Hi, welcome to another episode of English before going to bed my name’s Rohit, and I’d like to . We’ve been gone for a while, but here we are for another season of great ideas that we want to share with you to help you learn and make your English permanent. 

And as you already know, you’ll be able to find the transcript of today’s episode and more goodies on our website.

So, let’s go ahead and take a look at one of the things that affects 99% of language learners and actually, affects all of us at some point in our lives and that is: How do we stay motivated to learn English?

That’s actually a really good question and the answer isn’t simple at all. Before we focus on English specifically, you know that we ask ourselves this question with every new project we start, with every new change we make and every new step we take. We never wonder about that once we set off to make progress, but there will come a time in which you’ll be failing to meet your schedule, complete your tasks, or even turn up. 

None of these are good signs, and that’s basically when your motivation will starts leaving you. 

So, how do we stay motivated, interested, fascinated by things we feel attracted to. Today I’ll be giving you three tips to keep your motivation as high as ever.

I’ve spoken with hundreds of language learners around the world, from beginners to hyper polyglots, they we all face the same issue.

The bottom line is, it doesn’t matter if you have:

• The best effective language learning method in the world
• The most comprehensive language learning materials
• The outstanding language learning software or app

It’s completely useless if you are not able to stay motivated to use it and learn consistently over time.

So the lack of consistent motivation is every language learner’s biggest hurdle to fluency.

There are three main reasons as to why your motivation goes down the drain and listen closely because this might be your case too.

Reason #1 When what you’re learning is too hard, or too easy or too boring.

Your language learning activities have a big impact on your motivation.

If you do something that is too hard, too easy or too boring, would you want to do it again the next day?

Most likely, you will be less motivated compared to when you first started.

The key to all of this is to find multiple language learning activities that is not only effective for your language learning style but it also has to be something that you enjoy doing, something that you find refreshing and thought provoking. Just to offer you a quick comparison. Imagine going to the gym and just using one type of weights, over and over again. You’d eventually get frustrated, tired and bored to death of it. In learning languages something very similar happens.

Your language learning activities need to be varied. They need to cover several skills, they need to, at the end of the day, challenge you every single minute. 

So experiment and find language learning activities that are:

1. Something you love doing. You can find blogs, videos, podcasts, about the things you enjoy. Fashion, music, movies, anything. We’re sure there’s an outlet for it. So, go ahead and find it.
2. Choose activities that are effective for your learning style. If you hate lists, why do you still keep making endless vocabulary lists. If you have trouble remembering things by heart the traditional way, why don’t you resort to mind maps or flashcards? 

So here you have to of the key elements to keep your motivation at an all time high.

Then put them on rotation and switch things up once in awhile to keep things fresh.

Yes, trying something new is not always fun, but you need to give it a try and until you’ve fully given it a chance, you shouldn’t quit.

Reason #2

The second reason is you consistently keep forgetting what your goals are. 

Yes, we all want to lose weight. But hey, if you don’t have a plan to do so, you’re going to end up in the best case weighing the same and frustrated. 

Learning a language doesn’t differ much from this example. Our favourite show on TV, kids, if you have any, your own time. All of this make up the distractions list of our day and age, so try to allocate time for everything. And if you can’t, you’re not superwoman or superman, just don’t stress about it. Fine tune everything you do until you can fit it all in. No there’s no magic formula to this, it’s a whole lot of trial and error.

So, a good way is to set those goals from the beginning. Small, short-term goals, something like weekly goals. 

For example, if you want to know more words, make sure you can learn 15 words in 7 days. And test yourself. See how many you can identify and use. This is just challenging enough to start off. So, try it. Tell yourself I have 7 days to remember 15 words. Do it for the first two weeks, then increase the amount of words to 20 words in 7 days.

Be consistent, don’t give up and create healthy routines to develop your English.

Reason #3

The third reason, is probably the one that will stop you from making any progress at all and that is the feeling of being all alone in the process of learning a language.

Don’t forget that learning in a community is probably the best way to make progress and develop your skills. It’s the support, the sense of belonging and that we’re all part of a team what helps us move forward. So, find yourself a facebook group, a conversation program or even a certificate preparation course. You’ll all be driven to achieving your aims. And when your motivation might be failing you, somebody from that community will encourage you to move on, to complete that one more exercise, to learn that new word.

So, here are the three things that we know suck the motivation out of you. 

1. You’re not challenged enough
2. You forget why you are learning a language
3. You feel alone 

But here’s one more thing you need to do more often and that is Reward yourself. Every little accomplishment, needs to be valued and recognised. If you remember those 15 words at the end of the week, go ahead and indulge on something. Keep your goals clear, but keep your rewards even clearer. Get yourself those sneakers, for every ten phrasal verbs learnt. Go get a massage, for mastering a new grammar point. Yes, staying motivated needs rewards, don’t hesitate to treat yourself every once-in-a-while. Set those rewards before hand, it will only make your motivation stronger.

So this was our take on staying motivated. We hope you’ll find our reasons on how to stay motivated while learning English good enough to actually do so. Really, do it. We’ll be there to back you up. 

Thanks so much everyone for listening, it’s great to be back and we’ll be back every week and we honestly hope we are helping you in your English. 

The whole GoGetter Team says see ya and catch you in our next podcast and don’t forget #beagogetter.