Habit Forming
I joined the Discord server for NihongoShark a while back. I can't quite say why. There are a few native speakers and more advanced speakers who throw in some useful information every now and then. But, not often enough to keep at it. So, maybe it is the social aspect, even though I rarely talk.
But, while I rarely talk, I do read a lot. And a lot of what I read is about seeking motivation or support. And a lot of that is in respect to one thing; keeping the habit.
This is anecdotal and a bit of "common" sense. So take it with a grain of salt. But, the habit seems more important than the short term gains if you truly want to achieve something. Especially something as big as learning a new language.
Here is some of that common sense in the form of two related statements. If you keep at it, you will eventually get there. And, if you stop, you won't.
To me, that says everything. Having the right study methods can improve the rate at which you improve. Spending more time can improve it as well. But, none of that is as important as actually trying and continuing to try. Even with a bad approach you can often still achieve your goals. Even if you take it slowly, you can still get there. If you, stop never will.
That, for me, was why building a habit around my Japanese practice was more important at any given moment than the results.
And people learning languages aren't the only ones who hit this issue. I've seen others struggling with it as well.
Now, this isn't really advice on how to build habits. I don't know what works for others. But, I can break it down in terms of what worked for me.
The most important thing I discovered was learning that the habit itself was the most important thing. And that fostering that skill was even more important than my original goal. If you can master forming habits for yourself, you open up a whole new world of possibilities. But, most importantly, (generally speaking) if you can apply that to what you want to learn, you should be able to achieve it.
For most of my time learning Japanese, the foundation has been Anki flashcards. For knowledge based skills, flashcards are a good tool for ensuring you don't forget things you've learned and they can also be useful for learning new things. As such, I made my flashcards a central part of my habit forming.
Now, here are the interesting bits. I don't necessarily consider flashcards an essential part of habit. Nor, do I have any specific hard demands.
I built the habit around flashcards. And, in a year and a half I haven't missed a single day. But, if I did some other form of Japanese study in a day and missed my flashcards, I would consider that a missed day. The habit I'm trying to form is making learning Japanese a part of my daily routine. And Anki is just my default activity.
Similarly, I do try to clear out all new and due cards in Anki. Again, as a default. But, I have tweaked the new card frequency on many occasions when time and motivation levels have changed. And I have also had days where I didn't complete 100% of the reviews. This isn't a failure. I maintained the habit.
I think the last part there is the hardest. People like to set hard goals. And I mean that both in terms of difficulty and rigidity. This is probably the hardest thing to get over. If you set goals that involves specifics like that, it will crush your motivation when you don't reach them. And worse, when you exceed them, you may feel tempted to adjust your goals upwards making failure even more likely.
People think like this; "If I can do 100 new flashcards a day, I'll be fluent in no time" or "that would be an awesome accomplishment and will motivate me further". But, that motivation is short term. And the loss of motivation when you stop being able to do that is even more crushing. That kind of motivation can feel exhilarating or energizing early on. But, it really doesn't provide much in the long run. And it doesn't usually last long enough to form the habit.
I still have days where I plow through piles of flashcards or hours of anime. But, I do that sort of thing when it is fun.
If you need to set firm goals. Set them low. Or make them about frequency. "I will study ONE new flashcard a day" or, "I will study every day for a month (with no mention of specific metrics beyond that)". If your goal is one new flashcard, it is OK to do 2 or more. Just bear in mind that your goal was only 1. Don't get wrapped up.
Also, adjust your goals. Some days, weeks or months are busier than others. We go through stages in our lives. 1 size does not fit all. I went through a period where I went from 60 new cards a day, down to 5 with my flashcards. Also, to ease through the backlog I had built up, I was kind of giving myself freebies on many cards. Sure, it was demotivating.
But, I did keep the habit alive and that felt good when I realized it. And eventually I got through the massive backlog and the daily volumes became manageable again. And I started focusing on all of the cards again. And eventually I let the new card count climb back up a bit.
And I'm the same way with my French learning right now. I have a single deck, it only gives me 5 new cards a day. Many days I only focus on a handful and I rarely fail myself on a card even if I don't know it at all. But, I'm still doing it every day. And some days I do feel the motivation and I stop and spend more time on all of the cards.
If I didn't make my goal simply to continue though, I'd have deleted the deck long ago. And I wouldn't have those days where I focus on the cards. Or even the days where I partially focus on the cards. Yes, learning like this is SLOOOOOOW. But, I AM learning.
All of this comes to my final "trick" for myself; Give yourself a "fallback" goal. If I were to vocalize my goals for French, it is really "Try to do all of my reviews properly BUT if I don't feel like it, try to pay attention to at least one card and skim through the rest". Everything after the "BUT" is my fallback goal. It is something so trivial I can easily do it every day in under 5 minutes. It keeps the habit alive. It is the life support goal. I don't feel bad about doing it. I don't feel great about it either. But that isn't the point.
