Preventing Failure
“The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure.” – Sven Goran Eriksson
You’ve come a long way, and you’re (probably) ready to start learning Japanese. Learning a language is actually a really big step and can definitely be exciting. However, the adrenaline rush (ha, it’s fun to have “adrenaline rush” and “language learning” together) of deciding to do something new and different often makes people dive in too deeply right from the get go. The first step is to prevent that by taking the proper precautions before you begin (thinking long term, yeah?). Don’t worry, it won’t take too long, and you’ll be able to learn a lot faster and a lot more effectively later on because of it.
The first rule of TextFugu (is to “never talk about TextFugu”…wait, that’s Fight Club) is to try and keep you inspired and motivated to keep studying. TextFugu’s made for self-learners, after all, and if it didn’t help with things like “staying motivated” and “keeping with it” it wouldn’t be a very good textbook for self-learners at all. So, of course, it covers these things too. I can only do so much for you, though. You have to put in the effort too – I can only help you get there.
Still, if you end up getting demotivated and quit…that means we both failed, and I’d rather that not happen.
So, that’s why we’re doing some precautionary steps right now. 90% of Japanese self-learners quit in the first week or two. That’s pretty mind-boggling to me, since I think it’s usually the resource’s fault when this happens.
There are a few things I want you to do – once you do them, you’ll be way less likely to quit. It’s not 100% or anything, but it’ll help a ton.
First up is a couple of easy questions. I just want you to answer them. It’ll help you figure things out as you move forward. They will also help you to stay motivated when times get tougher. I don’t want you to be in that 90% quitter group. Let’s make those percentages a little bit better with you, aye?