Transcription
Are you feeling overwhelmed by your busy life, struggling to find time for doing things that truly matter to you, like studying and practicing your English? Today, E and I will talk about how even with a crazy schedule, you can actually become a confident English speaker with 10-minute daily habits.
Oh yes, citizens of the world! This is Cia from Real Life English, where every single week it is our mission to take you beyond the classroom to speak English confidently and naturally, to connect to the world, and actually use your English as the doorway to your greatest life.
So a new week, a new episode, and I’m so happy to be here with you again! Easy, hello! How have you been doing?
I’ve been great! I’ve been actually excited to talk about this topic today. There are so many podcasts, many articles, books about this topic, and it actually gets you wondering what actually works, right? It's not just English that is one of those fuzzy topics that people want to figure out, like habits in general—how to implement habits, build habits—is actually another topic that is a thinker for people.
Yeah, and I’m so excited too! And by the way, you know what I like about today’s topic? For some people, it may be a little bit controversial. You see, like everybody has those 10 or 15 minutes a day, but not everyone believes that it can actually bring some real results in their language learning, right?
If we were recording this in some studio and if we had some live audience here, I would be so curious to see if by the end of this episode some of them have changed their minds or kept resisting and not believing that it actually works. But I know that you have so many facts and like, I don’t know, even behavioral psychology to prove this fact of life that consistency is key.
Yeah, it’s one of the most common excuses: "I don’t have time! You know, I have my kids, or I study and work, and for me it’s just impossible to prioritize learning. So maybe one day when I’m more available, I’ll focus on that." And that’s one of the reasons why people are not working towards their fluency today.
So hopefully, by the end of this episode, you, viewer, listener, can just have an idea of what to do even if you find yourself in these situations.
Yeah, and it’s also like, you know, I really want us to be honest with our viewers, with our learners, that it’s not only about finding those 10 minutes, yeah? It’s just like really planning those 10 minutes. You should be intentional about your practice, about your daily practice, and building that strong habit.
I know you’re going to talk about this habit a lot. It reminds me of this story Ethan recently told us about his mom. So his mom has been visiting him recently in Barcelona, right? And there was this journey with Duolingo. So basically, Ethan’s mom was studying Spanish—was it Spanish?
Yeah, Spanish on Duolingo. Do you want to share this story with us?
Yeah, so I believe she’s been studying Spanish for four years. And for Ethan, it’s surprising, it’s kind of shocking, that when she tries to communicate in Spanish in different situations, like when, for example, they go to a café, a coffee shop in Barcelona, she can’t really order her coffee in Spanish. But she’s been studying it supposedly for four years.
So kind of crazy, and that makes you think like it doesn’t work, right? Duolingo is not really taking her to fluency. So it’s not any habit that will get you there, even though Duolingo proposes that if you use it for 10 minutes a day—same thing that we’re proposing here—you will eventually learn that language. That’s not true. It works for taking you to maybe lower intermediate, from zero to maybe 20% of your way to fluency. But after that point, you should stop with Duolingo and do more activities that will give you results for going from intermediate to advanced.
So before we go into like a deeper topic and all that, you know, psychology thing and habits building, just like for a lighter start, can you just right away give at least one exercise that everyone can do like 10 minutes? You can do this, and like you’re good.
Yeah, so this one is going to be even better because if you have zero minutes, you can actually do it. So you just need to find a moment in your day where you’re doing something that’s more automatic. Say you are commuting—by the way, what does the word commute mean?
What is that verb?
To commute is to get to work, yeah? To your workplace from home. And if you’re living in a big city, it may take a while, like up to one hour to get to your working place, right?
Exactly! So you need to find those moments where you can take advantage of those 30 minutes, 20 minutes, even 10 minutes where you don’t have to think. You’re just there waiting, maybe you’re doing the dishes, for example. Just find that activity in your life, and you can listen to a podcast. You can listen to an audiobook while you’re doing that. So that’s one thing that you can immediately insert in your life, and we’re going to talk about actually the way to implement this particular habit today.
Nice! What you were just describing reminds me of the things I wanted to do on this podcast today. So I brought you a couple of proverbs, and one of them is exactly fitting here—what you describe, the situation when you use commute when you take advantage of one thing to do the other thing—so it’s killing two birds with one stone. This is the proverb we can use in this situation.
So I have a couple of others, and I’m very curious to hear what associations in relation to today’s topic you have with those proverbs. So can we try?
Yeah! I mean, this is a perfect one! Storytelling is really powerful, and proverbs—they're just like quintessential things about storytelling; it’s just like, you know, concise wisdom, right?