What you do each day isn't important. It is doing something EVERY day that matters.
But, while I rarely talk, I do read a lot. And a lot of what I read is about seeking motivation or support. And a lot of that is in respect to one thing; keeping the habit.
This is anecdotal and a bit of "common" sense. So take it with a grain of salt. But, the habit seems more important than the short term gains if you truly want to achieve something. Especially something as big as learning a new language.
Here is some of that common sense in the form of two related statements. If you keep at it, you will eventually get there. And, if you stop, you won't.
To me, that says everything. Having the right study methods can improve the rate at which you improve. Spending more time can improve it as well. But, none of that is as important as actually trying and continuing to try. Even with a bad approach you can often still achieve your goals. Even if you take it slowly, you can still get there. If you, stop never will.
That, for me, was why building a habit around my Japanese practice was more important at any given moment than the results.
And people learning languages aren't the only ones who hit this issue. I've seen others struggling with it as well.
Now, this isn't really advice on how to build habits. I don't know what works for others. But, I can break it down in terms of what worked for me.
The most important thing I discovered was learning that the habit itself was the most important thing. And that fostering that skill was even more important than my original goal. If you can master forming habits for yourself, you open up a whole new world of possibilities. But, most importantly, (generally speaking) if you can apply that to what you want to learn, you should be able to achieve it.
For most of my time learning Japanese, the foundation has been Anki flashcards. For knowledge based skills, flashcards are a good tool for ensuring you don't forget things you've learned and they can also be useful for learning new things. As such, I made my flashcards a central part of my habit forming.
Now, here are the interesting bits. I don't necessarily consider flashcards an essential part of habit. Nor, do I have any specific hard demands.
I built the habit around flashcards. And, in a year and a half I haven't missed a single day. But, if I did some other form of Japanese study in a day and missed my flashcards, I would consider that a missed day. The habit I'm trying to form is making learning Japanese a part of my daily routine. And Anki is just my default activity.
Similarly, I do try to clear out all new and due cards in Anki. Again, as a default. But, I have tweaked the new card frequency on many occasions when time and motivation levels have changed. And I have also had days where I didn't complete 100% of the reviews. This isn't a failure. I maintained the habit.
I think the last part there is the hardest. People like to set hard goals. And I mean that both in terms of difficulty and rigidity. This is probably the hardest thing to get over. If you set goals that involves specifics like that, it will crush your motivation when you don't reach them. And worse, when you exceed them, you may feel tempted to adjust your goals upwards making failure even more likely.
People think like this; "If I can do 100 new flashcards a day, I'll be fluent in no time" or "that would be an awesome accomplishment and will motivate me further". But, that motivation is short term. And the loss of motivation when you stop being able to do that is even more crushing. That kind of motivation can feel exhilarating or energizing early on. But, it really doesn't provide much in the long run. And it doesn't usually last long enough to form the habit.
I still have days where I plow through piles of flashcards or hours of anime. But, I do that sort of thing when it is fun.
If you need to set firm goals. Set them low. Or make them about frequency. "I will study ONE new flashcard a day" or, "I will study every day for a month (with no mention of specific metrics beyond that)". If your goal is one new flashcard, it is OK to do 2 or more. Just bear in mind that your goal was only 1. Don't get wrapped up.
Also, adjust your goals. Some days, weeks or months are busier than others. We go through stages in our lives. 1 size does not fit all. I went through a period where I went from 60 new cards a day, down to 5 with my flashcards. Also, to ease through the backlog I had built up, I was kind of giving myself freebies on many cards. Sure, it was demotivating.
But, I did keep the habit alive and that felt good when I realized it. And eventually I got through the massive backlog and the daily volumes became manageable again. And I started focusing on all of the cards again. And eventually I let the new card count climb back up a bit.
And I'm the same way with my French learning right now. I have a single deck, it only gives me 5 new cards a day. Many days I only focus on a handful and I rarely fail myself on a card even if I don't know it at all. But, I'm still doing it every day. And some days I do feel the motivation and I stop and spend more time on all of the cards.
If I didn't make my goal simply to continue though, I'd have deleted the deck long ago. And I wouldn't have those days where I focus on the cards. Or even the days where I partially focus on the cards. Yes, learning like this is SLOOOOOOW. But, I AM learning.
All of this comes to my final "trick" for myself; Give yourself a "fallback" goal. If I were to vocalize my goals for French, it is really "Try to do all of my reviews properly BUT if I don't feel like it, try to pay attention to at least one card and skim through the rest". Everything after the "BUT" is my fallback goal. It is something so trivial I can easily do it every day in under 5 minutes. It keeps the habit alive. It is the life support goal. I don't feel bad about doing it. I don't feel great about it either. But that isn't the point.
What you do each day isn't important. It is doing something EVERY day that matters.
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