Hey, come in closer. That’s right…lean in here for a minute I want to tell you something…
Ready?
I struggle with overthinking things. A lot!
I struggle with loud self-doubt when I am trying something new, and sometimes I let fear of making a mistake or fear of failing…well, sometimes I let those fears keep me from moving forward, even when I know I need to be going forward!
Does that ever happen to you in your day to day life or when you are trying to improve and use your English?
And I bet you know this to be true: those fears and the negative voices in your head sure get louder when you’re trying to do something new, don’t they?
I know those feelings well because, as I said before, I experience them frequently, maybe you do too.
Maybe you feel those feelings especially around your ability to use English.
Well, today I want to share a little story with you. As you hear this story, my hope is that you feel like you’re not alone. (Fear tends to make you feel that way.)
I want you know that there is a way forward through those fears, and I hope this story will encourage you to not give up, but to keep going in spite of what you are feeling today about yourself or your English skills.
How I Got Started
Back in about 2005, I was living in Mexico City with my wife and family. I was working as an English teacher for a company that specialized in business English – which is basically just helping large multinational companies train their employees to use English for their work.
At the time I was full time with this teaching company, and I had the majority of my classes all with one client which was fantastic, because that meant Most of the time I only had to travel to one location to give a series of classes. It was pretty easy.
But all of a sudden things in my world got flipped upside down! From one day to the other, this big client where I was working decided they needed to immediately shut down their classes. To this day, I still don’t know why – but I quickly found myself without work and with a family I had to help support.
Thankfully, my lovely wife was working full time – and so we were able to still have money coming in. But let me tell you – that was a scary moment for me!
But that moment also became one of the most important ones of our life! It was when we decided to start our own business teaching English.
But it also became one of the biggest battles with self-doubt, negative self-talk and fear that I have ever faced.
It was nasty! Lots of imposter syndrome: Who am I to teach someone English?
How can you run your own company – you’ve never done it before!
Look at all the competition around you! Why would anyone pick you?
That fear was loud and in my face pretty much every single day, and it’s sole objective was to keep me from moving forward in order to protect myself from failing.
What I learned About Fear
But you know what? I learned how to take action even when I was feeling afraid.
It wasn’t easy. The success I was working for did not happen overnight. In fact, it took us a full year of networking, of calling potential clients daily to land our first big corporate client. A full year! And that first client came because of a direct introduction by a former student I had worked with who introduced me and my business to one of his best friends, the CEO of a major insurance company.
So yeah, it was hard my friends. But we worked hard and eventually, slowly but surely, the business began to grow to the point where we employed a team of 16 teachers and had clients all over Mexico City.
I share this story with you not to boast. Far from it. I want to share with you that everyone feels afraid when they try to do or learn something new – just like what you are working so hard to do with your English.
Everyone feels afraid. Everyone has the negative self-talk telling them they can’t do this, that they’re a failure. Give up!
But those who succeed, those who become fluent in English, are the ones who learn how to push through fear by acting in spite of how they feel.
Take Action
Here’s what I hope you leave with today:
- Be action oriented with your English. Here’s what I mean by that. 1. Realize you are in control of how much and how fast you learn. It’s not up to you getting in class with a teacher. Classes and working with an English teacher help, but if you aren’t focused on engaging with English every day OUTSIDE of class, you won’t be able to make the progress you’re looking for. Action oriented = doing things daily in English on purpose to help you grow.
- Don’t let fear and negative self-talk keep you from moving forward. (See point one! Act even though you feel afraid. )
The more you do, the quieter your fear and negative self- talk will become. It likely won’t go away, but when you are action oriented, they will begin to have less power over you.
Where are you being held back by fear today? How will you push through it?
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