Okay, so the next one is "every little bit counts."
"Every little bit counts" says a lot, actually. Drawing inspiration from the book Atomic Habits, I can tell you that every bit counts because every single action you take is like a vote for the type of person that you want to be in life. And that means a lot because it is reinforcing an identity, and that identity is going to lead you to having more solid habits, which will then reinforce back the identity. So it’s a virtuous cycle.
Wow! Deep things are in that book, Atomic Habits by James Clear.
Yeah, we'll link it in the show notes so people can check it. We both read it; I really liked it! Actually, I was killing two birds with one stone because this book I was listening to while on my commute.
So the next one: "Rome wasn’t built in one day."
So, what comes to your mind when you think about that?
Okay, so your outcomes, the results that you have in life, they are a lagging measure of your habits.
Oh, I don’t think it’s easy to understand. Can you stop here for a while to explain what it is?
Yeah, so a measure is just like something that you can measure, right? It’s a noun, like a measure. And lagging, it means that you have a delayed impact of that; it takes a while for you to see the effects of it. So your outcomes, your results in life, they are a lagging measure—a lagging result of your habits.
So it takes time for you to see the results of what you’re doing. When you’re talking about habits, you shouldn’t expect to see results immediately, and that’s okay. That’s why identity is important, because you’d be fulfilled by the activity, by the habit, by doing it every day. You feel victorious, you know? It’s not about the result.
So like if you want to write a book, the result that you should want is just writing every day, not the actual book. Because if you see yourself as a writer, that will lead you to eventually having written an entire book.
So for example, your net worth, like everything you have—like all the money you’ve made—is a lagging measure of your financial habits.
That’s so interesting! And that’s again a little bit like counterintuitive for many people because many people when they set goals, they’re not thinking about like what they’re doing right now at the moment, which eventually brings them to that goal. Is that what you were basically saying here?
Yeah, because people focus on their goals, but you should—instead of focusing on their goals—you should focus on their systems, right? Their processes. Again, the book Atomic Habits talks a lot about this, and I remember one of the reasons I can tell you about is that winners and losers, the people who have success and the people who don’t have success, they have the same outcomes in mind.
So let’s say you want to ace a test and get a max score; everybody taking a test has that same goal. So that’s not a nice goal to have. You want to have goals that actually lead you to success; you should make those about the practices, right? The habits that will lead you to success every day. You should be fulfilled by doing that every day—not be fulfilled by getting a maximum score.
Exactly! If we focus just on the end goal, like for example, for our English learners to become fluent in English, they are getting a little bit frustrated every day because they haven’t yet reached that fluency. But if they focus on the process of learning English, it makes them happier because they are not fixated on that end goal.
Yeah, pretty much! It’s about identity again. That’s why the Real Life way is such a complete method because we do have the component connected: Connect English to your identity. In this case, how do you view yourself as an English learner? Are you the type of person who synergizes habits just like we’re talking about?
Like if you’re riding the bus or doing the dishes? If you have kids and feel like you don’t have time, that’s okay. Just see yourself as a person who optimizes time elegantly, beautifully, without feeling stressed about it. You sort of get into that narrative, and you suddenly find time for it, or you kill two birds with one stone, as you said.
Yeah, you just reminded me with the Real Life way of another proverb I brought today, and it’s: "Time flies when you’re having fun."
Wow! Optimizing habits is important too, like optimizing the habits so that they are more fun. For example, you could watch anything in your free time—in 10 minutes that you may have left—but how about watching something that you really love? And how about setting aside that thing that you really want to watch? Maybe you can create a playlist on YouTube with the videos that you are really interested in watching. Maybe you even already have that.
But by doing that, you’re facilitating your doing that activity because it’s going to be more convenient. The name of this element is: make it fun, natural, convenient. So that’s the convenience of it. You don’t have to look for what you’ll consume, and you’re picking the stuff that is actually fun for you. It doesn’t have to be boring—like this podcast, if you find it fun; if you find it cool, decide like, "This is the thing I’m going to consume."
So same thing like music, for example: you don’t have to listen to stuff that people recommend that you don’t find fun. Pick the stuff that you love—that is essential for you to live your English!
But I liked what you said about creating a playlist, for example, of the videos you want to watch or the music you want to listen to because that brings me to another proverb that I strongly believe in: when you intentionally plan those 10 minutes for each day, it will definitely bring more results than just randomly. Because you will spend those 10 minutes scrolling, trying to search for something if you’re not that sure what you want to watch right now.
