Setting clear goals is one of the most important steps in mastering a new skill. Whether you’re just starting or have been learning for years, understanding your language learning goals and breaking them down into actionable steps can definitely transform your progress. Often, however, you may feel that despite your best efforts, you’re not making any real progress— or at least that’s how it feels. In this blog post, we’ll explore the big problem that most language learners don’t even know they’re suffering from, offer solutions, and help you finally achieve your goals.

First things first: What are your language learning goals?

Picture this. You’re a beginner in your target language, and you’ve started watching a TV show. Don’t you wish you could understand at least some of it? That would be so nice, right?

You learn for weeks and weeks, maybe even months, and finally, your language goals start to materialize. You can understand some of a TV show!

You’re so happy—

For a while.

Next thing you know, you’ve grown used to understanding bits and pieces of the shows you watch. It’s no longer thrilling. Now? You’re eyeing your next target: You want to be able to understand the gist of TV shows. In other words, you want to be able to follow along with the plot. This isn’t a bad goal to have. Who wouldn’t want to understand the plot, right?

Unfortunately, now that you’ve set a new goal, every minute you spend trying to understand the plot and failing causes you to get more and more frustrated. You tell yourself to be patient, as soon as you can follow the plot you’ll never be unsatisfied again.

You’ll finally be happy when you reach this goal.

Really? Sure.

For a few days. And then?

“I’m so sick of missing all these important details! I know the detectives are trying to investigate this guy, but why?! And why are there so many dang words in this language?”

The Treadmill of Happiness

We call this the treadmill of language-learning happiness. With each step you take, you get farther and farther on your language-learning journey, but you’re never any closer to feeling satisfied.

Instead of taking joy in how far you’ve made it and how much you’ve learned, all you focus on is the next milestone and a finish line that you never reach.

You don’t look behind you at how far you’ve come because you’re always focused on future learning goals instead. Your wins and victories only make you happy for a little while, and then they’re forgotten.

Can you relate?

“Comparison is the thief of joy”

Or maybe you do value your successes, but you can’t help but compare yourself to others around you:

“Yeah, I guess I did achieve some stuff, but look at Sally over there! She did the same thing in way less time!”

So what?! Who cares about what Sally did? Why does it matter so much who achieve their fluency goals faster?

Language learning is not a race. One person may dedicate 10 hours a day to study their language, while another person may dedicate only one hour, but in the end they will both reach the same place.

We guarantee you that when you bust out your fluent foreign language skills in front of your friends, you’re going to get nothing but compliments. And when you tell them it took you years? They aren’t going to immediately dismiss your efforts as “slow” or “bad.” They’re going to be impressed that you made it to fluency at all — something the vast majority of people fail at. And secretly, they’re probably going to be envious of you too!

Rethink your language goals

If you want to enjoy your journey, stop only looking forward to your next goal.

Instead, look backward at how far you’ve come and what you’re capable of now. Pat yourself on the back often. Every day that you immerse and put effort into trying to understand another language is another success.

Instead of comparing yourself to others, compare your ability today to your ability last month or last year.

Set smart goals for language learning

And maybe most importantly, instead of only having big future-oriented fluency goals, make it your goal to do the best job you can do, today, to make progress on learning your language.

Having a clear and consistent daily goal like this can be a great weapon in the fight against dissatisfaction and impatience because it never falls victim to the treadmill of happiness. There is no “next” goal here. It’s just doing your best and giving it your all in every daily language practice. You can even implement daily habit tracking so you have something concrete to support yourself with.

And the result of successfully doing your best day after day? Satisfaction and fluency.

The choice is yours

The road to fluency is a long one and you can either arrive at your destination having had a pleasing and satisfactory journey or a journey filled with impatience and frustration. The choice is yours.