I started using the Duolingo app consistently in December 2019.
And continued until 440 days something. I realized I was going to smash it till a 1000 day streak!
But one day I was very overwhelmed and couldn’t check Duolingo on my phone for two days straight. Unsurprisingly, I lost the streak that I kept for more than one year!!
Today, I’ll share why that happened so that it won’t happen from your side.
My goal was not clear
If you are consistent but you don’t have a clear goal of what you’re going to accomplish, I’m not sure this will make you go far.
For example, if you decide to learn Spanish just because it’s the second most common language on earth and nothing else — this will not necessarily make you good at developing the four skills of a language .
Rather, set a more specific goal.
Maybe you’d like to learn Spanish to be able to communicate to more people around the world to deliver value to them, to understand Spanish-written news, to travel to Spain.
Just pick a goal. A clear one. Your own. And stick to it and avoid distraction at that very time. Know your why .
But it’s important to know how to cut your goal into subgoals.
Cut your goals into subgoals
The problem is that we focus on goals associated with results and we forget to put systems associated with processed to achieve those results. Focus on systems instead of goals!
Redefine your goal by setting a timeline narrowed down in scope. So in this case, you want to learn Spanish every single day. A potential subgoal you can set is to “finish a quarter of a tree in two months”. Being consistent on that will make you finish one whole tree of a language in eight months!
Try dedicating 10 minutes a day and iterate on it until you’re used to it.
Then increase the duration to 20 minutes and so on. Until you’re doing Duolingo without even thinking about it.
When setting a goal, Don’t say: ‘increase learning Spanish time in two months because by saying just increase you leave it open. So be more specific and narrow your scope.
Also, don’t set it like this ‘Finish a quarter of a tree’. By that, you left it open to time. Rather, ask yourself when exactly should you finish 1/4 of the Spanish tree? next decade?!
And it’s important to focus on just one thing that matters the most. Here is how.
Conclusion
It’s unwise to put consistency into something that I’ve done the wrong way because I was already lacking the goal that should direct me into doing it the right way hopefully .
I’ve learned that the hard way.
Also, it’s not valuable to be consistent without redefining my goals and form subgoals.
The more systematic you are and consistent on something, the more valuable (and probably faster) you can reach in learning languages and anything.