You've probably been told a hundred times how to learn English, but today I want to talk to you about a few things you shouldn't be doing. I made all of these mistakes in the past and they made me feel anxious, stuck, and like I would never sound good enough. A quick disclaimer first. All of these lessons are based on my personal experience. If these things work for you, that is absolutely great. I'm here to share my journey and I really hope you will learn something useful from today's video. If you want to share your experience, things that you never

do while learning a foreign language, you can do so in the comments. All right. So, the first thing I no longer do when learning English or any other foreign language is I don't put native speakers on a pedestal. When I was in high school and then my first year in college, I would see native speakers as those perfect beings just because they could speak English really well. And that was my goal. I would constantly compare my accent, my pronunciation, my choice of words to theirs. And it created crushing anxiety every time I spoke because I was never good enough. My English level

was never enough. And it's not like somebody said that to me and then I became super self-conscious about my English. No, for some reason, I created extremely unrealistic expectations for myself. My expectation was I have to sound exactly like a native speaker. And yes, I'm not going to lie, in a way this perfectionism helped me, but mostly it made me fear mistakes. I would idolize sounding native as the only goal. And every time I would make a mistake, I would forget a word. I couldn't just ask a person like, "Okay, how do you say this word in English?" No, I had to go and check this

word myself because I didn't want people to think that I didn't know English. And so now, luckily, I was able to work on this mindset. And right now, in my Spanish learning journey, for example, the situation is completely different. I know that my accent or my mistakes, they don't make me less. And guys, the fact that I make mistakes in English or Spanish or any language I'm learning just means that I can speak more than one language. You know what I mean? Like my native language is Russian. And so, okay, if I make a mistake in English, if my accent is not perfect, it means that English

is not my native language because I can speak more than just English. You can do something amazing. You can communicate in more than one language. Honestly, perfectionism can only take you so far. One day, inevitably, you'll realize that it's hurting you more than it's actually helping you. And that is how we move to the next thing I no longer do when learning English. I don't let perfectionism steal my joy. In the past, my perfectionism used to push me to study, to work, to do stuff even when I was exhausted. To be honest, I was so disconnected from myself,

from my body because in my mind, I constantly lived in this survival mode. I had to study more. I had to work more. I had to do more and more to be successful. And all of that really ruined how I felt about myself. Like I was never satisfied. No matter what I achieved in my language learning journey, for example, I always felt like it wasn't enough because it wasn't perfect enough. Perfectionism in general is a trap because you can always find things in absolutely anything that you don't like. It's going to give us an illusion of control, but it's only an

illusion. You know that fear I used to have, it made speaking feel stressful instead of exciting. Like I literally didn't want to talk to native speakers because I was too afraid that my English wasn't going to sound perfect. And only when I let go of that feeling, only when I made my study time more relaxing did I actually start seeing real sustainable progress. Because yes, progress comes with mistakes, but it doesn't mean you're failing. It means that you're growing. You're learning something new. You're stepping outside of your comfort zone. And that is why, you know,

there's something unfamiliar, something that you don't know, but that is completely normal. We can't know everything. Perfection is an illusion. Perfectionism was also something that I had to deal with a lot when it came to my work and my productivity. And one tool that helped me simplify everything but still get things done is Akiflow. And I want to say a huge thank you to them for sponsoring a portion of today's video. Akiflow is one of my favorite productivity tools. It combines time blocking, AI planning, and all of your tasks from different places in one clean, organized

space. I usually use it to plan out my week. I just drag my tasks directly into the calendar, color code my events, and it helps me actually stick to my plan without feeling overwhelmed. You can connect Gmail, Notion, Slack, and even Todoist. And all of your tasks automatically show up in one place in what they call a Universal Inbox. So, you don't need to switch between a bunch of different tabs to remember what you need to do. One feature I really love is their new AI Co-Pilot. It learns your habits and starts autosculing your tasks based on how you work.

