Focus on your progress, not just your mistakes with your CELPIP prep.
This episode dives into the importance of purposefully taking the time to recognize your achievements as you prepare for the CELPIP exam. (Because it’s super easy to fixate on what went wrong!)
I share my experiences over the past week with this podcast, where I made plenty of mistakes, but I also scored a few important wins.
You might feel overwhelmed by errors or setbacks, but you can shift your perspective by taking a moment to jot down your successes. Even small victories matter—like engaging in English conversations or deciding to join your English speaking coworkers at lunch.
But you have to purposefully notice what went well because we tend to easily pay more attention to what went wrong!
Takeaways:
- To truly progress in your CELPIP preparation, consistently acknowledge and document your successes, no matter how small they appear.
- Don’t let the fear of making mistakes hold you back; instead, embrace them as part of your learning journey.
- Engaging in conversations, even when it’s challenging, is a significant step forward in your English skills.
- Take time each week to reflect on your achievements in English practice, as this boosts motivation and confidence. Practice writing them down!
Transcript
Foreign.
Speaker A:Hello and welcome to the Celtip Success Podcast.
Speaker A:The most introvert friendly podcast on the planet, dedicated to helping you confidently prepare for and conquer the CELPIP exam.
Speaker A:If you're tired of feeling nervous, stressed and stuck and getting ready for your exam, then my friend, this.
Speaker A:This is the podcast for you.
Speaker A:Who am I?
Speaker A:My name is Aaron and I've been an English teacher for over 17 years and I'm a certified Celpip trainer and I can't wait to help you get ready for your Celpip exam.
Speaker A:This week has been an intensive podcasting week for me.
Speaker A:In order to launch my three day Celpip Speaking Skills Bootcamp, I decided to try something completely new.
Speaker A:Use my podcast to help me promote it more.
Speaker A:Not just with an ad at the end of the episode, but actual episodes designed to tell you about what I'm offering.
Speaker A:I've never tried something like that before, and on top of that, I've never tried creating podcast episodes on a daily basis, which is what I've been doing for the past few days.
Speaker A:And you probably are aware if you're a regular listener, it's been super challenging to actually sit down and record after a busy day of work, all the while while making sure I'm spending time with my family and also getting in some exercise to boot.
Speaker A:And you know what?
Speaker A:It's been super frustrating too.
Speaker A:Remember how I mentioned in a podcast episode a week or so ago that sitting down to record a new episode after being away for a month or so was really, really hard?
Speaker A:Well, thanks to getting in more repetitions over the last month, it's been getting a little easier.
Speaker A:I'm feeling my old confidence behind the mic returning again.
Speaker A:But my friend, my friend, you should hear how many mistakes I've been making along the way.
Speaker A:There are so many of them.
Speaker A:With the short episodes I've been putting out this week, for example, I've found myself having to edit out up to five to six minutes worth of repeated mistakes almost every episode.
Speaker A:Mistakes over and over and over again, sometimes fighting to get one stupid idea to come out just the way I want it to and having it totally get screwed up.
Speaker A:Even today, as I was starting off this episode, I had to restart myself like three times because I kept mispronouncing the word podcasting.
Speaker A:Or yeah, I kept mispronouncing the word intensive and podcasting.
Speaker A:So yeah, I've been making lots of mistakes.
Speaker A:On my most recent episode, for example, I had a whole five minute segment of me trying to get the same idea out and having to start it over again.
Speaker A:Sometimes I'd make a mistake in the very beginning of the idea, like mispronouncing a word, like I was just sharing that I was doing today at the beginning of this episode.
Speaker A:Or going off on a new idea before I had a chance to fully finish what I was supposed to say in the first place.
Speaker A:Or I'd almost get all the way through the bullet point I was wanting to explain or talk about, only to screw up at the last minute and I need to kind of back up and try that part again.
Speaker A:Lots of repeating myself until I got it right, and then at the end.
Speaker A:So much editing.
