The secrets of motivation – Part 1

In our last article, we introduced 7 principles to start learning French under the best conditions.

Today, Expatlang, your French language school, will share their insight on the first principle: we learn better when motivation comes from within. 

The question of motivation is tricky as far as learning French is concerned. In particular when learning French online. Starting to learn a language isn’t that hard. But, if we want to keep learning until we finally reach our goals, that’s a different kettle of fish. 

You’ve decided to learn French this year. But how to stay motivated until the end? Today we’ll focus on two major tips to boost your motivation. 

1. Picture your future self

One of the triggers of our motivation is our ability to picture ourselves in the future. To do so, we have to ask ourselves the following questions: once I speak French, how will that affect my life? What benefits will I get from French courses? Will my salary be higher? Will my social image in the community be better? Will it boost my self-esteem?  

The answers to these questions are personal and should be as honest as possible: no one’s there to judge. Any reason is valid! Your motivation is linked to your ability to imagine a better version of yourself in the future. Keeping this ultimate goal in mind will increase your chances to succeed and will be a source of satisfaction whilst working towards it. 

Picturing yourself in the future will help you determine long-term goals. However, these long-term goals are just the first step and won’t be sufficient to keep you learning until you reach fluency. Let’s now focus on another crucial aspect of learning French: milestones.  

2. Set yourself sub-goals

Learning French takes time and requires consistency. Learning a language is like a marathon. Knowing that a medal is waiting in the end can be motivating right at the beginning, but it suddenly seems like an impossible goal to reach when you’ve been running for 27 km and still have 15 to go. 

Of course, learning French isn’t that exhausting. To stay motivated until the end, you should try to keep room for a some rewards in between: learning milestones.  

Define clear sub-goals along your learning journey and celebrate every single time you reach one of them: be proud of your work and efforts. Then, when you start French lessons again, simply target the following sub-goal which, once reached, will give you a boost of motivation and courage to keep going until you’ve finally mastered your learning goals.

Now, imagine that on a special occasion, you have the opportunity to chat with a world-famous reporter. He’s just back from Nepal where he’s been following extreme truck drivers who risk their lives on narrow mountain roads at a vertiginous 5000m of altitude.

If facing your curious eyes he simply says: “I went to Nepal and followed extreme truck drivers” with no additional explanation, wouldn’t you be a little disappointed? No thrilling anecdotes? No witty insight? No heroic twist? The same goes for your learning journey: what makes it beautiful is the series of epic adventures along the way.  

The milestones and the path you walk are as important, if not more, than your final goal. These milestones are the foundations on which you’ll build your learning experience. The more seriously you work on them, the more lasting your knowledge and skills.  

We’ll be happy to read about your long-term goals and milestones in the comments of this article and wish you all the best for your journey learning French. 

Expatlang will be happy to help you define a clear learning plan and set yourself milestones. Feel free to contact us for more information.