The diarrhea approach to English

Struggling with your English because you feel like it has to be perfect… or it’s not worth doing at all?

In this episode, I’m diving into the “all or nothing” mindset that so many learners fall into and how it’s quietly holding you back. If you’ve ever skipped speaking because you weren’t “ready”, or avoided writing because you knew it wouldn’t be perfect, this one’s for you.

I’ll show you how this way of thinking is slowing your progress down and, more importantly, what to do instead so you can start improving with more confidence and less pressure.

 If this episode helped you, make sure you subscribe or follow the podcast so you don’t miss next week’s training, and if you need help with your English, send me a message on Instagram and let's chat. 

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Transcript

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Good morning everybody and welcome to your Cambridge Advanced Accelerator podcast. My name is Cheryl, and I'm here to help you absolutely smash the Cambridge Advanced exam and get your level up to that C1 or even C2 level. So this is a bit of Monday motivation for you to keep you going this week. Now you may have noticed last week we didn't have a Monday morning kickstart podcast. Why you ask? Well, because I took a week off for the first time since COVID. I took a week off. I did not take my laptop with me when I went on holiday, and I went to uh Madrid for a couple of days and then I went to Granada uh for uh five days. I've never been to Grenada before. So um I thoroughly enjoyed my holiday, but it made me think a little bit about a few things uh that I think we can all relate to. Now, when I was in Grenada, when I was on on holiday, a couple of things happened in my life while while I was there. So first thing was happened was um I have two dogs. I have a golden retrie uh a labrador, uh some a cross, a got a golden retriever, labrador called Sunny, and I have a German shepherd called Paul. And we while we were in Granada, we put them into kennels. So kennels is where you leave your dogs when you go on holiday. Um, we put them into kennels, and it was a new kennels as well. Um, so it was the first time that we were leaving them there, we were a bit nervous, um, but we put them into kennels, and while we were on holiday, we got a phone call telling us that they both had explosive diarrhea. Fun times on holiday. Um, they both had explosive diarrhea. Um they were telling they were telling us that there was um well very very graphic descriptions basically of explosive diarrhea. I never knew you could get so uh descriptive with diarrhea. And um so they both had explosive diarrhea and um what did we want to do? Um did we want to take them to the vets? Um did we want to to cut our holiday short, to cut something short, uh an expression for either, uh to cut our holiday short and come and get them. Um so in the end, uh the the guy who ran the kennels he had to take the dogs um he had to phone the vets, um get some medicine for them, get some incredibly expensive dog food for them, um, and um yeah, just monitor them. Uh so he was checking in with us every day and kind of letting us know what was going on. As well as that, there was a massive storm in Tenerife where I live in the Canary Islands. There was a massive storm, and um uh our house is not equipped for the amount of rain that we've had in well since January really in in Tenerife. Our house is not equipped for it, and um basically we when we got home uh we discovered that um there had been a huge amount of water damage, um and it just so happened that the water damage that was kind of coming through the walls um from where we have plants outside, uh so I can see I'm just sitting in my office at the moment. I've got some sea views, um I've got um like a little balcony um with uh with plants on it, and um this has never been waterproofed. Um so basically the water is kind of sitting in these plant pots and uh it's leaking through the walls into my office uh and has destroyed the internet cable. So I came home to that. Um third thing that happened on our holiday was we forgot it was Easter, and there are loads and loads of processions in um in Spain around Easter. This doesn't happen in the UK. In the UK uh for Easter, uh the kids uh get chocolate Easter eggs and go on treasure hunts looking for for eggs for chocolate eggs. Uh but in Spain uh there are loads and loads of processions going down the streets from the churches to I don't know where, but they they go down the streets, and the streets are absolutely packed, they're mobbed, they're very, very busy. Uh and it's very hard to walk from A to B because it's like trying to get to the front of a rock concert, trying to get through the crowds. Um, so we forgot that it was Easter and that it would be processions, and we booked a hotel in the heart of the city