Success! Here’s your action plan…

Step 1

Set the Right type of Goals for Success

Most of the new language learners that I talk to generally don't have any goals for their learning, or it's not clearly defined at all.

Before I get into this, I just need to mention that I have a whole course on setting goals and building long-term habits in language learning called Language Motivation Mastery, so it's not a small topic to quickly master.

But I'll give you the main points here, so you can get started and get 80% of the benefit of better goal-setting.

IMPORTANT: WRITE DOWN YOUR GOALS!! Studies have shown that people who wrote down their goals were significantly more likely to achieve them than those who didn't.

First: Find your why

Why are you learning this language? Is it for your Grandmother, your heritage, or your partner/spouse, or something else entirely?

The more specific and emotionally attached to your “why” you can get – the stronger it will be, and the more it will help you.

Second: Set your long-term goal

I focus on two different types of goals.

One is a process goal (about your day-to-day activities) and the other is an outcome goal which is more your long-term and “dream” goal.

Let's set the outcome goals first.

Here are some ideas to help you fine-tune your outcome goal.

What level do you want to reach in the language? Is it conversational fluency, complete mastery, or do you just want to be able to order a coffee?

Do you want to be able to read and write as well? This is particularly important for languages like Mandarin Chinese where the written system is notoriously different from other languages.

Or maybe, you want to ONLY learn how to read and write because you're interested in the literature, but have no plans to speak/listen in the language.

When do you want to reach this goal? For similar or related languages I would aim for about 6 months for lower intermediate, and about 12 months for mid-to-upper intermediate.

This naturally assumes you're able to dedicate a fair number of hours per week. If not, then be sure to adjust your outcome goal accordingly.

Now, write down your outcome goal. The more vivid and detailed you can be the better.

Example: By January 1, 2023 I will be able to have extended small-talk-like discussions in Portuguese. I will be able to understand most of what people say to me in shops, cafés, and restaurants. I will be able to live most of my life in Portuguese with some occasional stumbles and use of English in a pinch.

Third: Set your Process goals

Now that you have your outcome goal written down, it's time to set goals for how to actually get there.

Process goals are about your day-to-day activities.

Which books, software, courses, or websites do you want to use and for how long?

The most important aspect of process goals is that they MUST BE MEASURABLE.

If your process goal is not measurable (like: I want to do 1 page of “Book” every day from 1:00-1:15) then how can you know if you're progressing towards your outcome goal?

A simple recipe for process goals is the S.M.A.R.T philosophy.

• Simple
• Measurable
• Actionable
• Relevant
• Timely

Write down your process goals. You might just have one, but it's totally fine to have a few.

Examples:

15 minutes of Duolingo Spanish every day at 3pm

3 pages in my textbook every Wednesday

Step 2

Make a Plan for Studying

Now that we have our outcome and process goals written down it's time to actually put them into your calendar.

Schedule, at least one process goal learning sessions per day.

Once you've found the time(s) – put them in your calendar to recur every week.

I recommend no more than 15 minutes per session, but if you find this hard to do then you can start by scheduling just 5 minutes and progressing from there.

The important thing is that you feel like the session is so “easy” that you're never skipping it.

And you know the best thing?

Once you've started the session it's SOOO easy to do 10-15 even 30 minutes more than you had scheduled.

But, if you had scheduled 30 minutes in your calendar to begin with you might have never started the session.

Step 3

Keep Going and Don't Worry

As you continue to track and update your process and outcome goals (review your goals once a month)

For tracking I recommend a good old-fashioned journal, or the digital version: Notion.

Finally, you have to have patience.

Rome wasn't built in a day, and learning a foreign language is a big project to undertake.

Even if you're just looking to get tourist-fluent or being able to have friendly small-talk about limited topics.

Language learning, just like any meaningful activity always has its ups and downs.

That's why we rely on the system we've built using steps 1 & 2 rather than relying on willpower or “feeling” like doing some studying.

And my favourite part of this whole thing?

“If you don't quit you'll never fail.”

Stick with the system, and you'll see the habits building automatically.