits. It's all habits. What are habits? Things that you do automatically without thinking about it, right? So in your first language, you don't need to think about the sentence before you say it, you just say it, right? Because it's already a habit. Those words are habitual. Like this. The grammatical structure is habitual. You don't think about past, present, or future or perfect. You know, present perfect or past perfect when you're structuring a sentence. But you still need to do it in a second language because it's not yet a habit. It's not automatic, right? So we need to build speaking habits. To do that, we need repetition, we need consistency. That's how you build habits, right? You want to build a habit, you gotta. You got repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, consistency, repetition, right? You repeat it enough times, it becomes a habit. That's it. There's all there is to it. The hard part is, you know, to be able to sit down and do the thing that should do those repetitions. And that happens with practice. So to be able to allow yourself the environment where you repeat and things until you they become a habit, you have to build practice habits. And that's all about sitting down and doing the work with your mouth, with your ears, with your eyes, and with your brain, right? So to build speaking habits, grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary, you need practice habits. How do we build practice habits? Well, it's easier said than done, right? Sit down every day for 10 to 15 to 30 minutes, do the work. Right. And I have a lot of videos that are going to that that can help you with understanding what you need to do every single day. In fact, just this week, I released a video on what your daily practice should include. So if you're thinking about, okay, but what do I do? This week's video is exactly for you, okay? And if you need extra help, and if you want more guidance tomorrow, I can tell you a bit more about how we can guide you even more to build those speaking and practice habits. Okay? But today I want to bring it back to this idea that it's all about sitting down and doing it for 15 to 30 minutes every single day, even 10 minutes. Okay? The daily sprints that you are now doing every single day, the daily sprints are designed to help you build those habits. So in the daily sprints, you repeat words, phrases, sentences, scenes, sounds, grammatical structures, right? And that repetition will help you own it and use it automatically. So, yes. What's the problem? Just sit for 15 minutes every single day? That's the problem. Why is it so hard to stick to your habit? Here's the thing. To be able to maintain a habit, three things need to happen. A trigger something that triggers you to perform the habit, the habit itself, and then the reward. So let's think of bad habits. Because it's a lot easier to acquire bad habits, right? And harder to acquire good habits. So let's say our phones. A bad habit would be you always checking your phone. What is, how do we build that habit? First comes the notification. There's a notification on your phone and you're like, oh, I gotta check it. So then you check it. That's the habit. And you scroll through, or you check your messages, or you check your Instagram or your Facebook page or account, right? And then there is the reward. Your curiosity is satisfied, right? So you get an immediate reward. Or let's say every time you walk by the kitchen cabinet, you have a tendency of kind of like grabbing something to eat, right? So the trigger is you passing by the kitchen cabinet. And. And then the habit is eating, and then the reward is you feel satisfied, right? Like that urge to eat something or the craving is being satisfied. That is the reward, the immediate reward. This is why bad habits are really easy to acquire, because we get an immediate reward. So that is the. To be able to build a habit, you need those three things. So if you want to build a learning habit, a practice habit, and you don't have. And the habit itself is sit down and practice for 15 minutes to be able to maintain it, you also need to include a trigger and a reward. Okay? That is going to help you maintain this habit. So what is a trigger? What is a possible trigger? It has to be artificial, right? It's not like you're going to wake up in the morning and then English is going to come to you and say, hey, come practice with me, right? No. So you need to have some kind of trigger that will, that will, that will automate your English practice. So you can say to yourself, okay, after I brush my teeth and I drink my morning coffee, I'm going to practice for 10 to 15 minutes. So you connect maybe another habit or something that you already do regularly, and you say, this is going to be the trigger of me doing the work. And then the reward could be, okay, once I'm. I finish practicing my English, I can be on social media for 10 or 15 minutes, or I'm going to eat my lunch right after that, or I'm going to do something fun for myself. So you want to connect a reward to the habit itself, because you don't have an immediate reward when you practice a language. So this is one thing that can help you start building the habit. Another thing is a mindset shift, right? You gotta say to yourself, what is it? Who do I want to be, right? Remember the person who I want to be to become, what does he or she, what do he or she do? What does he or she do daily? How do they behave? What are their daily habits, right? And you want to operate from that place. So that's another thing. It's kind of like you want to think about your future self and not what you want right now. Because immediate like obviously if you say to yourself I need to sit down and practice and right now it's not a part of your identity, it's not a part of your day to day habit routine, then your brain is going to want to talk you out of it. Why? You know, I need, I need to check my email or I prefer to watch a movie instead or it just feels like I'm too tired for it. You'll find excuses for not like you will talk yourself out of it eventually if you don't have that habit. So again like the trigger and the reward can help you with that. The mindset work saying okay, but I'm not operating from my current self. I'm operating from my future self. And my future self practices English daily. They have the confidence to practice English daily. They have the confidence to speak. And I'm going to operate from that perspective, from that point of view, right? Another thing you can do is to create a streak, right? Where you maybe you can put a calendar on the wall or a list of days where you cross out every single day. So you can like you know how it is when we start a streak. Duolingo uses that where you or any habit based application where if you lose one day you're going to lose your streak. I used to write using this website called 750words where every day you need to write 750words for copywriters and authors and people who like to write. And it just gets you into the habit of writing and count your words. And then once you are, you get to 750 words you get like a check mark. And people do it for years, right? Like people have streaks for years and they don't miss out even one day because they're