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FINALLY FLUENT in English | Part 1

Are you ready to make 2021 better than 2020?

The end of the year is a good time to review the passing year and reflect on your English fluency experience and journey.

You want to acknowledge your successes and let go of what’s holding you back. In this episode I’ll guide you on how to do a year-in-review so you can finally feel 100% expressive and free in English in 2021.

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to the InFluency Podcast. I’m Hadar, and this is episode number 90. And today we’re going to start our year in review.

Hey, hey, welcome back. Thank you so much for joining me for another episode of the InFluency Podcast, took me a second to remember what I want to say. But I remembered eventually, luckily. Anyway.

I’m happy that you’re here. And I’m recording this at the end of 2020, and you and I both know 2020 has been a very interesting year, to say the least – that’s an understatement. And this year in particular, I think it’s so important to review the passing year and to acknowledge all your achievements and the things that you’re proud of; and the things that have worked for you and haven’t worked for you.

Because if you want to start the next 12 months – and by the way, if you’re not listening to this at the end of 2020, it doesn’t matter because at any given moment, you can create change in your life. And to do that, you want to reflect back on the past and plan for the future. So, if you want to walk into the next 12 months with confidence and finally stepping into your full potential in English, this is the episode for you.

I’ve created a PDF for this episode with all the questions that I’m going to ask you and talk about what we need to reflect on. So you can download it, everything’s in the show notes. And you can actually fill it inside the PDF – amazing technology, woo-hoo! So, you don’t have to write it on random Google docs or pieces of paper you might lose.

So, if you’re listening to this podcast episode on the go, then make sure to come back to it and download the PDF and answer the questions. You can still listen, because I talk about why it’s important to reflect on these questions, but then I really encourage you to take the time and answer the questions. And do it the old school way, like writing it down and not just thinking about it. Okay. So, without further ado, let’s listen to today’s episode.

Hey everyone, it’s Hadar. Thank you so much for joining me. This is the end of 2020. And, Oh my goodness, what a year this has been. And what I like to do at the end of each year, but in particular, in particular, at the end of this year – at the end of 2020, is reflect back on the passing year and to acknowledge all the progress that I’ve made and all the lessons that I’ve learned. So I can step into the new year with clarity and focus and motivation. And I want to do that year-end review with you today, focusing on your English journey.

Now listen, even if you’re watching this not at the end of 2020, this is still such an important process to do if you want to create change in how you learn, how you practice, and you finally want to see a breakthrough in your English fluency. Because to do that, you have to reflect back on what has worked and what hasn’t worked for you to understand how to focus on the future.

Now, this is going to be a two-part video series. In this episode, I’m going to ask you a few questions and explain why it’s important to focus and answer these questions. And by the way, I wanted to make it super easy for you, so you can download the PDF and answer the questions in the PDF, so it’s organized and clear. And I know you like organized and clear.

So this is part one of the year in review. In the next episode, I’m going to share with you five unexpected things that are going to skyrocket your fluency in 2021 and beyond. Now, these are profound things that I haven’t spoken about before. And I think they are imperative and crucial for your English journey. So, you definitely want to be there for that.

And if you want to make sure that you don’t miss out the next episode, be sure to subscribe to my channel, my podcast, or get on my email list to get this into your inbox directly. I’m going to put all the links in the description below. Now, if you want to get started and skip directly to the questions, you can click on the time code in the description below. But before that, I want to share with you my personal experience of 2020.

2020 for me has been an incredible and crazy insane year. In terms of business, this has been our best year yet. Even though our local school has shut down because of COVID, which was really frustrating, our online school and online community has really grown, which I am so incredibly grateful for.

We opened two new memberships: English Teachers Academy for English teachers who want to learn how to teach pronunciation with simplicity and also build and grow their online business; and Beyond – my English practice community for bilinguals. And overall, throughout 2020, we have welcomed over 1000 new students into all of our programs. We have welcomed new team members and thousands and thousands of new community members into the InFluency community – our free community on Facebook.

But most importantly, this has been the year that we have seen the most breakthroughs – and significant breakthroughs – for our students. And I attribute that to two things. One, I think that what happened this year was that people had more time or they were more around their computers; and that has created more time than usual for them to put in the work and practice.

Because, my friend, if you want to improve your English, you have to put in the time to practice. This is exactly why I created Beyond, which is just like a safe space and an effective place for you to practice. So, people had more time to practice, and ultimately that led to incredible results.

But also, I think this year has opened doors for many people, because many people have moved to the online world. And all of a sudden, where you are in the world doesn’t matter so much, and it feels like you almost have equal opportunities as everyone else. Which means that English has become such an important component in your personal and professional success.

Because there are many more opportunities, but at the same time, people need English more. So people were willing to invest more time and more effort into building their English skills and improving their English fluency. And that commitment has led to more breakthroughs. So this is how I feel.

