Why is it so freaking hard to speak to your boss or your kid's teacher or your
doctor when it's not that hard to speak to a friend or your family members?
Why is it so hard for you to make mistakes or to not understand someone for a second?
Why is it so hard?
Why is it so hard for you to understand people who speak to you in real life
when it's not that hard for you to understand people when watching YouTube
videos or listening to podcasts, or watching your favorite Netflix show?
What happens in the interaction with other people that makes it so freaking hard?
Hi everyone.
I'm Hadar, I'm a non-native speaker of English.
And I am here to help you speak English with clarity, confidence, and freedom.
And today we are going to talk about all the other elements of English that
are not English, that are preventing you from speaking English with
clarity, confidence, and real freedom.
If you wanna find out more about me and how I can help you, make sure that
after this video you go and check out my website at hadarshemesh.com, and
follow me on social media where I share valuable content every single day.
But before that, I wanna share with you a personal story of
why this matters so much to me.
When I was 21, I moved to the US.
I wanted to become an actress.
And I studied acting and I worked there and it was pretty amazing, and
also devastating and really hard, and all the possible emotions that a human
being can experience I've experienced.
And then my visa expired and I had to move back to my home country,
and I wasn't ready to move back.
I wasn't ready to let go of that dream of becoming an actress in
New York City, but I had no choice.
So I moved back to my home country, and I felt that even though I
was speaking my first language, I wasn't feeling like myself.
And most importantly, I felt like this huge part of my life, this big
dream that I had, was shattered.
And I lost all confidence in who I was and what my purpose in life was.
At that time I joined a theater company.
And I remember that I didn't feel like myself.
I was always trying to hide who I was because I thought I was not good enough,
like they would get so bored with me, and I stopped talking, gradually.
I really like stopped communicating with them because
I did not want to bother them.
And with that, I noticed that I started speaking less and less and less.
And it started affecting my voice, like even when I would try to speak, I would
feel like my voice is not strong enough to carry out what it is that I wanted to say.
So my voice started becoming weaker, I felt less secure in what I was saying,
and I felt pretty crappy altogether.
And this was in my first language.
So I started making that connection between confidence and voice.
And I noticed that when you feel insecure, when you're very much consumed
with what other people are thinking of you, and maybe if you have a low
self-esteem, it would ultimately affect how you use your voice and how willing
you are to fully express yourself, no matter what language you speak.
So if it can happen in your first language, it can absolutely happen when
you communicate in a second language where the starting point is feeling
less confident and not as good as who you are in your first language.
So, all of a sudden here you are.
You've been learning English, you've been using English,
you've been exposed to English.
And yet, you feel like you cannot use it properly.
Why is that?
Now, there are many reasons for that.
Maybe the language is not available, maybe you haven't been practicing it enough.
I have other videos that discuss that.
Today I wanna talk about the concept of confidence.
And in that I wanna address mindset.
Mindset is how you think about yourself as a speaker of English as a second language.
It's the thoughts that you have before speaking: "Should I speak?
Should I not speak".
While speaking: "Oh crap, I didn't pronounce it correctly."
Or, "Should I use the Past Perfect or the Present Perfect?"
And after speaking: "Oh, I really messed up.
I wasn't able to express myself.
I got stuck so many times."
And all of these things take up so much space in your brain.
And they end up lowering your confidence and lowering your ability in English, your
performance in English, and your belief about what's possible for you in English.
So based on my experience considering this type of work, understanding
your thoughts, your patterns, and working towards changing them is
not less important than developing your intonation, rhythm, stress,
pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary.
Because if you are not confident, it doesn't matter how well you know English,
you are always going to get stuck: when you feel evaluated, when the stakes
are high, when you are challenged, when you speak to native speakers.
You're gonna be limiting yourself, no one's gonna do it to you, you will.
And it's not your English.
It's how you perceive yourself in English.
But the good news is that you can totally change it by focusing on these aspects.
And not just on the practice, and not just on learning more.
You can make massive change in your confidence, and ultimately, in
your English and in your fluency.
Now, I've created a lot of episodes and videos about mindset, and I'm
going to link all of them below if you are new to this concept.
And today I wanna share with you key elements that tackle
mindset in language learning.
Now, in fact, I actually collected 30 of those key elements,
and I collected all of them.
And I'm gonna talk about how you can get access to those 30 elements with
a lot of thought work to help you process these things and overcome them.
But for now, let's talk about five.
The first one is overthinking.
Overthinking tends to happen all the time.
It's about what you're gonna practice, how you're gonna learn English.
It's about whether or not you're going to speak and how you're going to
speak, and what you're going to say.
