3 Reasons Why You Lack Confidence In English

hey guys what's up Stefanie the English coach here from EnglishFullTime.com

in this video we are going to talk about how to improve your confidence in

English and I am making this video in my car for a reason because I was driving

downtown today and I was not feeling confident and so I really started

thinking about you guys and what it takes to speak English confidently okay

so here we go first of all the reason why I was not feeling confident driving

downtown is one because I don't have a lot of experience driving down town and

I'm I'm from Sacramento California and the streets downtown are different from

the streets in the suburbs and in the other areas okay so basically where I'm

used to driving in neighborhoods and freeways and stuff like that every

street is a two-way street that's point blank that's one thing and then another

thing is that the streets are pretty big so there's lots of space in each lane

and I feel confident when I'm driving on regular streets that I'm used to driving

on okay but downtown a lot of the streets are one-way streets and also

they're very narrow and I'm not used to driving in these circumstances right so

when I'm in these situations I feel less confident so I'm bringing this up

because I want to tell you if you're not confident speaking English there's a

good chance you literally just don't have enough experience okay because the

more experience you have with something the more confident you become just like

if I would drive down town every single day I would get super confident driving

downtown you know it's not that big of a deal the other thing is I've had some

bad experiences driving downtown two really bad experiences that I will tell

you about okay and these happen years ago like when I was first learning how

to drive but the reason I'm gonna tell you is

because if you've ever had a bad experience with your English like if a

teacher has ever embarrassed you or friends or strangers or if you were ever

in a dangerous situation and you didn't know what to do and you know that's kind

of traumatic stuff and that can really influence your confidence level so two

really big mistakes that I made driving downtown this happened when I was

probably like nineteen years old one day I was driving with my friend at

we had gone out to dinner maybe we went dancing I don't really remember but I

made a wrong turn and the next thing I knew I was driving on railroad tracks

it wasn't like for a train but it was for the kind of trains that go in the

streets anyhow there was a specific street designated for this tram and next

thing you know I'm driving with my truck like this and a train is coming at us

like this it's midnight the lights are shining at

us and it's like honking like like what are you doing lady get out of the road

okay that was really traumatic I don't even know what I did to escape from that

but somehow I got out of that situation I pulled over my friend and I we were

just like breathing really hard and I was like I'm so sorry like I don't know

how I made this mistake so anyhow that's one big mistake I made driving downtown

another mistake and this is super embarrassing the streets are so narrow

and I was driving a Ford f-150 which was my very first car it was a truck okay

and besides having narrow streets you always have cars parked on the sides

of the streets so I was driving in the right-hand Lane there were a bunch of

cars over there parked and as I'm driving I got too close to one of the

parked cars and my mirror slapped the mirror of another parked car and I just

kept driving like I didn't even know what to do I'm like oh shoot am I

supposed to stop pull over say sorry like you know give them my insurance

number what am I supposed to do and here's the deal with confidence if you

have bad experiences with something it will cause you to doubt your ability so

now every time I Drive downtown because it rarely happens I still sometimes

remember those traumatic experiences and I'm just like oh my gosh I'm so nervous

driving downtown and I have to like talk to myself like Stefanie you got this

you're okay you know how to drive you don't worry

you've been doing this for years but I'm telling you this because again of your

English right if you don't have a lot of experience speaking English

you may lack confidence the solution is simply to get more experience or if

you've had some traumatic experiences you may lack confidence speaking English

the solution is to just again keep practicing and talk yourself through

what's going on and reassure yourself you know you've got this it's okay if

you have a speech or something that you have to deliver if you have a phone call

that you have to make give yourself a little pep talk before you do it this is

my strategy this is what I do and it works okay it's reassuring now the final

thing I want to mention about confidence is sometimes you have had plenty of

experience you've had no traumatic experiences so there should really be no

reason why you lack confidence but yet you still lack confidence right you

don't feel that great when you speak English the reason for that you have to

dig so much deeper because it can be fear doubt embarrassment it can be a lot

of things but usually it's one of those three it's like you fear how other

people will perceive you or you fear making a mistake or you fear making

yourself look silly okay so if you want to be a confident English speaker write

what it what does it take it takes experience you have to have experience

speaking the language you have to speak with native speakers every day okay and

I'll talk to you guys about how you can do this in a second but you have to be

using the language every day in different circumstances so you get more

experience with it then if you find yourself lacking confidence you do have

to deal with your own mindset and mentality and ask yourself you know

what's really going on here is it just because I lack experience is it because I've

had bad experiences is it because of some underlying fear what is really

going on okay and then talk yourself through it you will gain confidence by

doing two things by gaining experience and by changing the way you perceive

yourself and situations around you okay so you can learn to be a super confident

English speaker in any situation now let's talk about how you can use English

every day to improve to talk with native English speakers to make friends to

you just you know because all of that stuff is gonna help you feel more

confident I created a free guide for you that's all about how to meet native

English speakers strategically and form relationships start conversation so you

can really be the one that's in control and leading the conversation leading the

relationship using your English even if your English isn't perfect okay even if

you don't feel super fluent anyhow thousands thousands of people have

already downloaded this guide and sent me really awesome feedback they loved it

so I know you're gonna love it too and I will link it in the comments anyhow guys

that's all I will say about that I've got to go I've got some errands to run

so that's it and I'll see you in another video