If you’ve been reading our posts for a while, you would know that we don’t just talk about English.
We also talk about working on our personal development so that we have better self-confidence. From that self-confidence, we can, in turn, become more confident in speaking.
If you know me well, I LOVE learning about personal development and listening to podcasts and videos about it. So I thought I’d share what I’ve learnt from all my hours of learning.
It’s about habits.
Habits are things we do on a consistent basis because they come naturally to us. Maybe because they’re easy, or because we’ve found comfort in doing them every day.
These are things we picked up as we grew up. They could be from our parents, teachers, friends or society. They can be good–like eating healthily–or not so good–like drinking too much teh tarik in a day.
So I want you to start thinking about the habits that you’ve formed over the years. The good ones, and the not-so-good ones.
Why do you have those habits?
Let’s take the good habit of eating healthily. Why does a person have this habit? Maybe it’s because her mother has been teaching her to eat healthily since she was a child, so she’s never really enjoyed eating unhealthy food.
How about the not-so-good habit of drinking too many cups of teh tarik in a day? What makes a person pick up this habit? Maybe her day is really stressful so drinking this sweet beverage helps to ease her troubles a little bit.
So we need to look at our habits and start questioning whether the habits we’ve picked up (whether intentionally or otherwise) are good for us or not.
For habits that are not doing you any good, try to find out ways to replace those habits with better ones. Or try to determine the cause of that habit so that those bad habits can be eliminated altogether.
Now, we also need to start intentionally picking up NEW habits that can help us move forward towards our goals.
Maybe these habits were never introduced to us because of where we live, or the people we grew up with.
So, if your goal is to be a more confident speaker, determine the habits that you’ll need to pick up to achieve that goal. It could be listening to English-speaking podcasts. It could be speaking more English in your daily conversations.
Do them every day until they become habits.
Remember, doing something consistently will make it more natural and easy for you. You won’t see changes overnight, but you will start noticing how something that was once hard becomes easier through consistent practice and learning.
I hope you’ve found this post helpful. We’ll talk to you again soon.
P.S. That habit of drinking too many cups of teh tarik in a day? That’s me. I’m still working on this one.