And how you're going to say something and what words to
choose and what tense to choose.
And after speaking, it's about playing the conversation in your
head again and again and again, thinking whether or not you did well.
That is overthinking in English.
There is the concept of being too hard on yourself when making mistakes.
I have an entire podcast recorded about that.
And that is the concept of not being able to give yourself
grace when you make mistakes.
When you do something that you know shouldn't be done in the language.
When you use a tense that you already are familiar with, and yet
you're being so hard on yourself.
It's that idea of being a perfectionist and always trying to get it right,
which stops you from actually expressing yourself and communicating.
Another thing is the environment you surround yourself with.
Have you ever considered that maybe the people that you practice English with or
the people who are around you when you practice English or the people in your
work, affect how you perceive yourself as a speaker of English as second language?
Whether it's comments that you've been getting or people deterring you
from doing the work, or maybe people criticizing you a little too often.
Maybe this environment is not helping you thrive, and you just take it for granted.
You're like, "This is my life.
What am I gonna do about it?"
There's a lot that you can do about it.
And changing your environment and creating the best circumstances for you
to succeed is critical for your progress.
Another element is comparison, comparing yourself to others.
Has it ever happened to you when you heard someone else speak and that person
speaks the same first language as you?
And they're non-native speakers of English as well, and you thought
to yourself, "How come they sound so good and I sound so bad?
How come they're doing all of those things and I'm unable
to even go to a job interview?
How come they sound so clear and fluent on their video or recording or in a meeting,
and I don't even have the confidence to answer when someone asks me a question?"
If you've ever compared yourself to others, know that it's a destructive habit
that is preventing you from progressing.
The last element that I wanna talk about that I think needs to be put into work is
understanding what's possible – opening yourself to the option or the opportunity
that what you wish for yourself and what you want for yourself can indeed happen.
When you go through life or go through speaking English thinking, "Oh, I
would never be able to work in an English-speaking country, it's so hard."
Or, "I would never be able to get fluent, I would never be able to
speak to my neighbors", if you're an immigrant in an English-speaking country.
What you're doing is you are limiting what's possible for you in life.
And when that is your reality, when that is your perception of reality, what makes
you think that you would actually go and do things that go against that belief?
If you think that it's impossible for you to work in English, would
you actually go and look for a job or go to interviews in English?
Of course not.
And if you don't do that, then of course you're not gonna find a job in English.
But if you change that thought, then you say to yourself, "It is
possible", then maybe you'd be more open to the opportunity and the
option of interviewing in English.
And when that happens, the chances of you getting a job in English are higher
than when not interviewing at all.
How you think about what's possible actually determines the
results that you see in your life.
And that requires work as well.
And not just more practice and more vocabulary and better grammar.
All of these elements are critical for reaching a breakthrough and for
reaching real limitless fluency.
Now, like I said, I've collected 30 of these patterns that supposedly
prevent you from feeling confident and speaking fluent, and I
wanted to do something about it.
So, I created a mini training called My English Mindset.
It's a 30-day mindset training, where every day for only 10 minutes,
I address each element and talk about how you can overcome it.
Every day for 30 days, I talk about each one of those elements that stop you
from feeling confident and being fluent.
And when you start thinking about those things and dealing with those things
and asking important questions like what are your limiting beliefs, or what
is your environment like, you start making changes around you and inside
of you, that will ultimately make it possible for you to reach a breakthrough
and to succeed, and not just in English, in your personal life as well.
My students who've been doing this type of work has seen incredible results in
their relationships, and work status, and how they are with their kids,
and friendships, only because they started developing a healthier, more
proactive, more productive mindset.
So this 30-day training is composed of different lessons about overthinking
and feeling good, and criticism, and resistance, and trauma and language,
and being in control, and so much more.
And every day I ask you to reflect and help you make those internal changes.
This is thought work, this is mindset work.
And it's so incredibly important.
And I also wanted to make it super affordable so that
almost anyone can access it.
I'm going to link to it below.
And in the meantime, I would love to hear from you.
Please let me know in the comments, from the elements that I spoke about
today, what resonated the most with you?
Write it in the comments, and let's start a conversation.
Also, you can send me a DM on Instagram and share with me your thoughts.
You can find me at @hadar.accentsway.
Thank you so much for being here.
And thank you so much for doing this work, even though it could be so freaking hard.
But it's not impossible and you have to believe in yourself and in the
fact that it's possible for you.
And I hope I can show you how.
Thank you so much.
If you like this episode, make sure you share it with your
friends, colleagues, and students.
And that's it.
Have a beautiful, beautiful rest of the day.
And I'll see you next week in the next video.
Bye.