3 ways English learners shoot themselves in the foot!

Don't shoot yourself in the foot!

Set yourself up for success!

I'm Emma from mmmEnglish

and this video is for English learners,

specifically, those who want to speak in English more,

who want to perform better in English conversations.

Even if you're not interested in the three ways

to be a successful English speaker,

you will definitely learn about this interesting idiom

and how to use it at the end of this video.

The first way that English learners

shoot themselves in the foot

is when they say that they'll do something

but then they don't.

They don't follow through.

And maybe you think

Emma, that's no big deal.

But it is.

You're adding to this huge,

potentially overwhelming pile of things that you have not done,

that you haven't ticked off

and all of these little things are sitting there,

they're waiting for you to take action.

I know from personal experience

that that huge pile of things

creates guilt, it creates shame,

it creates a whole lot of negative self-talk.

See Emma,

you never follow through.

How will you succeed if you can't even complete a course

that you got for free?

To put this into context,

think about learning English online.

There is so much material out there that you can access.

You can practise with online websites, you can download

free worksheets, you can watch YouTube videos,

you can sign up for free courses and challenges.

You can even pay for courses.

There is no shortage of information. In fact,

Everything that you need to learn grammar and vocabulary

already exists online and a lot of it

is completely free to access.

So how come you're not fluent yet?

The problem is that most students run around

grabbing all of these free resources and

stashing them away somewhere so that

next week they can start

but they're not staying focused, they're not getting it done

and even more importantly,

not putting those learnings into practice

which is actually the hard part.

You can collect as many resources

as you like but unless you do something with them,

complete the workbook, finish the course

and even better,

use what you were studying in real conversations

so that you can make mistakes and you can get stuck

and find your way out of trouble

and try out all these new phrases and expressions

that you've been memorising.

Without all of that,

well what's the point?

Another way to shoot yourself in the foot,

set yourself a huge, really general goal.

If you do that, you will never notice your progress.

You will never feel success.

What is your goal?

To speak English better?

If this is your goal, you're shooting yourself in the foot.

Goals need clear time frames, measurable outcomes

and they need to be achievable.

For example,

speaking with someone in English once a week

throughout October, November and December.

This is a fantastic, achievable, measurable goal.

You can tick this off your list of things to do, right?

It doesn't matter if this conversation is for ten minutes

or if it's for an hour

but to make sure this happens every week,

you need to spend a little bit of time

planning your English speaking practice,

making sure it happens.

So if you're lucky enough to be attending regular

English classes,

you might be thinking

I don't need to plan and organise anything,

I'm just going to show up to my class.

But you might still be shooting yourself in the foot.

Do you come to class with questions about your homework?

Do you raise your hand and ask questions during the class

and most importantly,

how are you putting what you learn in those classes

into practice, into speaking practice?

And if you're not going to regular English classes

then where and how and when

are you going to practise your speaking skills?

You especially need to spend some time

planning this

ahead of time so that you don't shoot yourself in the foot.

Number three,

comparing yourself to others.

If you compare yourself to someone who

has more time, has more money than you,

has a quiet place to study from when you don't,

who doesn't have kids when you do,

someone who has the support of their manager at work

when you don't

or someone who has a supportive group of friends

who encourage them to speak in English.

If you're comparing yourself to others,

you are shooting yourself in the foot.

Now if you do or you don't have these things,

it doesn't mean that you can't reach the same place

as someone else. Absolutely you can!

But you will probably need to take

a slightly different path to get there.

You need to spend time planning your journey

marking out the path that you need to take to get there

and you of course, need to be taking

each of those steps.

Okay, okay, so what does

"shoot yourself in the foot" actually mean?

Can you guess after I was using it to talk about

all of those different situations?

Can you guess the meaning from the context?

Pause for a minute if you want to get your thoughts in order

and think about your answer to this question

and maybe write it down in the comments below.

To shoot oneself in the foot

means to make a situation worse for oneself

without meaning to, without intending to.

In the examples that I gave you earlier in the video,

what was the situation that I'm referring to?

You wanting to improve your English

especially your spoken English.

When I use this idiom to talk about that situation,

I'm suggesting that

you are making your situation

of wanting to speak more in English

worse

by not following through, not having specific goals

or by comparing yourself to others.

So if any of these things sound like you

or something that you sometimes or always do

I hope that you've taken this video in the right way.

It might seem a little like tough love, I know,

but I hope that you know that my message to you today

comes from a place of love, it comes from my heart.

I do not want you

to shoot yourself in the foot.

By the way, you can't shoot anyone else in the foot.

When you use this idiom, the subject

can only make the situation worse for themselves.

We shot ourselves in the foot

by bringing the dog on our road trip.

Now we can't get into any of the national parks.

Mary really shot herself in the foot when she lost her licence!

Now she can't work.

The Prime Minister shot himself in the foot by saying that

healthcare was not going to be prioritised in this year's budget.

Can you think of a time when you shot yourself in the foot?

Tell me down in the comments, I'm keen to hear these stories.

And then

come along and join me in the next lesson!