centre in the middle of all these processions, and it was an absolute nightmare to try and get anywhere. However, we still had an absolutely incredible time. Um, my wife has even put Granada as her number two favourite place in the world, um, behind Danun, which is uh a little town in in Scotland where where my um auntie lives. Danun has always been number one for her, but Granada has jumped up to number two. So we had an absolutely incredible time there. We went to the Alhambra thanks to you guys. Um, I told you before I we didn't book in advance, we didn't get tickets for the Alhambra, and you guys were absolutely incredible and weren't searching for tickets for me and managed to find me tickets for the Alhambra. So thank you, uh Raquel, who found my tickets. Thank you. Um, and you guys also sent me loads of uh other things to do, must-seas in Granada, restaurants. Um Inma sent me loads of restaurants that I had to go and and uh eat at, and I went to most of them. Um, so had an absolutely amazing time there. We'll definitely be going back. But apart from just telling you about my holidays, um, you might be like, okay, Cheryl, but what on earth has this got to do with uh with learning English and passing the Cambridge Advanced Exam? Well, see the thing was I have, and I know a lot of you guys have because you are at such a high level of English, you tend to be a high achiever. If you're getting to the C1, C2 level of English, you are a high achiever, you set yourself high standards, you set the bar very high, these are all expressions. You're a high achiever, you set the bar high, your um you set high goals for yourself. To set the bar high is coming from um high jumping, the um the kind of Olympic sports, no, when they put a bar up and the people have to like jump over it, and then it goes up a little bit each time, and it goes up and up and up until you have a winner. So to set the bar high is you're starting at a very high level, no. So you set the bar high, you're a high achiever, and we tend to have many of these kind of people tend to have an all or nothing attitude towards life. So all or nothing is when you're either 100% in or 110% in, focused on everything, studying really hard, uh study, study, study, or you're hitting the screw it button or the fuck it button, and be like, ah I'm not gonna do anything, and you go to the other extreme. So we're either at 100% or zero percent. Um, we're very rarely in the middle at that kind of um moderate level, like at 50%. Alright, and this is called an all or nothing um mentality, um, which I know I have and I've worked very hard to um to not have in some areas of my life. It's very useful for some things for keeping you focused, but for other things is not so useful. So with my holiday, I could have, when all these things started happening, the diarrhea, the uh the flooding in the house at home, um, I could have just gone, ah screw it. Uh the the holidays ruin. Let's go home. Or with all the processions in the streets could have been like just uh this is a terrible holiday. Um let's just let's just go home or let's just stay in the hotel. There's no point in seeing anything, there's no point in fixed expression, there's no point in seeing anything, or oh, we don't have tickets for the Alhambra, it's gonna be a disaster. I could have had that kind of mentality and pressed the screw it button and just um decided not to enjoy the holiday, or we can try and do things in moderation, we can say, okay, these things are happened, but how can we solve these problems? Um how can we solve them in a way that's maybe not the best way in the world, but it's something that keeps things moving. So we got the the guy in the kennels to take the dogs to the vet who gave them some special food and stuff. Um, so we didn't have to do that personally. We we had options, we had ways to deal with the situation. Um we managed to um see loads of lovely things in Granada, even though it took a little bit longer to get to places because of the processions. We just had to plan that in instead of being like, we're not gonna see anything, or like, okay, we can still see the things, it's just gonna take maybe an hour longer to get to the place because of that. Um, and you might be thinking, well, yeah, that's really obvious, Cheryl. Why would you be so dramatic and like cut your holiday short and come home for these little things? But these little things is generally what can cause this all or nothing attitude when um when we're talking about learning English. Um, for example, you do a mock exam, you do a practice exam, you've been studying really hard all week, at the end of the week you do a practice exam and your scores don't go up. And instead of thinking, oh well, um, this could be a like little thing, like, oh well, maybe you know it was just a bad day, or maybe it was something new that I hadn't studied before. Um, many, many people hit