Note: This post is part of a 31 day treatise on habits. For the entire list of posts, go here: 31 Days of Habits
Blogging inspiration can come from anywhere. So can insight.
Today I was listening to my husband and oldest son talk about learning to play the guitar. My oldest picked up a guitar a couple of years ago, and with the help of YouTube, taught himself how to play his favorite classic rock tunes. (His most recent tune is I Hung My Head by Johnny Cash, via Sting.)
Anyway, my husband said that the way he taught himself guitar was to focus on learning one chord at a time. And he would practice that one chord over and over, repeatedly for one day until he had it memorized.
After he said that, the wheels began turning in my head.
I wondered: if he had set a goal of practicing for “X” minutes per day, or simply the goal of practicing every day, would he have been as motivated and successful in learning? I’m thinking… no. Instead, he focused on learning a chord… something that’s easy to measure. At the end of the week, he could celebrate having learned 7 chords.
I got to thinking about my goal of learning to speak French. A big, hairy goal indeed, especially for someone with no French speaking relatives, in a monolingual country. And I’ve done well in practicing French for 4-5 out of 7 days a week for about 3 months now. I’m proud of that… and yet, I realized instantly that this was the wrong way for me to go about it.
At the end of a month, I can say that I practiced French for “X” number of hours… and yet I FEEL as if I haven’t made progress. Of course, that’s silly. I watched a French movie with English subtitles the other day and recognized an amazing number of words. I know a lot more French than I did 3 months ago!
But learning a language is such a huge goal, that it’s easy for me to focus on the end result… something that is YEARS away. That is immediately disheartening and probably unconsciously impacts my learning.
Then I remembered something else. I read a story about a woman who had to lose a ton of weight – I don’t remember the details, but it was at least 100 pounds. She did it, not by focusing on the total amount of weight she needed to lose, but by telling herself, “I’m going to lose 5 pounds.” Which is easy. Anyone can lose 5 pounds. And so she did. And when she succeeded, she told herself, “I need to lose 5 pounds.” And so on, and on, and on… until she was at her target weight. She never worried about the total goal, only on losing that 5 pounds.
Brilliant.
So now, with my French lessons I am going to do a couple of things differently.
First, I’m keeping a notebook just for notes on French. In it I’ll write the vocabulary words I’m learning, as well as notes on conjugation and grammar. This way, as this notebook gets more filled with writing, it will serve as a visual reminder of how much I’ve already learned, of the progress I’ve already made.
Two, instead of thinking about “learning French”, I’m going to focus on “this week I’m going to learn 5 new French words” (including pronunciation, spelling and conjugation).
Being able to check “French” off a daily to-do list won’t be able to touch the feeling that looking at this notebook will give me, I just know it. It will feel totally different.
What do you think? Have you ever made a slight tweak to how you approach a goal and noticed that it had a dramatic impact?
I agree that the effectiveness of a goal or a habit is often how you frame it. My biggest goals/habits in any given week pertain to exercise and writing. For exercise, I need a “minutes per week” goal, and I fill that up with whatever activity I can find. Setting that goal keeps me motivated to find ways and times to exercise most days of the week. For writing, however, I find I can’t set a time-based goal. For one thing, writing takes wildly different amounts of time, depending on the day, your energy and creativity level, and what you’re working on. For another, it’s daunting to think of sitting down for a specific hour or two to work, but it’s much easier to say, “I have to write 1,000 words today” and get that done however you can. If it’s in one time block, great; if not, no pressure, just find more time later. When I re-framed my writing goals this way, I found I got a lot more done and largely avoid the problem of writer’s block.
Now let’s see if this posts, Carrie! 🙂
Hooray! It worked!
It did. Yippee!
“For exercise, I need a “minutes per week” goal”
Yes, I totally agree with that. I’m pretty encouraged by studies that show that minutes of exercise done throughout the day have an even more positive impact on health and metabolism that longer, fewer bouts.
“For writing, however, I find I can’t set a time-based goal.”
Yes exactly! I am working on writing faster (mostly by making sure I create outlines by hand before I blog), but it amazes me how long it can still take for me to write some days.
This is a fantastic way to break things down. I usually start small and by the end of course something larger was realized. Have you seen the website Duo Lingo? I’m using it now to learn French. We are here now and the local beginner language courses don’t start until January.