Step outside of your comfort zone

Hello beautiful reader, I have written an article with my language learning tips and tricks recently and today I want to add one more thing that may encourage you to step outside of your comfort zone and start using the language (or some other skill) that you are learning.

Say hello to your ego

There is one thing that I hate. I hate to suck at what I am doing (no matter what that is). It is my ego that does not like to show that I am weak or not skilled or experienced. I always want to be the best one (to feed my ego). But sometimes there is a need to say to your ego: “ Hey, today it is not your day, I am going to be far cry from perfect… ”.

I have started to learn Swedish myself two years ago and now I am in Sweden. My Swedish is good but good is not enough for me. Nevertheless, I decided to take part in a work-shop for kids where they were supposed to build their own lego robots and program them. I knew that I will be forced to use all my language skills and I knew that I will suck a little bit. I took on the challenge. And it was a great decision.

“Too many people spend too much time trying to perfect something before they actually do it. Instead of waiting for perfection, run with what you got, and fix it along the way.” – Paul Arden –

The challenge

We started at ten in the morning with a group of 20 children (age six to nine). We were two people to manage the group. And it turned out that they need a lot of help with building robots. And they asked questions. Many questions. And I did not understand all of the questions but I tried my best. As the day continued I became more and more comfortable in my new role and it was so much fun. After all it was a great opportunity to test my language skills and I have to admit that I succeeded (that means that ego was fed as well after all).

After two long days with children I felt so good and was proud of myself. No matter the questions like: “Are you from Poland?” or “Where are you from, you sound a little bit weird.”. The best one came at the end of the second day: “Are you from Denmark?” And thought to myself: “ I’m getting there!”.

We have received a lovely feedback after the event and I have decided to continue with this activity as a volunteer every Sunday.