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Keep Goals to yourself? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4827 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 1 of 15 04 July 2014 at 8:46pm | IP Logged |
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Not language specific, but Derek Sivers, at a TED Talk, has some interesting things to
say about making your goals publicly known: Sivers on Goals On HTLAL, we are encouraged to keep language logs, and people usually include their own goals in them Is this necessarily a good thing? He is not a linguist, but a musician and entrepreneur, and his blog is quite interesting. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4908 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 2 of 15 04 July 2014 at 10:30pm | IP Logged |
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It has been reading other people's goals which has inspired me to set goals for myself in language learning. It has been setting goals in public ways which has spurred me to study language far more then I ever did before. The Super Challenge in particular, which is goal oriented, has given an incredible boost to my abilities.
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| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4253 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 3 of 15 04 July 2014 at 10:48pm | IP Logged |
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It's an interesting idea, but I think the key here is the end part where he says "If you need to tell someone, you should do it in a way that gives you no satisfaction".
Generally I think HTLAL is pretty good at not congratulating people for what they say they're going to do, but encouraging them to follow through. Whenever I share a goal here, I feel more pressure to live up to what I say and not make a fool of myself, rather than any kind of premature satisfaction. I think he's probably talking about a very real phenomenon, but I don't think vocalizing it is always the key factor. I can think of projects that I've kept to myself where I would spend time thinking of how satisfied I'll be once I completed them and then lost motivation to actually take the steps to do so. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5235 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 4 of 15 04 July 2014 at 10:57pm | IP Logged |
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Personally I think the best way to reach your goals is to simply write your goal down. I don't think it matters if you tell anyone or not, but the act of writing something on a piece of paper seems to focus your mind.
I've done this a few times since I first heard about it, and after coming across a list of stuff I wanted to do which was 5 - 10 years old, I discovered that I could line through about 60% of the stuff. Sounds crazy, but for me at least, it seems like giving instructions to my subconscious and off it goes. I'd even completed stuff on that list which I'd completely forgotten I wanted to do, but had done anyway in the intervening years. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4443 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 5 of 15 05 July 2014 at 6:49am | IP Logged |
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Whether you make your goals in life open to the public is up to you. As long as you think it makes you
work harder, you can keep a log of your daily activities. At the same time other people can comment on your approach and give you insights on the things you need to improve on. A number of years ago I was in Taiwan for a summer exchange program. After a brief assessment in Mandarin I was placed in an advanced class. Everyday the teacher required the students to read a story in Chinese and do dictation on new words and phrases the next day.. During the 3 weeks we were in class, everybody studied every night to pass the language tests. You had a lesson plan to follow and you had to keep up with the workload without second thoughts. The end of the day everybody got their certificates to take home. Nobody in my family seemed interested whether the certificate says "Advanced", "Intermediate" or "Beginner" level or the effort taken to achieve the goal. Besides passing the language program, the most enjoyable part of the trip was the sightseeing. The language learning part was a "personal" accomplishment. What I learned from the trip was everybody have different priorities in life. What 1 person feels is important isn't for everybody. You may be into music, art or learning languages. Someone else may be into sports. As long as what you do makes you happy is what counts in life. Besides learning another language, I am into playing music. Sometimes I would spend the whole afternoon playing a song I like on a piano keyboard. Edited by shk00design on 05 July 2014 at 6:54am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5333 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 6 of 15 05 July 2014 at 7:20am | IP Logged |
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Hmm. I find his "research", or rather his reference to such, highly unconvincing.
The only reason why I do not make public some of my goals is because I know some of them are unrealistic, and I do not want to get caught bragging about doing something I may not be able to. I always smile a bit when I see a new 16 year old monolingual who wants to learn 10 languages and is a bit put out that we are not impressed. I do not want to discourage them, but we all know that learning just one language to a functional level is a LOT of work, and with a couple of exceptions, you do not learn a new language every year. When it comes to realistic goals however, I think it is a great way to both focus on what you need to do, and to help you get motivation to actually do it, because you do not want others to see that you fail. I am however a huge believer in the diversity of mankind, in the sense that we all are different, and what really works for me may be a motivation killer for someone else. So everyone simply has to see what works for them. Do you feel this instant gratification which makes you slow down? Then keep mum. Do the fact that others know your goals make you more likely to fulfill them? Then sing like a canary :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4827 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 7 of 15 05 July 2014 at 12:13pm | IP Logged |
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@Solfrid Cristina: You may be right about his unconvincing research, and I agree that
people have to find their own way. I suppose we should each try to be aware of whether we get gratification by announcing our goals, and try to notice whether it has any effect on our performance. I think I am similar to rdearman in that writing goals down helps me. I like to "externalise" my thoughts. Not just goals, but any serious piece of thinking. If I'm planning to write something, I "think out loud" by getting notes down as soon as possible. My wife is the opposite and can turn them over in her head for hours and days, and doesn't put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard until she's pretty sure what she wants to write. @Solfrid Cristina: What do you think of this piece on making mistakes? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7204 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 8 of 15 05 July 2014 at 1:59pm | IP Logged |
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Motivational speaker Zig Ziglar, the author of "See You At the Top" said there are two types of goals, and
whether to tell others about them depends on which category they fall into. 1) Give up goals. "I'm going to give up smoking", or "I'm going to give up drinking", or "I'm going to give up eating desserts". These "give up" goals you can tell anyone, since there will be extra pressure as to whether you are on your way or not. 2) "Go up" goals. These you only tell people who are very close to you and will want you to succeed and be supportive. E.G., you're wife or husband or significant other or a close family member. These are goals like, "I'm going to get a promotion", or "I'm going to get a raise", or "I'm going to manage this department". Here at HTLAL, people are supportive of your progress and goals. 8 persons have voted this message useful |
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