Right! So I think if you even have half an hour on your Saturday, just use it for planning the whole week. Plan those slots of 10, 15 minutes; find where you can sneak them into your busy schedule, and that will really work like this snowball effect for you—what we were talking about at the very beginning.
But let me bring you this next proverb: "Don’t bite off more than you can chew."
Mhm, yeah! It’s about your expectations, right? Because people—they normally expect that, you know, "I’m going to be able to do this for one hour." And what’s better: 10 minutes a day every day or the unrealistic expectation of one hour per day?
And you’re failing to do that, and you’re just getting frustrated and feeling like you cannot actually do it. So it’s about planning too. You were just talking about the importance of planning.
So plan for something that’s realistic. And something else about planning—because you were making those comments about that previous quote—that makes me think about the importance of setting things up for success for yourself. You can design your environment. If things are not appropriate for you to actually do these activities, setting up the list of videos that you will want to watch or songs that you want to listen to is one of these ideas.
But it goes beyond that. For example, we’re talking about doing the dishes. You can do the same with the book that you will listen to or the podcast. Say you normally have breakfast by yourself, so leave your headphones on the table already and know what you want to listen to. Then you’re facilitating all of that for yourself.
So thinking again once again about Atomic Habits, there is a cycle of habit building that starts from the cue. Cue meaning cue: what does that word mean, Cia?
It’s just like a hint, right? A hint for you, or a prompt, maybe a trigger even, right?
But yeah, those are good words—prompt and trigger. And what does a trigger do? It starts the whole thing. This is important for removing and killing bad habits or for building the good habits that you want.
So in the case of the bad habits, you should get rid of the cues. I can give you one example that’s not related to English. Say you want to lose weight, and you notice that you are addicted to eating cookies. You have a jar of cookies on your table, right? And every time you get home, you see the jar of cookies, you just grab one. That’s a bad habit.
And the easiest way to kill that habit is just to remove the cue, removing the jar. You know? Like put it away or don’t even buy cookies! You’re getting rid of the cue completely by doing that.
But you have to make sure that you have the cues more obvious in your environment for the good habits. So in this case, that’s why I’m talking about the headphones on your table and that playlist that makes it super easy for you to engage in the activity.
I just remembered this funny example from this book about hiding a TV set somewhere in another room or in a closet, right? It’s just like killing bad habits by not watching TV too much, right?
And for those people who, for example, want to read more, just put a book on your coffee table or by your bed, right?
Mhm! By the way, E and I just find some good vocabulary for you, but you can see that we are not making too many pauses to explain each and every advanced word we’re using here in this podcast.
But good news is we do cover them on the Real Life English app because for every episode, we create flashcards with the 30 most important words and vocabulary that you want to learn and use in your real life English conversations.
The flashcards have an example sentence, definition, pronunciation, and an image to help you better memorize the word. And the algorithm our app uses will bring the new word to you at the exact moment when you’re just about to forget it. So the next time you’re having a conversation in English, instead of freezing up and missing some words that you need, you will be talking freely and confidently, getting the right words at the right time.
You can find the link to download it in the description to this video or by searching for Real Life English in your favorite app store.
So should we move on? We wanted to watch a clip—a TED Talk—the speaker here makes this just simple math. She calculates how many hours per week an average person has, and it makes it so funny because when we are like, you know, snowed under all this work, when we are swamped, we have a lot of fun on our plates.
It's like a default reaction to say, "Oh, I don’t have time!" And with this clip, she proves that, "No, wait a minute! Everyone has time! Just like, you know, multiply 24 by 7, and you’ll see how many hours you have in a week."
So let's briefly watch the clip, and then comment on it.
Okay, let’s do it! But actually, before we get into it, could you define the words—the expressions “snowed under” and “swamped”? I think you just used those, right?
Yeah, those are like exactly for those busy people who still want to use words and expressions to express how busy they are. Instead of just saying, "Oh, I’m busy," you can use these words or these expressions.
So to be snowed under means to have a lot of tasks to do—just like, you know, to be buried in work; it’s another expression. And to be swamped—you know, a swamp is that, you know, it’s like where Shrek lives.
Right?
It’s where Shrek lives, yes! Exactly! So it comes—this word "swamped" comes from the noun "swamp." This is a very humid area flooded with water. So when you’re swamped, you’re just flooded with all the tasks and areas; it’s hard to move.
Right! So, okay, let’s get into the clip.
There are 168 hours in a week. 24 times 7 is 168 hours; that is a lot of time. If you are working a full-time job, so 40 hours a week, sleeping eight hours a night, so 56 hours a week—that leaves 72 hours for other things! That is a lot of time.
