Listening and Reading Practice - "Stop Delaying, Eat the Frog" - (British English Podcast)

Hello everyone and welcome to The English Like a Native Podcast.

The podcast that's designed for intermediate to

advanced-level English learners.

My name is Anna and today I want to talk to you about something that's really,

really important: how to get unstuck.

Many years ago, I realised that I had a deep passion for piano.

It just dawned on me one day, if something dawns on you,

dawn like the sun rising, dawn.

If something dawns on you, then it means that you have a realisation.

And it dawned on me one day that all the music that I loved, my

favourite songs all had a very strong piano element to the music.

It was at that point that I decided I was going to gift myself a piano.

So I saved up and I bought my very first electric piano.

It was £150, which for me as a full-time student and working a

part-time job earning, I don't know, £3 an hour, £150 is a lot of money.

And I was so thrilled with this piano.

I bought many books and I started trying to teach myself how to play.

It's quite tricky with anything that, you know, it's a big skill,

like learning an instrument.

You start off making a few gains and then it becomes quite hard and complicated.

And very quickly you lose motivation because.

It's difficult and it takes a long time to make progress.

So a few years went by and I decided actually now I'm going to find a teacher.

It's actually quite difficult to find a teacher to teach you piano as an adult.

Many teachers believe that you can't learn piano as an adult and

me being me, I disagreed completely.

So I did find a couple of teachers who agreed to take me on and give me

a few lessons, but I wasn't inspired.

And to be honest, at that time in my life as a young adult, I then

had many other things going on and the skill was soon forgotten.

The piano became dusty.

I've bought many pianos since, I think I've bought about three or

four pianos and my piano now sits in the main room of the house.

I refuse to let it go into a backroom.

It sits in the main room of the house, but it is always gathering dust.

It's always dusty.

It's very rare that I actually open up the piano and start tinkling

the keys, tinkling the ivories.

It has served me over the years.

I learned to play well enough to be a singing teacher and to accompany

my students when teaching singing.

But for many years now, I'd say six or seven years, I've barely touched it.

I never got to a level where I could just sit down and play any song, pick

up a piece of sheet music and play.

And the reason is me.

I'm the obstacle.

I would do that thing that many of us do of setting my own time delay, but

one that is completely unspecific and therefore I'm not committed to it and we

all do it with something that we don't feel is very pressing and important.

We say,

"I'll deal with that later.

I'll do it at some point next week.

I'll deal with that another time."

And all we're doing here is kicking the can down the road.

To kick the can down the road is an expression that means to delay

dealing with a problem or an issue.

So with this learning of a skill that I have a deep desire for, I

want to learn the piano, but I don't want it so badly that I'm willing

to commit to getting it done.

I always say these days, I say,

"When I'm older."

Or,

"When I have more time."

Now, unless I make time, I'm never going to have more time.

I'm quite a busy person.

This is just my life.

I always have so much on my plate, so much to deal with.

So saying I'll do it when I have more time is a bit wishy-washy.

It's very non-committal and therefore it's likely that I will never be competent

on the piano because I'm not committing.

Now, Albert Einstein, who is a very clever man, of course, said,

"Nothing happens until something moves."

"Nothing happens until something moves."

What he meant is, nothing can be achieved, or nothing can progress,

unless someone takes action.

So if you want something, if you're bored of hearing yourself saying,

"I wish I could..."

If you're fed up with your situation and you long for a better situation,

then you have to remember that nothing happens until something moves.

You are in control.

You have to take action to change that thing.

Now, what is it in your life?

I'm speaking directly to you.

What is it that you keep putting off?

What are you delaying dealing with?

It breaks my heart sometimes when I speak to my fluency students who come

into my fluency programme, we have a one-to-one and I ask them about their

current situation and why they've decided to join the programme, and so

many times students will say to me,

"I'm living in the UK, and I've been living here for a very long time."

In some cases, my students have lived in this country for years,

always feeling stuck and isolated.

Feeling like they can't fit in because their English is

not where they want it to be.

Feeling like they can't be themselves, they can't make friends.

Some of my students are even stuck in jobs that they don't like, that they'd

never choose to do if they had another option, but they feel like they can't

start searching for a better job because their English isn't up to scratch.

That's what they think.

That's what they feel.

And yet, even though they're living in an English-speaking country surrounded by

the language, they're unable to progress.

Now in most cases, if you're feeling stuck, you may be working towards

improving your English, but still not feeling like you're breaking

through barriers, feeling like you're stuck at the level you've always

been, then you need to take action.

You need to make a change.

And what does that look like?

Because sometimes we just don't know where to go to find the guidance we

need; with my piano playing I knew I had what we call conscious incompetence.

I was aware of what I was stuck on.

I was aware of where my weaknesses were.

I knew what I didn't know.

I knew that I needed help from someone who was much better than

me to get me over this obstacle.

Now, many of you, I'm sure, know where your weaknesses are.

You might realise that certain elements of your grammar fall down.

You maybe know that you aren't very good at English listening.

Maybe you struggle to speak confidently.

Maybe the nerves take over every time you have to speak English.

Maybe you just want to work on your pronunciation or move to the next level.

You know what you need to learn, but sometimes we just don't

know where to find the help.

Now, of course, we are in a day and age where information is at our

fingertips, but still, there can be this sense of overwhelm, like

walking into a huge library full of books from ceiling to floor.

Books, books, books, books.