the fuck it button and go, Oh, I've been studying really hard and nothing's changed, my score was terrible, I'm really bad at English, screw it, I give up. And we stop for several months before we kind of build that momentum again to start again, and this creates a stop, start, stop, start, stop, start of being like 100% in studying really hard, but if like a little thing goes wrong, then we go to zero percent and we do absolutely nothing and then take a long time to get back into the swing of things again. So if we compare that to the kind of like silly things that I was getting upset about on holidays and could have just cancelled the holidays, and you're thinking that's really stupid, but try and apply that to languages. So a score on one test for you for you because you're in that moment and you're focusing 100% can seem like a huge giant thing, but if we take think about that as like my dog got diarrhea, think about that in the same kind of light, and this can perhaps help you. It's the same thing for me. Um, I I've talked about many times over over the space of the past year uh with dieting, and again, I um have been working very hard with a with a diet coach and nutritionist to get out of my all-or-nothing mentality with dieting um and stepping on the scales. Um when you work really hard all week, you stick to your low calories, you get your 10,000 steps in, um, you go to the gym three times a week, everything's been perfect. It's been like a perfect week, and then you step on the scales and nothing's changed, or even worse, the scales have gone up, you weigh more, and I don't know how many times before uh I would um hit the fuck it button then and be like, Oh, there's no point in trying to diet, it's never gonna change. Um I'm putting on weight, okay? Um, I'm not making any progress. However, you're probably gonna tell me, or what would you tell me in this situation? You're probably gonna tell me things like, Well, you could be gaining muscle from all the gym you're going to, it could you could have your period that week. It could be that you drank a glass of water before you went stepped on the scales, could be that you ate a little bit more bread the night before, or something uh that's gonna make you absorb salt and absorb more water. It could be loads of things that rather than hitting the fuck it button, if you just keep going, you will see those scales drop again in a few days. Uh so it all your hard work is not saying because the scales went up a little bit, it's not saying that you didn't make progress, it's just one measurement. Okay, and again, same with exams. If you're studying really hard and doing everything right, you're following study plans that I'm giving you, you're doing everything you should be, and maybe we don't get a score that you want on the exam, it does not mean that you are not making progress. In fact, it's actually a good thing. It shows us what we need to work on next. So that kind of bad score in the exam shows us like, oh, okay, well, maybe why did we have that bad score in the exam? Was it that uh we hadn't studied that grammar point or that fixed expression before and we need to now go away and learn that? Uh is it a particular vocabulary topic that we are not so comfortable with? And it gives us that information of what we need to go and practice. Is it that we got stressed with exam pressure? Do we need to work on uh time management and tips to deal with anxiety during exams? It gives us that information to move forward. So rather than hitting the fuck it button, we can analyze and be like, okay, how can we fix this, keep going, and make that progress? Because every time we hit that fuck it button, it gets harder and harder to get back on the horse again to keep going. Um, so what can we do to avoid hitting that fuck it button? So I'm gonna finish today with some tips that really help me when I want to hit that button. Um, some things that help me keep going. Okay, so the first is what I just said. Progress is not just your exam scores, it's not just the scales when you step on them when you're on a diet. Okay, um, so thinking about things logically and not getting emotional about one bad score. Okay, this is number one. Number two, don't compare your journey to other people's journeys. I tended to do this when I went down the gym, but uh, why are they gaining muscle faster than me? Why are they losing weight faster than me? Why is mine going at a snail's pace? Very slow, a snail's pace. Okay, all I can do, because everybody's different, all I can do is compare myself to old Cheryl, Cheryl last week. Am I doing better than Cheryl last week? Am I improving? Okay, compare yourself to past you. Don't compare yourself to others because everybody learns at a different rate, everybody has a different amount of time, everybody has different situations. Okay, everybody is unique. So the only person you should be worried