S5E57: 5 tips to stop embarrassment getting in the way

Full transcript:

Good morning, happy Tuesday and welcome to the Language Confidence Project, the daily dose of language courage for people who love languages and those who really don’t, but have to learn one anyway. And today I want to talk about one of those phrases that I’m sure we’ve all seen in the productivity world, the learning world, the business and career worlds, that says:

“Embarrassment is the cost of entry. If you aren't willing to look a foolish beginner, you'll never become a graceful master.”

And again, as with so many of these kinds of sayings, I get the sentiment. You can’t start your story on chapter 10. You have to learn the ropes and during that time, you can’t expect that the work you produce, no matter what it is, will match up with what you have in your head, or what the experts around you are creating.

But is that embarrassing? The reason I feel uncomfortable about this quote is that what it’s actually saying is, cringe is inevitable. Embarrassment, hot cheeks, blushing, sweating, fidgeting, shame, regret, all of that, are natural and unavoidable parts of being a beginner. And if you want to achieve things, you’re going to have to steel yourselves to go through that.

Sounds horrible. It’d put me off starting anything. 

No, language learners. It’s definitely not the case. Why does being a beginner need to lead to that level of social pain? I’m thinking back over my languages now, especially Portuguese because it’s the most recent one, and I can’t recall feeling embarrassed a single time. It’s not because I don’t make mistakes. It’s not because I didn’t ask “stupid questions”, I’m sure I did. It’s because you can be a beginner, and you can be creating beginner work, and saying beginner things, without shame and regret and any of that.  

So here are five things we can do to make sure that embarrassment isn’t the cost of entry:

Know what’s normal at your level

There’s a reason why embarrassment tends to be higher among people learning their first foreign language than people who’ve already been through this process a few times already. The people doing it for the first time don’t know that what they’re doing is perfectly normal. The mistakes are normal, the not knowing what to say is normal, the people not understanding you first time, the you not understanding them, forgetting basic words, all normal. They go in with much higher expectations of what they think they should be doing, and when they can’t attain that, they think it reflects badly on them as a learner. Or worse, them as a person. But it doesn’t. That’s just the process.  

Recognise that you have to be here in order to get there

Just because you have a really strong accent now, doesn’t mean you’ll always find the sound system so hard. Just because you keep getting the genders or the conjugations mixed up now, doesn’t mean you always will. But you will never get past this stage to the next one, without being here first. And that makes this stage pretty worthwhile too. It’s not a bad thing to be here.

Figure out what’s big and what’s small.

So much embarrassment is suffered in this world because people didn’t realise that the stuff they’re beating themselves up about, didn’t matter. They’re embarrassed by their accent, by a mistake they made, by the fact that it took three goes to get a sentence out. But how important is that stuff compared with the fact that you made someone smile, the fact that you got an important message across, or the fact that you made a connection with someone who doesn’t speak a word of your native language today? And in so many things to do with speech, whether it’s foreign language work or editing every um or pause out of a podcast, how many people are listening, really, to every single word you say, compared with the number of people who just listen for the message as a whole? Self-consciousness happens when we think there’s a microscope on everything we do and everything we say, but the vast majority of the time, there really isn’t one. All those so-called “embarrassing stories” that language learners come together and share? Are they embarrassing stories, or are they funny stories?

Find and create safe spaces

Safe spaces and safe people, where you know that you and your language won’t be judged. Surround yourself with people, both in real life and online, who will be supportive of your language journey. Be that person for other people. It makes all the difference to be talking to people who just get it. And those people don’t necessarily need to be other language learners, just kind, patient and understanding people.

Stop imagining

There’s a quote that says “Where there is no imagination there is no horror” by the detective author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his book A Study in Scarlet and I kind of feel the same is true about embarrassment. It’s imagination, not what you said, that’s to blame when you lose sleep imagining what the people were thinking when they laughed, and telling yourself they were definitely laughing at you. When you’re imagining what your teacher was thinking that time you kept making really basic mistakes. Half the battle is keeping your imagination in check.

Language learners, you’ve got this. Promise me and promise yourself that this week, you won’t let fear of embarrassment stop you from doing the things you want to do, because you are capable of so much and it would be the most tragic thing to hide yourself and your language away for fear of shame or embarrassment. People want to hear you in your new language. People want you to succeed. And Future You will really thank you for taking these brave steps now.

And as I mentioned yesterday, I am bringing back the 100 Conversations project that I started around this time last year, where I invited listeners of the podcast to book a 30 minute call with me, just to meet you, get to know you, and to find out how your language journey is going and what carving your own path means to you. And I would absolutely love to invite you to join me and have a call, both to meet new listeners and to hear how the wonderful people I met last year are getting on. Just as last year, these calls are not going to be recorded or used for marketing material, there won’t be any sales pitches, nothing like that, it’s just a chance for us to meet each other. So if you’d like to book a call, either to speak for the first time or to update me on how things have been going for you since we spoke last year, head to my Instagram bio on @teawithemily or my website www.languageconfidenceproject.com and I can’t wait to meet you!