But all you want is one very specific book.

You know exactly what book you want, you just don't know where

to find it among the sea of books.

So what can we do?

In that case, you ask a librarian.

You ask someone who knows how to guide you.

So in your case, it could be asking a friend or a colleague, someone whose

English is — and I'm using English as an example — it might be another skill.

I have many piano-playing friends.

So I may go to a pianist friend and say,

"Hey, I'm really, really desperate to progress with my

piano, but I'm a bit stuck.

What do you suggest?

Do you know any good courses, any good teachers, any methods that I

could try to get out of this rut?

Because I'm stuck in this rut at the moment."

For you, it could be approaching a friend or a colleague who you know has

English as a second language but is at the level that you aspire to achieve.

Ask them,

"How did you do it?

Where did you go?

Who did you learn from?

What methods did you try?"

And see if they can offer you some advice or inspiration.

Now, I know that the thing you want to achieve is within you.

I know, because I've seen it so many times, the people who take

action, the people who put their mind to it, achieve their goals.

I've seen people who I myself, I'm ashamed to say, I myself have doubted.

Now I'm not talking about the English language here, I'm

talking about other skills.

But I've had people come to me and say,

"Anna, do you know what?

I'm going to do this with my life."

And I've nodded, but in my head, thought,

"Mmm, that might be a bit tricky.

I don't think you have what it takes to do that.

I don't think you're talented enough.

I don't think you're skilled enough.

I don't think you are made to do that kind of work."

And yet years later, I find out that they did do it.

And I am so happy that they have managed to achieve their goals.

And I'm just so comforted by the fact that what is seemingly impossible can

be possible if you apply yourself, if you have the right frame of mind and

you take action and you turn up for yourself again and again and again.

Now, it might be hard to believe, but in my position, doing what

I'm doing, I find it hard.

There's so many barriers and obstacles that I've put in my own

way that I've had to overcome.

Owning my own business, putting myself on YouTube as myself and not as a character

is, it's quite terrifying for me.

Speaking to my students who many of them are incredible people, highly

qualified, very intelligent people.

I've got PhDs.

I have brain surgeons, engineers, TED talkers.

I have some amazing people in my community asking me for help.

If you'd have told me this 20 years ago, I would have laughed and thought,

"Oh, you're joking.

I'll never do that.

Me on YouTube.

No way.

Me teaching these incredible people.

Absolutely not."

I had crippling anxiety.

I had a terrible lack of self-belief and I didn't think I had anything

of worth to give to the world.

But I overcame it because at every step, I reminded myself what my goals were, why

I wanted to achieve what I have achieved and why I'm still working towards it.

And every time I hit a barrier, something I find difficult, I just

think the sooner I get this done, the sooner good things will happen.

I call it eating the frog.

If you have a plate full of food in front of you and there's a big frog on your

plate and you have to eat the frog, but you ignore the frog and eat all the other

foods around it, the yummy carrots and the beautifully cooked broccoli, the potatoes,

you eat all that, you ignore the frog, but you know the frog is on your plate

and at some point you have to eat it.

And once you eat that plate of food, then you get dessert.

Mmm, dessert's going to be amazing.

But you have to eat the frog.

Sometimes it's better to just eat the frog.

Stop ignoring it.

Just do the hard thing.

Do the hard thing.

One thing that helped me was to write down my goal.

Something that reminded me of exactly why I was working hard.

And I would stick that on my monitor so that I saw it every single day

when I sat down to my computer.

Maybe it's your children.

Maybe you want a better life, not just for you, but for your children.

So have a picture of your kids sitting on your desk or somewhere where you'll

see them every single day with a little note saying, I'm doing this for them.

And so then when you start to make excuses, when you try to avoid

taking action, you can look at that reminder and remind yourself

why you have to eat the frog.

Why you have to do the thing that's hard.

And I tell you what, when you start eating that frog, it's actually not so bad.

I'm not advocating eating frogs.

But once you start doing the difficult thing very quickly, it becomes easier and

easier and easier, and then you've cleared your plate, and along comes dessert.

So, get a really clear motivation in your mind, ask yourself

why you want to learn English.

Write it down, put it somewhere where you're going to see it every

single day, and then make a plan.

Stop delaying.

Decide exactly how and what it is you're going to do in order to progress.

And then all you have to do is put one step in front of the other, get going.

I would love to support you on your journey.

You are more than welcome to come and join in, in the ELAN Community.

I've made it very easy now.

In the past, it was a case of deciding which route was best for you within ELAN.

Now there are just two options.

You can come in to practise joining the simple standard membership

where you can access live classes, speaking sessions, and bonus material

for the podcasts to help with your listening and reading comprehension

or you can join the Plus Membership.

And the Plus Membership is all about levelling up, taking

structured courses to get you to progress in your English language.

This includes live lessons — weekly live lessons.

This includes help with your pronunciation, the pronunciation

course, the level courses (B1, B2, C1, C2), a business course.

It includes a wealth of knowledge and resource.

All wrapped up in a social environment with support for you

to access and use however you need.

So if you want support, if you like the idea of having a community of

like-minded learners to progress with, then come and join the conversation.

Come and join the club.

I'll leave links to that down in the show notes.

But if you don't join the club, there are many ways to improve your English

using resources available online, and I wish you the very, very best, but

please, please, please, please from today, make a plan and eat the frog.

That's all from me until next time.

Take very good care.

And goodbye.