about comparing yourself to is you in the past. Okay, is a number two. Number three, build habits where you have high motivation. So when you first start a new course, if you just started with me, I know we had uh new people starting um this week with us on the course. While you've got lots of motivation, or you're like, oh, it's learning English is exciting. Build habits of studying a little bit every day, little and often, little and often, an hour a day is totally fine. You do not need to go all in 110% studying five, six hours a day, because what's gonna happen is you're gonna burn out, you're gonna hit the screw it button, and you're going to go to zero percent. Okay, let's go somewhere in the middle, let's go 50%, something that is achievable, something that you can maintain over a six-month period or even longer. It takes a long time to prepare for the Cambridge Advanced exam, it takes a long time to get up to a C1 or C2 level. It's not something that you can do in a couple of weeks, okay? You're not gonna see progress of going from scoring B2 score in your exam to C1 Plus score in two weeks. Okay, it doesn't happen like that with languages, and I know there's shiny marketing on Instagram that uh ridiculous teachers saying, Oh, finish C1 level in just two weeks. No, it's not gonna happen, okay. Um, the average student studying with me takes minimum six months to prepare for the exam, if not longer. Nine months, even a year, and that's totally normal. It doesn't mean you're slow, it doesn't mean you're bad at English. That is the normal timeline. Uh, because but because we're comparing ourselves to these shiny marketing scams on Instagram or on social media, uh, we think that because it's taking us nine months to prepare for the exam, that we are a failure because it's not done in 90 days or whatever the the marketing trick is, okay? Um we think that we're going too slow. You're not. Remember, compare yourself to past you. Are you making progress? Are you feeling more confident? Are you getting better at English? Okay, compare yourself to previous you, not to other people, and not to what the internet says. Okay, so build the habits while you have that high motivation, build the habits while um you're really really excited. Okay, build the habits of studying one hour a day, okay, in that 50%, that middle zone, which we can maintain for a longer period of time. Okay. Then when your motivation starts to go down, which it will because it's a long period, and you know, things happen in our life. Life gets busy, life gets crazy, the kids get sick, the car breaks down, um, we have to do extra shifts at work. When life happens, then you have that routine, you have that habit of studying an hour a day scheduled into your life, and it's something that you can still maintain even when life is busy, okay. But if you have that more unrealistic going 110% that five hours a day, if you have that kind of schedule built in, then often what happens is one little thing goes wrong, so the kids get sick, and rather than rather than kind of um reducing our amount of study time, we hit the fuck it button and go, ah the kids are sick, everything's a disaster, I can't do anything, I'm not gonna do anything, and we go down to zero. And then again, it doesn't kind of just pick up again the next day when the kids are better. Uh we start kind of having all these negative thoughts, and it gets harder and harder and harder to get back on the horse again. Okay, I don't know how many times students have come to me and said. Said, I've got extra shifts at work, or they made me do this other course, and there's other things that I have to do, I have to give up. This is hitting the fuck it button. Okay, whereas if we have that realistic plan in place, this is not going to affect you. Okay, so build your habits while you have high motivation, but build realistic habits. An hour a day is totally fine, five hours a day is unrealistic, and you're not going to be able to maintain that if everything is not perfect. Okay. Following on from that, my next tip is the minimum viable week. The minimum viable week. So this is what to do when the shit hits the fan. When the shit hits the fan is our expression for when everything goes wrong. So not it's not just the kids that are sick. The kids are sick. Uh you've got an important deadline coming up at work, so you've got to do loads of extra things. Um get your car fixed, um, and that's an unexpected expense. Um, maybe you are trying to plan a holiday, but uh it's been raining all week, like whatever it is, everything, everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. Okay. How do we keep going in these situations? We have our plan, our like emergency plan, no, our minimum viable week. And a minimum viable week is so that we don't hit the fuck it button and we're not going down to zero, we're going down to the minimum that we can keep going