How To Set English Goals [& actually reach them!]

Well hey there! I'm Emma from mmmEnglish!

Now anyone who's been watching the mmmEnglish channel

for a while now knows that I love this time of year,

the end of one year,

the start of a new one, it's the chance to

think big and dream of new possibilities that

a new year can bring for us.

Now I haven't always been good at setting goals

or sticking to them

but I think I've got a good system in place now that helps me

to see my goals through and so today I want to share my

four-step process for not only setting amazing goals but

to actually get a plan in place to help you reach them.

Now of course for you I'm going to be sharing examples of English

learning goals but really this process is awesome

for any type of goal, professional goals, personal goals.

This is the strategy that I use and I've got to tell you

there's a little more to it than just setting a goal.

Let's check it out!

This video is brought to you by The Ladies' Project,

an online community for women learning English.

It's a place for women to connect, to practise their skills and build

confidence as English speakers

but rather than me tell you about it, I want you to hear about

what we do from the women who are inside.

I've included a link in the description to our member testimonials

page which you can check out any time.

Enrollments will be opening in January and if you're interested

to find out more about what we do or get on the waitlist,

make sure you sign up, the link is down below.

To be honest 2020 didn't really turn out as we planned it to, did we?

What were your goals at the start of 2020?  Do you remember?

For me there was a lot of travel. I had big ambitions to host

the very first in-person event for The Ladies' Project

in Europe in October and I've got family living in England, Thailand,

Malaysia. Normally my year would involve travelling to visit

all of them at some point which of course didn't happen.

I'm sure that you can relate. Maybe your work plans or your study

plans or your travel plans got disrupted.

Let me know about it down in the comments what happened.

Anyway let's get started.

The first step is reflection. So for me, this is really simple,

it's just a brainstorm.

I write down everything that happened in 2020 that

feels significant, the good, the bad, the ugly.

Now I'm a big fan of doing this because no matter what,

there is always something that you can learn.

Even in a year like 2020 there are positive things or lessons learned

that will help you to make better decisions in the year ahead.

And this is a good time to just call all of those out so I ask myself:

What are you proud of?

What did you learn?

What do you want to leave behind?

You know some of the negative things.

For me you know during the year the boundaries of work

and home life really got blurry.

I worked a lot more and that's mostly because I didn't have

as many other options as I usually do like social stuff

or travel or sports and things like that.

So that blurring between work and home life

and those long working hours are definitely something

that I want to leave back there but of course I always ask:

Well what do I want to take with me

from that year into the new one? So you know for me,

some good habits were developed this year around

home cooking and also really staying connected to people

who are far away.

I think we've gotten a lot better and a lot more creative at finding

ways to always be in touch with each other which is fun.

So those simple questions are how I reflect on the year that

I've just finished and I have a friend who does a similar process but

at the end when she feels like she's gotten everything  

that feels significant written down, it's all on paper, she burns it.

It's like a cleanse you know.

I've looked at that year, I've appreciated it, I've taken everything

that I need from it and now

I'm just going to leave it back there.

I don't need that anymore.

In step two, we are focusing on the big picture

and to do this I try to reconnect with my why.

My reason for setting these goals in the first place.

Why am I doing this? What change am I trying to create for myself,

for my family, for my students, for the world.

Whatever it is, why? Why are we doing this?

Everyone's why is going to be a little different, it's really personal

but it's so powerful. Your why and your reason is so important

because it acts as your anchor as you drift off course you know,

you get distracted. This is an analogy that relates to sailing

or boating where if you put an anchor down

even if the wind changes or the current changes and you get

drifting around, you don't lose that position, right?

You're always going to be able to get back to it and so your why

is your anchor through the year

as you get distracted by other things or something else comes up

that's more important and that happens. It happens to me

all the time but if you have a really strong why

you're able to bring yourself back to that bigger reason,

that bigger purpose to see those goals through.

Now you might be wondering

Well, Emma what is my why? I don't have a why.

What are you talking about?

It might be a little easier to go through with some examples

and I'm going to use some examples from my students

in The Ladies' Project community. We have such an incredible

diverse mix of women all meeting regularly and speaking in

English together often. They're all at various stages of their lives

so some of their whys

might be interesting for you but they might also be really relevant

to you and where you're at at the moment.

So one has migrated to Australia with her children, her husband.

She wants to be able to go to her kid's school and chat with

their teachers and to hang out with other parents at the kid's  

birthday parties and things like that. She wants to feel

like she belongs, like she's connected

to the community that she's a part of.

Another is a professional woman. She wants to further her career

and knows that being able to confidently present her research

at international conferences

and network with other experts in her field will help her to do that.

And another's retired, her kids have

moved to an English-speaking country to study, to work.

They're marrying into English-speaking families and in this case,

her big reason for learning English is to be able to

genuinely connect with her new daughter-in-law, her new son-in-law

with ease, to meet their friends and their family.

Now these are all huge reasons why someone would devote

so much time and energy to studying, learning and practising

English and when it starts to feel hard or boring or frustrating,

being really clear on your reason for learning and for practising

will help you to get over that boredom and over that frustration

and keep going.

So now we've come to the point where I focus on the goals

that I want to set for myself in the year ahead.

And notice that this isn't step number one.

I've already reflected on the year that's finished and taken

what I needed from there. I've reconnected with my why,

my reason for setting these goals in the first place

and now is when I get on to actually setting those goals.

So I usually try for three to five goals.

Some of them are personal, some of them are business

or financial goals. Maybe there's a couple of travel goals

and no doubt that you'll have a goal that relates

to your English progress as well.

