*This article is part of a series, please before you read this article first go to
It is important that you read the articles in the correct order and prepare yourself for each day.
So, yesterday we talked about the importance of the habit of practice and how far, humble every day steps can take us.
Every day is important in this Series of Preparation to welcome the Greek language in your life, but Day 4 is a cornerstone.
Today’s lesson is what will bring duration and quality.
Isn’t this all what we need?
No matter what we want to achieve.
Duration and quality.
This is all what we seek.
- Duration so as to keep this skill with us forever and don’t feel that we lost our time and money.
- And quality so as that we add value in our lives and we feel happy.
So, how can we achieve this?
We can do this by excersising the muscle of the brain. But that sounds to abstract and general.
Let me tell you a story that happened to me and changed my way of thinking and consequently, my life.
About six years ago I had a very kind, smart and so beautiful teenage girl as student. I used to teach her English. She had had English for several times in the past, but had quited all of them.
She didn’t believe in herself, at all. That student would always tell me:
I am not good at school, English is not for me, I can’t make it.
This is how she used to talk to herself, all the time. This made it so difficult for me. And then this narration she had in her mind started being more important for me, than teaching her English.
It is never about the language. It is always about the feeling of the student.
From that moment I started Grammar and vocabulary from zero, boosting her confidence and helping her understand how comfortable I felt teaching her.
I encouraged her for every correct answer she gave and I didn’t always mention her mistakes, just one or two, so as to move forward and become better from where she was at that point.
After she had fixed her first mistakes and mastered that point, we started writing down some new things. But not all of them. The thing there was to encourage her and make her feel welcome in the language. Not to take notice of the real picture of how many the mistakes were.
When you understand the simple things, you feel involved, you feel welcome.
After one month of intensive encouragement, this beautiful teenage girl suddenly smiled looking at her notebook and said:
“I am not that bad, I am good at English”
I really felt like flying at that moment. It was a big moment for me as a teacher too.
But straight after that moment, I said to myself:
“Why don’t you treat yourself like that? Why don’t you speak to yourself the way you spoke to that girl?
What is wrong with you?”
It was the moment of my life when I realized how negative and awful my self talk was. To make you understand how I used to speak to myself, I will tell you that if I ever spoke to anyone like that, they would at least burst into tears or I could even make them kill themselves.
I don’t know where and when it started from, but I had overdone it.
It was then when I realized that the fact that I belonged to myself it didn’t give me the right to treat me like that. I was a human and I was the only one that I could defend myself.
Until that moment, I used to fight for everyone else’s rights, but not mine.
It was that moment, I put myself among with the others and started treating myself accordingly.
That was the Day 1 when I put myself among with my students.
I started being kind with myself, encouraging, started from zero, and finding brain-friendly ways for me to learn , and welcome the things I wanted to learn.
This is what Day 4 is about. Treat yourself as it truly is. The most important student of your life. Be kind to yourself and always think:
“How would another person’s face would be in your eyes, if you ever talked to them like you do to yourself?”
This mental practice is the most important for our most precious muscle of our body.
Our mind is our most precious friend. In Greece we have an expression that our mind is our worst enemy. This is not only a lie, but it also works exactly the opposite.
We are the worst enemy for our mind. In fact the mind is the only friend that stays with us for ever and as Julian Barnes says in his book “Death”
“The moment when we die, our mind excretes chemicals to comfort us and help us feel ok that we are leaving”.
Our brain is our only friend. The only thing we need to do is educate and train ourselves so as to become its best friend too.
So this is Day 4 for your preperation to welcome Greek in your life. Go out there and become the student of yourself.
Be kind, patient and realize that the best way to learn is to enjoy the process. This is how what you want to learn will stay with you forever.
And always remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day!
How To Learn Greek This Year Day 1
How To Learn Greek This Year Day 2
How to Learn Greek This Year Day 3
If you found this article helpful for your procedure of learning Like my Page and get daily motivation and tips. I use the Greek language because this is what I do. But you already know that these ideas can be implemented in everything you want to welcome in your life.
Enjoy your day!
Efi Asvesti,
Teacher & Copywriter @
MyGreekTeacher.com
