S6E12: Don’t have time, or project too big?

Full transcript:

Good morning, happy Tuesday and welcome to the first week of season 6 of 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 just a reminder that the Language Confidence Project is now on YouTube as well, with daily videos to inspire your language learning and to just help you make the process more creative, more fulfilling, and more compassionate. And today, if you are telling yourself that you really want to do a thing, but you don’t have enough time, I have a question for you.

And that question is

Do you really not have enough time

Or

Are you making the project too big?

And this is not a question to guilt you into starting yet another thing when you really don’t have the capacity, when you’re really snowed under, when you’re exhausted, or when you genuinely aren’t ready. I know I have said this a lot on this podcast but it’s so important and it’s at the core of what I do as the Language Confidence Project to encourage you, in language learning and in life, to advocate for yourself, listen to your body, and that you make decisions being honest about your circumstances and what you’re in a position to take on without bringing yourself to boiling point.

But, what it is asking is, have you taken what could be a small, gentle project that breaks into lots of neat, tiny pieces and fits into your current life quite nicely, and blown it up into something that’s now never going to fit? 

And if the answer is yes

How can you make it smaller again?

How can you shrink it down to fit back into the container of time you originally put aside for it? How can you break it up so it is compatible again with the mental energy you have to give to it right now?

It’s an odd quirk of perfectionism to make us think that what’s doable today isn’t good enough, and that whatever is actually worthwhile is slightly out of reach, slightly over budget, or slightly over capacity. It’s that same feeling when you buy someone that you really care about a present, but it doesn’t look good enough, so you keep adding to it and adding to it with other little gifts, and bows, and drawings in their card, and that anxiety that it all just seems a bit weak. But it’s not true.

Your project doesn’t have to be a masterpiece. It doesn’t have to all come together today, or in a week. But if it’s something you really want to do, if there’s any chance of bringing it from the someday pile into the near future, do it as a gift to yourself. 

Have a wonderful day, and I will see you tomorrow.