Feeling Stuck With Your CELPIP Prep? Here’s How Five Minutes Can Change Everything!

Hey, friend. You look like you could use a little encouragement today. Have you been feeling stuck, overwhelmed?

Like you've got so many things on the go right now that you don't have the faintest idea even where to start to get working on them. There's just so much, just so much that you freeze with it all. I can't keep up with all this. Ah, feel like I'm talking to you right now.

Then you're in the right place. Welcome to the Speak English Fearlessly podcast.

Today we're going to talk about how to use just five minutes to help you get moving again if you're feeling stuck and overwhelmed. You know what?

The last few days, I've been feeling stuck, overwhelmed and discouraged about a few things going on, or rather, not going on in my life, too.

I've been feeling stuck, for example, on a few projects with this business and this podcast where I know I need to do some work, but I just haven't been feeling the motivation to do it. Same thing with a few projects around our house.

As spring rolls in, there are some cleaning jobs that desperately need to get done, but I would rather not do them, to be honest, even though I know I need to. On top of this, I've been struggling with weird sleep patterns that have had me waking up much too early some days and unable to go back to sleep.

And then there's my chronic back pain. It has been giving me so much trouble lately with the recent changes in weather.

It seems that when the weather goes from cool and rainy to sunny, or from sunny to cool and rainy that my back goes crazy and it hurts so much. All this adds to me feeling stuck. I want to take action, but sometimes I don't know where to begin.

And because I don't know where to begin, I have found myself kind of not doing anything at all, procrastinating. And all of that work keeps piling up. Now, I'm not sharing all these things to pull you down or to focus on myself.

Heck no, I don't like to focus on myself. But I'm sharing this because I want you to know that I have those times in my life, too. And I've been having them this week.

Maybe not the same issues that you're facing right now, but I know all too well what it feels like to not know how to get moving again, to just feel stuck. Do you ever feel like that? Are you feeling like that right now? Stuck, knowing you need to get going but just not sure how?

Well, if that's where you are today, then I hope this simple idea helps you as much as it did me just this weekend when I read it. It comes from a LinkedIn post from James Clear, which I'll link to in my show notes today if you want to check it out.

But he shares and I quote it only takes five minutes to break the cycle. Five minutes of exercise and you are back on the path for five minutes of writing and the manuscript is moving forward again.

Five minutes of conversation and the relationship is restored. It doesn't take much to feel good. Again, end quote. And again, that's by author James Clear and I'll be linking to that post in my show notes today.

Here's how this idea helped me.

It helped me to pick up one sponge, grab some soap and begin scrubbing a single kitchen cupboard door above our stove that I noticed was needing a good clean that I noticed weeks ago but kept putting off. All it took was five minutes and the door was as good as new. It felt so good to get that one door done that I moved over to the next one.

It was also kind of dirty. It was just five minutes.

But before I knew it, I had cleaned four cupboard doors that needed a little bit of tender loving care and I was able to cross a project off my to do list. All it took were those first five minutes to break my cycle of inaction and actually create momentum.

Now here's how this might help you if you are feeling stuck with your cell prep.

First of all, please don't fall for the lie that effective prep has to equal hours of books, hours of classroom study, hours of webinars, or hours of YouTube videos. Instead, I want you to believe this Good but challenging news. Effective practice for your celpip can happen in seconds and minutes, not hours.

Are you feeling like you've fallen off with your practice? Try these five simple steps to quickly get up again. Number one and I think this is my favorite step of all. Grab your favorite drink.

Mine would be a coffee. What's yours? Number two. Look for a group of English speaking co workers at your workplace. You know who I'm talking about, don't you?

They're the ones you tend to avoid because you feel kind of afraid or shy of making a mistake in front of them with your English. Look for them. Find them. And number three, walk up and join them. Remember, you've got your cup of. Well, for me it's coffee to hide behind.

And I'm holding that cup of coffee by the way, right up close to my chest. And yes, I am hiding a little bit behind it you need to try this if you are an introvert.

If engaging in conversation is hard for you, grab something to drink and hold it just above your chest. Like just at chest level. It feels like you're kind of hiding behind it. Give it a try. I promise it works wonders. Number four Listen.

What is the conversation all about? And think as you're listening how you can contribute. And number five Join in. Share something that adds to the conversation. Just one thing.

It doesn't have to be long.

It could be about the movie you watch with your family on the weekend where you found a great deal while grocery shopping, or the great board game you played. What you think about a recent news story or current event. Your objective is to simply join in, share one thing and then listen again.

Go back to hiding behind your coffee a little. Do you want a bonus point? See if you can add to the conversation again. Follow the steps above.

Listen for an opening, then share one thing that adds to what is being talked about. One thing is not carrying the conversation. One thing is helping you make connections with the people you work with. And that's good.

Good for future attempts at this. One thing will build your confidence.

You're going to realize, oh my gosh, I actually talked for a minute or two and the people around me listened and even engaged with me. That feels great. One thing can lead to making a mistake. I forgot a word I mispronounced, something I screwed up with my grammar. But you know what?

That's still making progress my friend. Making mistakes is progress because it means you're using what you have and congratulations, you're moving again.

If you've done these five steps, if you've dared to take action with just something as simple as sharing one thing in a conversation, you are making progress again. And you need to repeat this to yourself.

Effective self speaking practice doesn't have to take long and it happens the most when you actually use your English in real life. Okay my friend, it's time for us to take a moment to check in with each other.

How have you been doing this past week with your celpip and English practice?

Grab a pen and your journal and take a few moments to write down a few things that you accomplished this past week as you've been working on your celpip practice. Remember what we just talked about? An accomplishment might be that you actually engaged in a short English conversation with someone at lunchtime.

This is a massive accomplishment. This especially if you've never or rarely done it before. So over to you. What have you accomplished? This Past week. Write a few things down.

The goal to doing this is to help you notice your progress. We tend to be experts, I know I am, but we tend to be experts at noticing our mistakes, failures, and, and the stuff we just aren't doing well at.

I want to help you and help myself because I'm doing this activity with you right now to notice what you're doing right and to notice the progress you are making.

Next, after you've written down a couple of your accomplishments from the last week, I want to challenge you to take a few minutes to write down what you're working on now this week to prepare for and practice for your exam. This will help you to keep your goals or targets top of mind. You might want to review what you write here each day.

Make sure that one of these current events. Current events. Holy smokes. I am bringing in words that are not even written down for me here, guys. All right, take two.

Make sure that one of these current work goals includes one of your innovations ideas from last week. And that leads us to the last thing to note down. Write one or two ideas that you'd like to try next week.

This will help you to keep stepping outside of your comfort zone because that's where growth happens. Alright, so in your little writing journal, you should have a couple of your accomplishments written down from last week.

You should have a couple of things that you're going to be working on this week, as well as a couple of ideas that you're going to be trying next week.

And going back to that second thing that you're writing, the things that you're working on this week, make sure that one of those things includes one of those innovative ideas that you had picked from a previous week to keep you, like I said a moment before stepping outside of your comfort zone. That, my friend, is where serious growth happens. When you are outside of your comfort zone trying something new. All right, how did you do?

Were you able to get something written down in your journal? If you haven't, take a moment and do it. I challenge you. It's going to help you so much to notice how far you've come.

It will help you to stay focused on what you're trying to accomplish now and it will help you to keep moving forward. Thank you so much for listening today to today's episode.

I hope that you'll come back again next Tuesday for the next edition of the Speak English Fearlessly podcast. Have a wonderful week. Bye. Bye.