Can you believe it’s going to be 1 January 2019 in less than a week? The year has passed by so quickly! Now, I don’t usually do New Year Resolutions, but I do like to review how my past year went and plan what I can do to improve myself. I create goals and put them in my calendar so that each goal has a deadline.
Today’s post is not an English lesson, but it’s more for you to review how your year went and how you can improve yourself for the year ahead.
If you’ve been our email subscriber for some time now, you’ll know that we don’t just teach English. We talk about mindset and techniques to become a more confident person overall. Confidence in yourself will help to build the confidence you need to become a better communicator in English.
So before you end this year, dedicate some quiet time alone, grab a pen and notebook, and ask yourself these questions.
1. What are the three achievements that I am most proud of in 2018? (If there are more than three, then even better!)
2. What would I like to be/do/achieve in 2019?
3. When do I need to achieve these goals?
4. What steps do I need to take to achieve these goals?
5. What skills do I need to learn to move closer to my goals?
Now, your goals don’t need to be big. It could be something as simple as, “I want to have more conversations in English with my children”. Or maybe it’s, “I want to express my opinions more often at work.”
If you have a big goal – then that’s great too! We get emails from subscribers who say, “I want to be a really good public speaker one day.” Well, it’s time to put that in your list of goals!
Give yourself a deadline for it. For example, “Volunteer to become the chairperson of our department’s monthly meeting in March 2019.” Then start listing out the things you need to do, and the skills you need to learn to achieve that goal.
There’s no right or wrong to this exercise. What matters is you keep learning and making progress. Even the smallest step forward today will get you ahead of where you were yesterday.