going to ruin their streak. So that's another way to keep a habit. And the, the, the last thing I want to say is to two more things. Another way to stay on track and maintain your habits is to make a public commitment or not even a public commitment, just to write it to yourself every day I'm going to, in the next three months, every day I will be practicing my English for at least 15 minutes research shows, and I've read that in the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, research shows that if you write something, you're three times more likely to do it. And if you write something and you share it publicly, then the chances of you actually doing it are a lot higher. So another opportunity to use this group to make a public commitment and to so, so that you would feel more committed to what you say that you're going to do. And now I'm just, I'm not talking about the goal. I'm talking about the daily practice that you're committing to. Some of you have made it, have turned it into your goals, which is excellent. And some of you have set a, a specific goal, a smart goal. But how do we get there? By building habits. What would be your daily habit? I want you to make that commitment for yourself and for others. And the last thing that could help you stick to your habits and to be, is to be in the right environment. If you are trying to build a new habit, to develop a new habit, and you're around people who are so not interested in that thing that you're trying to develop, you are a lot less likely to do it. But what environment really does impact you significantly? So when you put yourself in an environment and around people who already do the thing that you want to do, who already have the habit that you want to develop, you are a lot more likely to actually develop that habit. Because people influence us, people inspire us. We don't want to disappoint ourselves, we don't want to disappoint them. And this is why we're a lot more likely to show up, to be and to do the work. I see it inside those challenges that we have inside, beyond which is my English practice community, the festival fact that everyone together are working towards developing those strong learning habits. It's almost like it's contagious. It gets people to get really excited about doing this type of work. First, so that they are a part of the group, right? Because that's, that these are the values of our community. And second, because it's, it's, it's kind of like you want to keep up with others and, and you're almost expected to do it. And when you put yourself in an environment that challenges you to do those things, like I said, you're a lot more likely to do it, right? You're a lot more, more likely to work out if you sign up for a gym versus, you know, just being in your home. And you're a lot more Likely to work out. If you sign up for a gym and you actually have a group of people that you meet with and you practice with and you're a lot more likely to, to get fit when you're in a gym. You have a community of people that you work out with and you have someone who monitors your progress. Right. And holds you accountable, like a personal trainer or, or you have a plan that you need to complete. In a way, you're a lot more likely to do it. So it's just like working out. The same thing is with English. And the funny thing is that when you try to learn another language, it feels, feels like it's something that you can do on your own simply by watching YouTube videos. And it is. But there's a lot more that goes into that. You know, we have talked about today that is like the mindset and the goals and the habits and, and the values that we need to, to understand that are a part of any journey that we're trying to embark on. Okay? So put yourself in the right environment. Remember that it's really hard to do it on your own. And you really do need a community, but a community of people who are like minded, who have the same goals as you are and who already have the habits that you want to develop. Then remember that you want to create a trigger and a reward. And also remember that you have to stay away from distractions. So stay away from bad habits. If you know that you might start, start doing something and then you might get distracted going on social media or watching a ton of YouTube videos about tenses or about pronunciation because you love watching it, but it's not helping you because you need to practice. Remember repetition, saying things out loud. So you turn it into a speaking habit. So like that distracts you. So make sure that you don't include watching YouTube videos while you're practicing your 10 minute daily practice. Right. Unless you watch a video and then you practice it immediately. Right, but we need the, the discipline to be able to practice and do it and to be active and not just passive. Okay. It's a very good idea to speak to our pets. I just saw that. That is very, very true. And if you don't have a pet, you can speak to your plants. If you don't have plans, you can speak to your phone. But speaking. But ideally we should also speak to other people. So try to make connections here in this group already. All right, my friends, that's it. About habits. Remember, I really do believe that being a part of a community and holding yourself, allowing others to hold you accountable is key. Okay? So make sure that, like, when. When you plan forward and when you play for 2024, ask yourself, where do I want to be and who do I want to be around? Inspire me and not drain my energy or demotivate me. You also know those. Those people who might just, like, make you feel bad about your English practice or be like, why are you doing this? What's the point? What are you trying to achieve? Why do you need an American accent for? Why do you need English for? Your English is good enough. Don't try it. Like, don't waste your time doing this and that. That is not the type of things that we want to hear when we're trying to work towards something that is important to us that has to do with English. Now, again, if you're satisfied with where you're at, of course, like, you don't need to do this work if you're not interested in doing it. But if you do want to achieve big things, specifically in English or as a result of you using your English, you got to be around people who lift you up and not around people who bring you down and make you feel incapable. Right. That is not what's going to help you stay on track or motivated. Yes. Okay, good. So today's homework is for you to review the checklist, answer the questions there, commit to your habits in 2024, share it publicly, because then you're. You'd be more likely to do it. And I'm going to tell you that bringing everything together. Tomorrow, we are going to talk about how to take everything that we've done and put it into practice in real life. Practice and how, if you want, we can support you even more in the future with building habits, being a part of a strong community, and getting all the content that you need to be able to fulfill your goals. All right, my friends. Good. So do the work. Show up on Facebook. Show up for other people. I believe in you all. Have a beautiful, beautiful rest of the day. Take care and I'll see you soon. I'll see you tomorrow.