You say you’re working 50 hours a week, maybe a main job and a side hustle? Well, that leaves 62 hours for other things. You say you’re working 60 hours? Well, that leaves 52 hours for other things. You say you’re working more than 60 hours?
Well, are you sure? There was once a study comparing people’s estimated work weeks with time diaries found that people claiming 75 plus hour work weeks were off by about 25 hours! You can guess in which direction, right?
Anyway, in 168 hours a week, I think we can find time for what matters to you. If you want to spend more time with your kids, you want to study more for a test you’re taking, you want to exercise for 3 hours and volunteer for two, you can! And that’s even if you’re working way more than full-time hours.
Wow! Just simple math, right? She proves it! She proves you wrong by just showing you the math! It was so eye-opening for me when I first watched it. Like, it’s like we often just don’t realize, yeah! There are so many hours; we’re just like wasting most of them, right?
Mhm! Yeah, I think we’re on autopilot more than ever.
Could you please define this word she used here? So she said you may have a main job and a side hustle. What is a side hustle?
A side hustle?
Yeah, so basically, it’s like a side project, a side job that you may have. So you have your main job, and if you do something on the side, maybe professionally, so it’s a side hustle.
And hustle in this case relates more to the fact that you are making that effort. Maybe you don’t have so much time, but you’re hustling; you are doing it in a hurry, and you are just struggling but doing it.
Yeah! It reminds me of another expression: juggling several tasks at a time.
Yes! So when you are juggling, you’re trying to cope—to handle several things, several projects, right?
Mhm! Yeah, but anyway, something that this clip made me think about is the whole idea of saying yes and saying no to demands in life. And it’s interesting because we often find ourselves with less time for what we really want to do because we have already said yes to all these other things.
So I believe that when you say yes to whatever it is, you’re making a commitment, and when you are saying no, you are empowering yourself to do anything else, including the things that you actually want to do. So be careful because a yes is a no to something, and a no is a yes to something else.
Exactly! It’s just like, you know, so we now see we do have that free time—every one of us—but how we spend that free time is our choice. We choose how to spend those hours that are left.
I like the word "choice" there because like you’re exercising your power to choose. A yes is a commitment, and a no is a choice.
You can say, "It’s even so easy! How do I say yes? I have a family, I have a daughter, I have a full-time job, I have all these things, I have a bookshelf of unread books I want to read. How do I find those 10 minutes?"
Okay, so first identify that moment in your day that you are already doing something else, but you could be doing that in English. So that’s the very first thing that I would say. That’s how I learned English. I said that in a previous episode where Ethan sort of interviewed me, you know, asking me all these questions about my story.
And I did that without knowing. I actually changed the language settings in my devices; I played video games in English on purpose. Music, movies, series—it would all be in English with English subtitles. So that’s not going to cost you any extra time.
But then the second thing would be, if you want to go even further, it would be identifying the time that you are, for example, commuting, right? Going somewhere to pick up your daughter at school or doing the dishes. I think those are the most classic examples of like everybody—most people who spend time doing that every now and then.
And at those times, know what you want to be listening to, and optimize that time. There are also meals—breakfast, lunch, evening. If any one of those meals you do that by yourself, maybe you could do that.
And if you have time to just stay at the table for 5 or 10 more minutes to do more focused learning, that’s even better. So you could just like stay there and take notes of the things you’re listening to. But if you don’t have that time, it’s okay; but just giving you that extra idea.
Yeah! It’s just like that habit stacking. Is that a term from that book?
Habit stacking?
Yeah! Ah man, I just love that because thinking about the cues—we covered that idea of a cue, right? Make a cue obvious, like the headphones on the table or the jar of cookies that you remove.
So you remove the cue for a bad habit. So a habit can be a cue for another habit even! So like, say you finish having breakfast and you want to have those 5 to 10 minutes for more focused learning. If you get into the habit of doing that, after a week of doing it, it’ll be so much easier for you to just, you know, push your plate away and just grab your phone and start listening to your favorite audiobook or something.
And that’s going to happen more naturally, and it doesn’t need to be for an hour or 30 minutes—again, 10 minutes! It’s just the consistency of it.
10 minutes will do a lot for you! Tiny changes can bring you big results!
Yeah, exactly! And you can even have a four-minute call with another English learner on our Real Life English app just right after your lunch, right?
Perfect timing!
Yeah, I mean, it’s just feeling your feelings, right? Sometimes you feel lonely; why not, like after a meal, just connect with somebody? It is that easy! It’s just like by tapping one button it takes literally less than a minute to be now chatting with somebody in English on the Real Life app!
