In my first post Developing a Growth Mindset, I made a mindmap about what is holding us back from better learning English:
- Perfectionism
- Shyness & Fear
- Comparison
- Environment
- Fixed Mindset
- A Lack of Constant Input & Output
I want to begin with my top one mind monster, Perfectionism!
Perfectionism – The Most Difficult Barrier to Break
As an ELL or ESL learner, I believe these scenarios are super normal:
- Rehearsing what we are going to say again and again in our heads before we literally utter it just in case we wouldn’t make any mistakes;
- Rehearsing what we are going to say again and again in our heads before we utter it but we end up saying nothing instead because we are afraid it might be grammatically wrong!
To me, perfectionism is the most difficult barrier to break because we ourselves are exactly the ones putting that barrier in front of us. People often say “You are your own enemy.” I guess it is 100% true in this situation. Perfectionism is a beautiful trait, but maybe NOT when it becomes an obstacle that stops us from advancing ourselves.
Besides, the pains that come along with perfectionism are unbelievably painful. On the outside, you appear to be perfect and people assume you speak fluent English (because you don’t speak a lot, and if you do, it is often short and perfect). You need to put a great amount of extra meaningless effort into maintaining that perfection. On the inside, you are always worried that you are not as great as people think, fearing people might find out about your imperfection someday.
What’s changed?
Well, after years of observing my desire for perfection, one day a sudden thought hit me, “Who cares about you being perfect or imperfect in learning to speak a language? What harm would you get if you failed to speak a sentence correctly? Do you really want your pride to get in the way?”
Then I thought back at one recent course and the conversations I had with my classmates, and asked myself one simple question, “How much do you remember what others said?” None? or maybe one or two words? And I asked myself another, “How much do you remember what you said?” A lot? or quite a lot
The fact is most learners can remember distinctly what they have said and rarely remember what others have said. On the road to learning, people naturally mind most about their own performances and pay low attention to others. It is this simple! Sticking with perfectionism and worrying about others’ opinions sounds completely a waste of time now.
Free from overthinking
This simple clarity literally set me free. I became much more open-minded and learned much more than ever. Honestly, I understand that it is very likely that a perfectionist will never be free from aiming at perfection, but in the aspect of improving fluency in a language, letting yourself free from overthinking is definitely beneficial for the learning results. After all, for one thing, you will never be a native; for another, no one is perfect! Even natives make mistakes. (As a native Chinese speaker, I make Chinese mistakes all the time!) My tip is to tell myself, “Recognize your imperfection and just keep going up from there!”
How to Break Perfectionism
So, to sum up, the best tips for me are simply getting my head to realize:
- You will never be a native.
- No one is perfect. Natives make mistakes, too!
- Overthinking leads you to nowhere.