Now, on a personal level, you know, this year has been the year where I had two little girls at home for most of the year. I’ve seen less and less of my friends and my team members. I was supposed to travel to business conferences and to travel with my family. And of course, that hasn’t happened. So there was a lot of frustration around that.

And the first part of the year felt like an ongoing race. But I have to tell you that the second part of the year has been a little different for me. First of all, because I’ve invested in my personal training and personal growth. And I’ve learned how to allow things to be without pushing; and also how to take time for myself, integrate more space in my life. And I can tell you that that is such a significant lesson for me. And I want to encourage you to do that as well.

So, for all you people who are hard workers and all the teachers out there who are constantly on the go, it is so important to take time and create space for yourself and to invest in your personal development and your inner peace. Because without that, you’ll constantly feel like you are just chasing your tail or you’re on that hamster wheel. And when you take a step back and you look and reflect and breathe, then you allow the change to happen internally, and not just externally. So, this is just my experience from 2020. And I’m definitely going to take these lessons that I’ve learned and use them as I plan 2021, and as I go through 2021.

And I pray that this year is the year where we go back as close as possible to normal. So let’s get started with our year in review. And again, download the PDF so you can see these questions in front of you and also answer them inside the PDF and save it.

The first question I want to ask you is what are you most proud of this year? What have you done this year that made you feel like you have done something different, you stepped out of your comfort zone? It is so important to acknowledge the things that you have accomplished and the things that you are good at.

Because our tendency in our day-to-day life is to focus on all the negative stuff, right? Like, “I didn’t do this right, I didn’t do that right.” “I need to improve here, I need to improve that.” And we very rarely just sit, look back and think about all the good things that we have done. So, this is a great opportunity for you to acknowledge all the good stuff in your life and all the good things that you have accomplished when it comes to your English learning and English learning process.

So, focus on the one thing that you’re most proud of. It can be a program that you’ve joined and you followed through. It can be a conversation that you had that you really felt that you put everything that you know into it. It can be something that you were afraid of, but you did it anyway – anything that you feel most proud of. And you can even write it down in the comments so you can share it with the rest of the community.

The next question is what inspired you most to take action? What motivated you? When were you most happy to do the work and to speak in English? Try to think back about certain situations or topics or specific people that you enjoyed speaking with; certain content that you enjoyed consuming. What was something that made you feel good about yourself? Rather than ‘incompetent’ or ‘not enough’. So, focus on all the good things that this year has brought.

And I know that for many of you, this has been an incredibly challenging year. And, you know, nothing went as planned. But at the same time, it’s so important to cherish the moment that we’re grateful for and to recognize the things that have worked for us. So, what kept you going? What kept you inspired? What kept you motivated? I want you to list all of that.

Now, make sure that you write these things down and you take your time. Because if you just think about it, it’s not going to stick or stay. And, you know, you won’t be triggering new thoughts for yourself. So, I think this is such an important thing to take the time for yourself and to do it properly. Also, this part is going to help you understand and see what you’d like to see more of in the coming year. So, you’ll understand better what keeps you going and what lights you up.

The next question is, if you encounter a challenge when it comes to English – and when I’m talking about a challenge, it could be anything, don’t limit yourself – just you can also write everything down. And it could be things like, “I did not have time to practice because I had to homeschool my kids”, or “I had to work triple shifts”, or “I lost my job and I was really upset and depressed, so I didn’t find the motivation to practice”. Or “I didn’t have any patience”. “I had the pandemic fatigue.” “I had to work at the hospital all day long.”

Like whatever that was for you, write it down. Something that has prevented you from realizing your dreams or fulfilling your plans. But also, I want you to acknowledge the things that you have done to overcome this challenge. Even if it was “I let go for it for a little bit, and now I’m getting back to it.” Right? So even if it means that you had to let go of your English practice, cause you had to homeschool your kids, that is okay. That is a way to tackle a situation that, you know, goes not as planned. Okay? So, write it all down. Again, download the PDF if you need to. And once you’re done – you can pause this video – once you’re done, we’ll move on to the next question.

Now, the next question is what hasn’t worked for you when it comes to English? What did you try to do and you felt like it was not working for you, it wasn’t right for you, you were disinterested, it was not effective? Maybe you felt like you’ve spent your money or maybe you felt like you didn’t properly put something into practice. Anything that has not worked for you and you do not want to repeat it again – write it down as well.

Again, it’s important to understand that, you know, when we learn something or when we want to develop ourselves in a certain area, we try out a bunch of things. And some things are going to be a perfect fit for us, and others may not, even though they might work for other people. Okay? So, I want you to acknowledge that too, and not to feel guilty or to blame yourself for giving it a try. Because you are always, always doing your best to improve. And you are where you need to be.