Oh wow!
So yeah, thank you, EAS! Thank you so much for all the wisdom you shared with us today! Love this topic—absolutely love it!
Yeah! And just to, I don’t know, to wrap up for those of you listening here, trying to take some notes, maybe you can see that we actually didn’t give you any new exercises, right? We were talking about habits, we were talking about how to live your English, and how to take advantage of that free time and make this process as easy as possible, fun, natural, and convenient.
So everything we’ve been talking about on this podcast—like doing what you already love doing but doing it in English!
Yeah! Mhm! Yeah, know that small habits—they work! It’s just that whole idea of you get what you repeat. It’s not about the volume; it’s about the consistency and what that does to your sense of identity.
Nice! But Cia, every episode we talk about also what we are digging—meaning what we are doing, the stuff that we enjoy doing in our own personal lives. So let me ask you, what are you digging?
I’m still not sure if I’m digging it because I’ve been resisting it all these past years. I have two men in my life—my dad and my partner—who are forcing me to take driving lessons, and I avoid it just like fire!
I don’t know. I have a fear; that’s one of my fears. I can’t imagine myself driving. But there are certain situations in life when you need to know how to drive, especially right now in Ukraine. It’s a war situation; maybe I’ll have to go and flee, you know? And knowing how to drive will save my life, basically!
That’s one of the arguments my partner brought. Before last Saturday, I finally had my very first experience in my entire life of driving a car! So I didn’t go far away because we were just staying close to our house, and just during the whole hour, we were learning how to start the engine and make this first, you know, push.
I was sitting at the steering wheel and just learning that—learning the pedals—and knowing how to do that: gas, brakes, all that car vocabulary. Nice! This stick—how do you call this?
Gear!
Yeah, changing gears!
Mhm, so this is a total—like for me, that’s a total rocket science! I’d better, I don’t know, speak English 24 hours in a row than drive a car!
That’s very... it gets easier! It’s one of those things that get natural, automatic, just like English! You know, like at first, you feel maybe like fake or like totally mechanical just like, again, English. If you’re just starting, right?
And with English, we didn’t have this whole idea of like speaking from day one. It’s like driving from day one—which is the whole philosophy for driving; they want you to drive from day one!
It is hard, but then it gets easier. And the other thing I was going to say is about how a recipe for success for you related to what we covered today is thinking of yourself as a woman who can save lives in a situation that calls for help! You know, you can actually be that person. You can be a person who can help your daughter in a situation that she needs or any person. You won’t be just helpless.
You can be that empowered person who can drive! So by envisioning yourself as that person, you have the motivation you need to do this!
Yeah, thank you! And actually just right now, I got that many learners of English, they do have this fear of speaking. They imagine how they would speak in their minds. I can imagine how I drive, but like, you know, it’s imagining, and driving are two different things.
And the same with speaking! So they want to speak; they can imagine them speaking English. But then when they want to speak, when they want to start driving, you know, that’s when they freeze!
So it’s only practice and practice, right, which will bring you there!
Yeah, it’s just like driving or playing an instrument. Those are all languages—like driving, playing an instrument, speaking a language.
Anyway, so this is great! I love this entire episode and also how this last topic even related to that. It’s funny how habits are more present! Like we all want to live happy lives and want to be fulfilled.
A lot of the important things that we need to do are connected to your habits. This is essential! Like if you want to not just be successful with your English, but with anything in life.
I highly recommend reading the book Atomic Habits, and you can check out James Clear’s website. I think it’s jamesclear.com. Really great stuff!
And also on the Real Life app, we have this new feature for goals and reminders—just fantastic for making your English learning like an everyday habit, and having that cue on your phone, right? That reminder set up for you to listen to this podcast, and you can set it up exactly for that time that’s more convenient for yourself!
So love the app, Cia! And I really appreciate it!
Thank you so much! And I just thought of, you know, our learners could have a beautiful new habit of giving all our videos their watch—a like—then subscribing to the channel! Hit the bell down below! And also, if you are watching us on any streaming platforms or inside the Real Life English app, please leave us a five-star review whenever you’re listening.
And if you have any questions or maybe suggestions for new lessons, you can shoot us an email at hello@reallifeenglishtv.com.
Okay, guys! As always, we stay here in this podcast no matter what divides us; what unites us is far greater!
1, 2, 3—yeah!
Yeah! Most of you know Ethan, the host of this podcast. What you probably don’t know is that he hasn’t always been so confident in the way he speaks and teaches English. And you might ask yourself, how has he gone from sounding like this:
"So be sure to go practice this, put it to use?"