And if you're someone who likes tracking your progress, Akiflow also gives you productivity stats so you can see how much time you're spending on different types of work, your language learning, and where you might be getting stuck. Staying consistent and making progress in English as well does come down to how you organize your time. And Akiflow makes this process so easy. So, if you want to try it for yourself, use my link in the description. And you'll also get access to a free one-on-one onboarding call, which is a really helpful way to set everything up and learn

how the platform works. Okay, so the next thing I no longer do when learning foreign languages is I don't test myself constantly. In the past, I would always want to see what my level was at any given moment. Like, I wanted to make sure that I was constantly improving. I was constantly progressing and so I would take any test I could find online. But you know, some tests are better and some tests are worse. And so if one test would show that my level was like B2 or C1, I would feel so happy. And then the next day I would take a different test and if it showed that my level was B1, I

would feel crushed. I believed every single test. I took all of the results at face value. But so many of those tests are not accurate. They measure narrow skills and they make you obsess over your level instead of actually making you focus on your practice. So that is why right now for me if I know that I don't need to take IELTS or TOEFL. I don't need to test myself at all. Like it's fine if somebody asks me, okay, what's your English level? What's your Spanish level? To be honest, I don't really care. That's not even important to me. A better test of where I'm at right now in my

language learning journey is just asking myself these two questions. Do I understand what people say? And do people understand me? Because when I watch YouTube videos, when I listen to podcasts, I can actually analyze all of that. Okay. So, the next thing I stop doing when learning English is actually pretty interesting. I don't follow textbook order like it's law because you know in school you're often taught to learn English in this fixed order. And that mindset made me think that I wasn't ready for certain vocabulary or for certain grammar rules. And so with Spanish,

I completely changed my approach. I no longer think that, you know, this grammar rule is advanced or this grammar rule is for beginners. Now, if I realize that I need it because when I talk to native speakers, I need this grammar rule, I'm going to learn it. If I watch YouTube videos and if I see this grammar pattern being repeated over and over again, it's a sign that it's time for me to learn it. I just think that language doesn't follow a syllabus in real life. We all like so many different things. And if you like medicine, for example, and you watch

those medical TV dramas, you will probably come across so many words that are pretty advanced. But if it's something that you love, if it's a part of your life, I think you should learn it. I'm tired of organizing my language learning in a very rigid way. I want some space. I want some room to breathe. I still follow the comprehensible input method in my learning and it actually helps me notice what grammar rules or words are being repeated over and over again. All right, so the final thing I no longer do in my language learning is I don't study for the wrong metric. When I was

younger, I was obsessed with becoming fluent. I chased that label of like being advanced. And I think because of that, I was also trying to look for this magic language learning method that would just work like this for me, that would make me memorize everything super fast, that would give me a shortcut, and I would just become fluent in a month or two. Maybe for some people, this timeline is realistic. But I know that for me, I need more time. I need to focus on the process because if I only chase the end goal, first of all, like what is fluency? It is so vague and I don't even think

this goal is even real. Cuz if I was still judging myself with this perfectionist mindset in mind, I would say my English is not advanced yet. Like if I don't sound exactly like a native speaker, I'm a failure. And right now, all of those things to me just sound like the wrong metrics. I really don't want your language learning journey to be about chasing a goal because learning a language is so much more than that. It's so much more than just passing an exam or, you know, becoming advanced C1 or C2. It's about connection. It's about communication, expanding your mind

because you're learning so many new things about a completely new culture. Again, it doesn't mean that I don't have language goals anymore. Like, I still have stuff that I want to achieve, but those things are often much deeper. They're very meaningful. And because of that, the process which allows me to achieve those goals is extremely meaningful, too. All right, guys. I think it's going to be it for today's video. If you liked it, please don't forget to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my YouTube channel. Today, I talked a lot about the process of learning a new language.

And I know a lot of you guys struggle with staying consistent. Sometimes I do, too. And that is why I created a YouTube video where I share all the little things that you can do every day to stay consistent. They honestly don't even feel like you're studying and they're not going to take any more of your time. So, if you want to learn how to stay consistent in your language journey, I highly recommend watching this video. Just click right here and I'll see you there.