Speaker A:So frustrating.
Speaker A:I bet you can relate.
Speaker A:But you know what?
Speaker A:Even though I've been making lots of mistakes, I'm also excited because of my progress.
Speaker A:Number one, I returned to weekly podcast episodes after I don't know how many months I was not doing that, but I returned to doing something that I was doing before.
Speaker A:Number two, I created four daily podcast episodes in a row, and I've never tried to do something like that before.
Speaker A:And three, I brought back my introduction to the podcast following feedback from my business coach.
Speaker A:Now, of course, this is not meant to be me bragging.
Speaker A:I'm not trying to do that.
Speaker A:Not at all.
Speaker A:This is me doing something that I think you should be taking time to do to notice where you're making progress.
Speaker A:In the middle of all those mistakes that I was telling you about, the frustration was super real and super loud.
Speaker A:I've wanted to throw in the towel at times in the middle of those many mistakes.
Speaker A:As I was trying to record those episodes, I found myself even wanting to give up.
Speaker A:Like, maybe I shouldn't even be doing this anymore.
Speaker A:I suck at this.
Speaker A:And I know I've edited out the frustrated phrase, oh, this is so stupid a handful of times over the past few days.
Speaker A:So, yeah, I've made lots of frustrating mistakes this week, but, you know, it's easy to notice and only think about what's going wrong or what went wrong, isn't it?
Speaker A:That's why I did what I just did.
Speaker A:Now, when I listed some of what I actually accomplished, it wasn't meant to toot my own horn.
Speaker A:I don't know if you heard that expression before, but I wasn't trying to to brag on myself, but it was to help me to pay attention, to refocus on the things that actually went well, the accomplishments.
Speaker A:Because I know you know this, and I know I know this.
Speaker A:The stuff that goes wrong is often the loudest in our heads, right we pay more attention to those things than what we actually got right.
Speaker A:And I think, and I bet that you do that too, it's easy to focus on the mistakes.
Speaker A:It's easy to fixate on that blasted Celpip score that you didn't get even after the seventh or eighth time.
Speaker A:But how about if you do what I just did and take some time today and actually write down a few of the things that you did well.
Speaker A:For example, maybe that conversation in English you pushed yourself to get into this week.
Speaker A:That, my friend, is a huge success.
Speaker A:You should pay attention to it, write it down, notice it.
Speaker A:Or maybe it's that time this week that you decided not to eat lunch all by yourself at your desk, but instead you decided to join everyone else in the lunchroom who are speaking English and you actually joined in this time.
Speaker A:That's huge progress too.
Speaker A:But you need to notice it.
Speaker A:So that's my challenge for you today.
Speaker A:And the whole idea of this episode.
Speaker A:Take time and write down the things that you accomplish with your English, with your celpit practice.
Speaker A:Take time to notice them.
Speaker A:Take time to pay attention to them.
Speaker A:And take time to refocus your thoughts and making sure.
Speaker A:And make sure that you're not overly focused on what went wrong.
Speaker A:Pay attention to what went right too.
Speaker A:Make sure that you give yourself a pat on the back and say, you did a good job on this.
Speaker A:Well done.
Speaker A:Yes, the other mistakes are still there for sure, but pay attention to what you are actually making progress on.
Speaker A:It will help you to keep going.
Speaker A:It's helping me to keep going, to notice what I am doing right.
Speaker A:I feel like I'm making some progress with this podcast, in other words, and the only way to notice that is by actually noticing the things that went well, not hanging out in the things that went wrong.
Speaker A:Thank you so much for listening to today's episode.
Speaker A:I hope that you'll come back again next Tuesday for another edition of the Celpip Success Podcast.
Speaker A:Bye.
Speaker A:This past week has been an intensive podcast.
Speaker A:This past week has been an intestine.
Speaker A:Intestive.
Speaker A:This past week has been an intensive podcast.
Speaker A:I was just screwing it up each time.
Speaker A:Ah.
Speaker A:On my most.
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