The Downside of Consistency in Duolingo
Yeah that’s right, yesterday was my 241st day streak at Duolingo.
Consistency has been a term widely used by productive people but it can be misleading to REALLY achieve your goals.
For example, I’ve realized that I misused Duolingo because all I was trying to do is to keep my day streak running and not to be even frozen one day.
Maybe that’s because my goal was not learning a language seriously but rather keep consistently doing something for a long period of time.
So my intention was not to improve my Spanish or German but to keep learning them for a loong time.
From then on, I realized that if consistency is not integrated with two factors, it will be like interesting but not the productive way that leverages yourself. Even if you finish a tree, that doesn’t make you have grasped the root of a language.
There is a very interesting strategy that levels up your consistency at Duolingo and make full the most out of it.
Clear Goal Set
If you are consistent but you don’t have a clear goal of what you’re doing 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 great at developing the four skills of a language
Rather, set a more specific plan ..
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 Madrid and watch your favorite football players .. needless to say Barcelona as well
But that’s a lot of goals; just pick one, a clear one and stick to it for the sake of not being confused and know your why to avoid what’s commonly called burnout.
Hard Work
Let’s face it, nobody cares about how much hard work you’ve done
What people care about is what you’ve achieved because they don’t see what’s behind the scene where all the hard work is done
You are the only human being who knows how much effort you’ve done
it will certainly pay off at some point in time
Hard work is very very important to integrate with consistency
For example, let’s say you workout for 10 minutes a day and you’re very regular and consistent
this will make you healthier and be in a good shape, right? and on the long-run your back will not be bent
But what if you’re preparing for athletic competition
now, this 10 mins work will not work .. you need to put more energy on that to keep fit & also be able to compete with the giants.
Conclusion
Wrapping this up, it’s unwise to put consistency into something that you’ve done the wrong way
because you’re lacking the goal that should direct you into doing it the right way.
Also, it’s not very valuable what you’re doing consistency without hard work.
The more hard worker you are and more consistent on something, the more valuable (& probably faster) you can reach.