The most important thing is to make sure that these goals

are in your control, that you can actually control the outcome

of your goal.

If the idea of a smart goal is something that you're into, then great 

use it as a reference here but for me, it's just about

making sure that you are in control of the outcome.

You can control what happens there.

So let's look at this example.

I want to be living in Australia by October.

So right now that outcome is not in your control.

There's a global pandemic. The borders in Australia are closed.

It's uncertain at this point if you will actually be able to do that

so that goal is not within your control.

A better goal is something like

I want to move from an IELTS band 7 to a band 8

by November 2021.

And I'm doing this because I want to move my family to Australia

as soon as possible.

Yes, this is a goal that's within your control, you have the ability

to make it happen.

So once you've got your goals, make sure they're written down.

They're really clear in your mind but that's not all,

that is not all we're going to focus on here because for each goal

that you've written down, I've got some specific questions to ask.

The first is:

Does this goal feel scary?

What parts of it feel hard?

And really recognise what these things are because

they're the things that are going to get in your way from reaching

the goal, your fears, your doubt, uncertainty. That is what's going to

stop you from reaching your goal.

The second question is: What things do I need to change

in my life to make this goal happen?

Do I need to change my attitude? Do I need to re-prioritise

some things in my life? You know do I need to stop

doing this thing in order to make more space for that thing?

You know how do you create more time.

And the third question is:

What kind of support do I need to make this happen?

Maybe you need to join an online community like

The Ladies' Project where there's opportunities

to speak English regularly.

Maybe an online course is your idea of support or a study partner.

All of these things are ways that you can be supported  

to reach your goal. It's identifying the things that you need

to help get there.

So for me these three questions are the most important part 

you know of this process of goal setting.

We can't expect different results in 2021 if we just keep doing

the same thing that we did in 2020 right? That's the definition of

insanity.

So I use these questions to help me identify

what is likely to stop me reaching my goals

and try to find a way around them so that I can keep going.

Now once you've got your big goals sorted great!

We know that these goals are going to take a little bit of time

to reach though right and we need to break them down

into bite-sized pieces make them actionable and achievable.

So to do this I create a 90-day plan so that's three months

I focus on the action that I'm gonna take in that first

three months. By focusing on just three months

it allows me to check in on my goals

at the end of that three month period. Am I still on track?

Have I gotten really distracted or

did I try something that's not really working

and do I need to rethink that?

So I love the three-month check-in because it allows me to not only

look back and make sure that what I was doing was was good

but also to just re-plan and readjust what that next three-month

window is going to look like.

So I said earlier that these four steps work amazingly for any type

of goal, professional, personal or English goals

but I want to keep using the IELTS example

just so that we can follow through and we can see

how the questions that we just asked before will help us

to get really clear on what we need to do

as we create our 90-day plan.

So thinking back to that goal

I want to move from a band 7 to a band 8

in my IELTS speaking exam by November 2021.

Is there something about that goal that makes you feel

scared or nervous or worried?

You might be thinking it feels really hard, you know I haven't spoken

English in years, I don't have anyone to practise with.

I don't really know how much that's gonna cost.

All of these things are doubts, they're fears, they're worries.

Recognising these fears is going to help you to work through them

you know and they won't be such a blockage or a hindrance to you

actually reaching your goals.

So then we can ask what would I need to change in my life

to make this happen?

You know to go from a band 7 to a band 8 in your speaking

test takes work right? It takes practice, it takes study.

so you might need to adjust your schedule a little to create

more time for yourself, for your study.

Maybe you've got to give up your karate class for a couple of

months so that you can create more time for your English practice.

And what support do you need to reach this goal?

Do you need to get a tutor or enroll in a language course.

You know maybe you're thinking

I just don't know how I'm going to pay for that kind of thing.

I know I need a tutor but I'm not sure how I'm going to get

the money together so this is great because your action plan

allows you

to focus on that problem first. You know if I save

thirty dollars a week for the first three months of the year,

by the time I get to my next 90 day plan I should have enough saved

so that I can

focus on enrolling in that course or meeting that tutor,

maybe you decide you want to get a study partner in the meantime

just to tie you over until you can get that tutor.

All of this information is going to help you to identify the

actions that you need to take to keep working towards your goal  

and if you did decide you needed a study partner,

that doesn't happen by magic does it? You need to find that person

and that forms part of your action plan. You know maybe you say

I'm going to write a personal advertisement looking for an IELTS

speaking partner and I'm going to post it in

all the Facebook groups that I'm part of

or you might say I'm going to join an online community so that I can

be connected with other English learners and get regular speaking

practice.

This 90-day plan really is the secret to my goal-setting process

because it helps you to take action immediately

and as you set up your big goals, this 90-day plan

is what's going to help you set the wheels in motion

which is a great expression that means to do something or some

things that helps to start a process, to set the wheels in motion.

This plan is going to set you up for success,

it's going to help you to create really good habits not down the track

but right now from the get-go.

So I hope that it was useful to see how I'll be planning out

my year ahead and I'll be doing it over the next few days.

So if you follow this process or if you already have your own

goal-setting process, I would love to hear what your goals are

for 2021. Let me know down in the comments below.

I'm super excited to hear them and get behind you.

Thank you for watching my lessons, for sharing your comments,

sharing my lessons and being part of the mmmEnglish community

throughout 2020. I will definitely see you in 2021.

I'm taking a little break just over the new year but I will be back

and right here delivering lessons for you very, very soon.

Happy new year!