with. So this could just be 10-15 minutes a day, could even be five minutes a day, but it's something that keeps that habit of learning English. Because when we keep that habit, then we're gonna feel good about yourself, we're going to feel more confident, we're not gonna feel guilty that we haven't done something, we're gonna feel good and we're gonna keep going, okay? And then it's gonna be much hard uh much, much easier when everything returns to normal to keep going and get back to our normal routine because we have maintained it. Okay, so five, ten minutes could be using your Quizlet flashcard sets just to keep your vocabulary going, just to maintain it. Could be reading an article from the Guardian newspaper. It takes ten minutes just reading one of those a day, just to keep that habit alive. Okay, so have an action plan, have an emergency plan, have a minimum viable week for when the shit hits the fan. Okay, um, next thing that that leads me on to is plan your week, um, your kind of perfect week. Plan your normal week as well. Okay, so for your studying, don't just fit it in for wherever it fits. No, where wherever I can. Oh, I'll just do a bit of studying when I finish work, or uh maybe I'll do it here, maybe I'll do it there. Plan it into your diary, put it as a notification on your phone, have an exact time. So you guys should know today's Monday, you should know exactly the hour that you are going to study today. Is it 6 to 7 p.m.? Is it in the morning? You should know exactly where it is, and you should know exactly what you're studying at that time so that you can make the most of that hour. I call it the power hour. So you can make the most of that time, okay. If we don't plan, then we're less likely to do the thing. And we're more likely to waste time thinking about uh what am I supposed to be doing? Uh um is it this, is it that? We we waste our study time kind of choosing what to study, okay? So plan it in, know the exact time, and know exactly what you're gonna study. Okay, this is your normal week, and then you have your backup plan for emergency situations. If everything goes wrong, then you can be like, Okay, I know I'm just going to do five minutes of uh vocabulary work or read the Guardian. Okay, so plan your emergency plan and plan your perfect week plan. Okay, always in your plans, have some time for you, have some downtime. Uh, you do not want your day to be at 100% to be go, go, go, go, go constantly without having some time to relax and chill as well, having some me time, okay. Um, you might be thinking, but Cheryl, I don't have any time in the day to relax for me. I have to look after everyone else in my family. I have to get my husband and my kids uh dinner cooked and take them to basketball training, and I have to do everything the cooking, the cleaning. Plan some downtime, plan half an hour for you, or 20 minutes for you that you can just chill and decompress after a long day. Because again, you're not gonna be able to learn English, you're not gonna be able to get to the advanced level if you're constantly at 100. You will burn out. Okay, you will burn out, and then you'll hit the fuck out button and you'll go down to zero. Okay, uh, so plan a little bit of you time into your day. Put yourself at the top of the to-do list. Okay, most people that I work with um have families and have busy life and tend to put themselves very far down the to-do list, they tend to put the husband and the kids or the wife over them. Okay, you are number one. Put yourself at the top of the list and have that little bit of extra time for you, okay. Um because if we go constantly at 100% with this all kind of um mentality for the six months of this course, okay, or for the nine months, or for the 12 months, or for the time it takes you to get your certificate and pass the exam, if we go at 100% for that time, if we do manage to do it, okay, if everything goes perfect and we manage to do that, you'll probably end up hating English. And then once you get your certificate, you're gonna hit that fuck it button again and be like, oh thank god, English is finished, I never need to do it again. That was awful, and you're gonna end up hating English, and that's that's not what I want either. Uh, yes, I want to help you get your certificate, but I don't feel my job is done just getting you a certificate. Like I'm here to help you um feel more confident about your English, I'm here to help you actually be able to use it in real life and feel that you're an advanced speaker of English, to feel confident in every situation. But if you go so hard, go so 100% that you end up hating English and never wanting to use it again, then I have failed. Okay, so let's go in the middle, let's get rid of our all or nothing mentality, and um, guys, let's have a fantastic week. You can absolutely do this, and looking forward to chatting to you soon. Take care, guys, have a good week.