meet R, a young man from San Francisco, California. He meets a woman, T, who is Latin American. her family moved to the US when she was three. she speaks fluent english and Spanish. her family speaks Spanish, but very little english. this makes R’s conversations with T’s family are very awkward because any time someone in T’s family wants to speak to R, or vice versa, they need T to translate.
after two years of dating, R decides it is time to propose to T. after the proposal, R sets the goal for himself to be able to speak Spanish conversationally before their wedding in a year, so he can speak to his in-laws without a translator. R recognizes that this goal might be a little ambitious, but he saw an instagram post of a friend from high school that claims he accomplished exactly what R wanted to: learn to speak Spanish conversationally in one year. if R’s friend could do it, why cant he?
so, with this motivation, he set out to learn Spanish … by downloading Duolingo. he decided that he was going to practice 20 minutes of Duolingo every day. and he did, for about 4 days. something came up during the time he usually does Duolingo and he missed a day. a week later he realized that he had completely forgotten about his resolution, so he started again, this time committing himself to doing 30 minutes per day to make up for lost time. this time, he kept this commitment for just 2 days before forgetting again.
this cycle of starting and stopping continued for months and months. each time he had a large lapse in consistency, he forgot a few words or terms and had to learn them again when he restarted. after a few months, R reflected on his meager progress and decided that learning Spanish was simply too difficult for him and he gave up.
What did R do wrong?
R was impatient. He either a) did not take the time to do thorough research on what is actually required to complete his goal before setting it. Things like:
- Clearly identifying all the sub-goals/milestones
- how can I gradually (and realistically) increase the challenges presented by pursuing the goal as my skills improve?
- how can I get frequent, immediate feedback on the products of my progress from a reliable source?
- What systems can I put in place and what habits do I need to change or form to ensure that I consistently work toward this goal over time?
b) underestimated the time necessary to complete his goal based on the effort he was willing to put in, c) underestimated the effort necessary to complete his goal in the time he allotted, or d) a combination of the three of these.
realistic goal, unrealistic expectations for the amount of effort and time required to achieve it.
Additionally, he compared his journey to that of his friend’s. What R did not see from his friend’s instagram post was that he spent a year in Argentina doing intensive language lessons while living among and interacting with locals daily. His friend saved up for a two years to pay for the classes and support himself before he knew enough of the language to get a job. During the first three months in Argentina he struggled doing everyday things, he frequently got lost, he made dozens of embarrassing mistakes and errors, and felt extremely isolated. not to mention the classes were kicking his ass.
R did not see any of the hard work or sacrifices or failure that his friend experienced in order to complete the same goal.
knowing all of this, it would be incorrect for R to think that he could achieve the same in one year. But not because R is dumb or incapable of doing so, simply because it takes all the things his friend did to be able to be conversational in Spanish in one year. He is not willing or able to do those things (which is ok!), so he should give himself a longer, more realistic time period to complete the goal.
however, people don’t usually share their mistakes, challenges, or failures as openly as their successes. that is to say, people don’t usually share the whole journey. they might show the good, but leave out the bad and the ugly. for that reason, try your best not to compare the journeys of others, or rather the pieces of their journey they choose to share, to your own. it’s usually not a fair comparison1.
I truly believe anyone can achieve anything they want to, if they are willing to set realistic expectations for the amount of time a goal requires based on the effort they are willing and able to put in, or vice versa.
You can achieve anything you want to, if you are patient.
Footnotes
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that isn’t to say that you cant learn from the journeys of others. but making a direct comparison of someone else’s (often incomplete) story to your own, that you then use to influence the expectations you set and uphold for yourself is unhealthy ↩