We all slip and fall but we are designed to succeed, this is a part of what makes us human and a huge part of the Portuguese learning process.
So how do we eliminate getting stuck in failure so that we can be successful in learning to speak Portuguese?
No doubt you’ve heard of the toddler metaphor…
Well, when a toddler is learning to take her first steps there is a lot of stumbling, tripping and falling…
Maybe her right foot is positioned a litte too much to the left and rolls a bit making her tumble. This is no occasion for defeat so she gets back up and tries again – this time aware to keep her foot straight.
She then tries again and succeeds!
This 18 second video sums it up perfectly:
And all the Brazilian ladies say “que coisinha mais fofinha!!” (What a cute little thing!)
If she would have stayed on the ground and not gotten back up after stumbling, she woudn’t have reached the goal of walking to her mom.
But she did get back up and did reach her goal!
In order to avoid from keeping offtrack talking about little walking babies, let’s take a look at the 5 main things that will keep helping you get up when you stumble:
- Believing that you can
- Dealing with life’s business
- Focusing on your goals
- Blowing shortcomings away
- Having a beer on the beach
Note: one of the above 5 items won’t be included below, which one do you think it is? It may surprise you?
P.S. you are here in the Portuguese Acceleration Blueprint:
Belief With and Without Action
If you remember back from part 3 about creating healthy habits when speaking Portuguese, we talked about believing that you can.
Believing is one thing, but taking action on that belief is something totally different!
Let’s say that you want to move to Brazil for a while and you whole heartedly believe that you can and will do it.
Time passes, life happens and before you know it the belief has fallen away and nothing happens…
OR
You believe that you can and will move to Brazil and therefore you set a date in your calendar to begin putting that belief into action.
As you have committed yourself to believing in it by putting it into action, things start falling into place little by little.
All of the small pieces of the puzzle only increase your belief and make it stronger as you realize that it’s becoming more and more of a reality.
The date comes and you arrive in Brazil with the world’s biggest smile on your face because your belief in action lead to you reaching your goals and dreams!
The Same Goes for Speaking Portuguese
When I talk about using the Portuguese Acceleration Blueprint to be able to speak Portuguese in under 6 months, this is a way for you to put your belief into practice.
6 months because it gives you a “why” for your belief and a time frame for a plan of action – yeah it could be done in under 6 months or longer but it gives you an ambitious number to follow.
This is exactly what I owe successfully learning Portuguese in under 6 months to (while in the USA), believing so much in being able to do it that everything else fell into place and only increased snowballed the effect of that belief.
Dealing with Life’s Business
There is no one greater stumbling block to your success then life’s business.
It was once said that a business manager in reality only spends 2-3 hours per day of his/her work time on what they were hired to do. The rest of the time is spent on being busy all day long.
The same goes for any one of us as we work all day, get home from work and have a lot to take care of at home, with our families, with extra-curricular activities and by the time evening comes we spend the rest of our time answering emails or whatever else needs to be “wrapped up” for the day.
Whether we realize it or not, our lives are many times filled with a lot of unnecessary ”fluff” keeping us stretched to our maximum and from putting our belief into practice.
Don’t worry, many clever people before us found a way when there didn’t seem to be a way…
Going from Busy to Efficient
The first step in freeing yourself up to speak Portuguese is to introduce a pattern breaker into your life…
A pattern breaker is something that “shakes” your world up a bit and lets you sit down and look at things in a different perspective for a while.
Recently a friend of mine who passed away (God rest her soul), told me a trick that works.
Take and clear out your weekend completely, then remove any technology (above necessary) and lock yourself away from anyone else.
Fueled by a book like plus maybe the (for example), begin examining your life piece by piece and building a new efficient lifestyle.
Focusing on Your Goals
Remember the moving to Brazil analogy from earlier about belief in action? Well what do you think fuels that belief in action?
Focusing on your goals
Let’s say that you decide to take a cross country trip in from Porto Alegre to Manaus by bus (all the way south to all the way north), stopping along the way to check out various places.
How about a little road trip from Porto Alegre to Manaus?
Your main goal is to arrive in Manaus to be together with some of your best friends but at the same time you want to tak the whole experience of travelling across Brazil in.
Sounds pretty idyllic right?
Well, the truth is that the journey will take a couple of weeks (at least) and within that journey you may experience irritating passengers, a hard time sleeping, aches in your body from sitting so long and other “not so fun” things.
Maybe the bus gets a flat and your have to sit on the side of the road for 4 hours (happened to my wife)!
This will be the majority of what you spend your time doing but it doesn’t matter because you are focused on your goal of arriving in Manaus and seeing some amazing things along the way.
In fact, each leg of the journey has it’s own little milestones where you can think “today I’m going to Ouro Preito!” or “tomorrow it will be Fortaleza!”.
Your Portuguese learning adventure should be the same, focus on your goal of fluency and set minor weekly and monthly goals along the way.
One way of doing this is to get a calendar out and write in weekly and monthly milestones – and don’t forget to celebrate them!
Having a Beer on the Beach
When I asked which one of the 5 wouldn’t be included below, I bet you though it would be this one!
The truth is that #4 “Blowing Shortcomings away” is accomplished by having the right kind of perspective on life – taking it easy in the face of defeat.
Whenever we stumble and fall the truth is that it hurts, and we may get some bruises or maybe just frustrated but it’s unavoidably painful.
Either way, there is a way of bouncing back again and refueling yourself to go for it again and that is by being easier on yourself.
I’m not saying that you should go and abandon everything you are doing and just drink beer on the beach. What I am saying is that when you feel defeated, take a step back and get a breath of fresh air so that you can go at it again.
For some people this may be in the form of going for a jog, other people maybe it’s laying out in the sun for a bit or it could be as simple as hanging out and watching a (maybe Brazilian) movie!
No matter what your method for doing it is, get back up and keep your eye on the prize – your fluency!
Final Words
As you’ve probably noticed, there is quite a decent amount of initial pep-talk and motivation when setting out to learn to speak Portuguese fluently.
And this is justified as it’s important that you are completely hyped up all the way through the process.
Get ready because next week is when we really get our hands dirty and launch you into the whole “learning” side of things.
Make sure and so you get notified when next week’s post is out!
To your success – valeu!
Kevin
P.S. give this a thumbs up if it was helpful!
For most of my adult life, I've dreamed of living in Brazil but couldn't figure out how...
5 part series