So even though you haven’t accomplished the things that you want to accomplish, probably the circumstances have not allowed you to accomplish all the things that you wanted to accomplish. Again, especially this year, this is the year where you cannot be hard on yourself about anything. Okay?

So, if you feel that you are unhappy with the results that you’re seeing right now in your life, then this is your opportunity to start making changes and use that momentum of the new year to put it into practice. So, write down all the things that haven’t worked for you and you don’t want to repeat.

And I also think it’s important to reflect on that because sometimes we get into the pattern of doing things that we’ve done in the past, just because we’ve done them in the past. Even though they weren’t beneficial for us, we do it just because it’s already a habit that we’re used to. Right? It’s called the confirmation bias.

We like to do things that we’ve done in the past to prove to ourselves that our original decision was the right decision. And sometimes it was not the right decision, but we keep doing things that we know are not good for us.

So this is really important for us to recognize that this hasn’t worked and there are plenty of other things that can work for you. And you want to focus on those things in 2021. Okay? So write it down, pause the video if you need to, and we’ll move on to the next question.

The next question. If you had planned to do something and you haven’t done it, why didn’t you follow through. Now, it might be a little similar to the question about challenges, but here I want you to focus on your habits. Okay? Why didn’t you follow through if you had planned to do something in particular?

Let’s say, you signed up for a certain program or you decided to practice every day for 10 minutes, and you didn’t do it. Why? Was it hard for you to follow through? What distracted you? What prevented you from showing up every day or every other day to do the work and to do the practice?

As I said at the beginning, we’ve seen massive breakthroughs this year because our students were committed to practicing almost every single day. And the way we do it, and I think we also hacked the way in which we provide our students their practice, because it’s very concise and very effective. So, we’ve made it really short and feasible to do almost every single day.

But, if for you – if you haven’t had a system to follow, you know – you need to look into what prevented you from following through. Was it too complicated? Was it vague? Did you not know what you were doing? Okay? So if you’ve made a commitment and you didn’t follow through, why didn’t you follow through? I think this is a very important question to reflect on.

I can tell you that when it comes to business, this is something that I constantly ask myself. If I had made plans to accomplish something and I haven’t, why haven’t I followed through? One of the reasons could be, this was not important enough for me. But if it’s important and I still haven’t followed through, then I want to look into my habits and the way I approached that project. And maybe something there did not make sense. Okay? So, now it’s your turn to reflect on those questions.

The next question, and probably the most important question of them all, is ‘what beliefs or limitations are you willing to let go of to be able to step into the next year with confidence and with power?’ What are you willing to let go of? What negative thoughts, limiting beliefs, things that you think are not possible for you, all those things: that you’re not enough, that you are a fraud, all those negative thoughts, all those words that your inner critic constantly says to you every time you open your mouth – this is not reality. This is not your reality. It’s not facts, it’s not the truth. And as such, it only exists within your head.

So, the question is, are you willing to let go of that, to be able to reach that breakthrough and to finally feel fluent and accomplished in English in the coming year? Because here’s the thing, mindset is everything. And if you think that you’re going to practice more and do more work and spend hours and hours learning without working on your mindset and without understanding that you need to let go of all those limitations and limiting beliefs and fears – I mean, you can’t let go of fears, fears are always there – but not to let those fears stop you.

Unless you understand and willing to take active action to let go of that – and we’re going to talk about how to do that in the next episode, in the second part of this video series – unless you’re willing to do that, you won’t be able to fully take advantage of your potential. It’s time to step into your true potential because you can absolutely do it. Don’t let anything get in your way. So, write down right now – what are you going to let go of to be able to step into your power in the coming year?

Now, in the PDF that you’ll download, you’ll see the series of questions and also the questions related to part two of this video series. So, I hope you’ll put it into practice and you’ll feel that you are ready to make a change in your English and in your life.

Thank you so much. I can’t wait to hear from you in the comments below. So, let me know you think, what is the thing that you’re most proud of, and share in the comments also, what are you willing to let go of? It is so important to share it with the community because honestly, you will recognize that you’re not alone and you’ll learn so much from other people’s experience. And you’ll gain that power, and strength, and motivation.

Also, if you’d like to share your review with me, then you can answer the questions and take a picture, and upload to your stories and tag me so I can see it. And I can also reshare it in my stories so other people can see that we’re all in this together.

Thank you so much for being here. I love you very much. You are absolutely incredible. And I will see you in the next episode. Bye.

 

The InFluency Podcast
The InFluency Podcast
90. FINALLY FLUENT in English in 2021 | Part 1
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This is part one.

In the second video, I discuss  5 things *no one talks about* but are CRUCIAL for you, if you want to reach an English breakthrough in 2021 and beyond.
CLICK HERE to WATCH Part 2 of the Series

Your year in Review

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