3 Simple Habits to Improve Your English Every Day for FREE

You might have a nephew, for example, you don't  see it for a few months and then you see him and it's like, "Wow he's changed! He's a  completely different person," you know? Because they grow so fast, right?

And kind  of the same thing when you're learning a lot, you kind of, you're too myopic,  you're too close to your own self and your learning you can't see  your own improvement, right? Unless you kind of step back  and see those snapshots, right? Welcome back to Beyond  Borders!

Today you will learn three powerful habits for success with  RealLife English CEO Justin Murray. Justin, welcome to the show! Aw yeah!

What is up, Ethan? I've  been really looking forward to this. And if you would like to understand  fast speech, be understood by anyone and connect to the world just like  RealLifer Steve who says that our lessons help him to take his learning outside of the  classroom and immerse himself in English.

Then I want to help you on your journey too, but  I can only do that if you hit the Subscribe button and the Bell down below, so that you  don't miss any of our new lessons. I was just curious if there's any way that you  think that practice could be applied to learning a language, so for example for English  learners is there a way they can be more meticulous with the data of their learning to  see patterns and to to cultivate improvements. Yeah, definitely I think it goes back to like you  and I teaching you know, we had our students do their learning logs, like what are you doing  every day, just documenting it, like how much you are you doing of each activity, how much  you're listening, how much you're speaking, how much you're writing, what  are you doing every day, right?

Just that's really important for motivation first  of all. I mean it just makes you do it. This is part of your process makes you reflective, right?

Setting goals it's kind of the same thing, you set those goals, you plan ahead, you make sure it  fits into your life, but I would say there is that angle too, like being data driven in your  learning, like how much are you listening and how does this reflect and improve listening ability. How much you're speaking, how does this reflect in your ability to  speak better, more clearly, more confidently. Because ultimately you need to do it every day. 

We know that, right? Like anything that you want to be at your best at rather than just  an amateur. I mean if you want to turn pro, you want to make it a part of who  you are, you need to do it every day.

And it doesn't need to be like speaking every  day, that can be hard to find that opportunity, unless you download the RealLife App, and  go and press that button and connect with partners from all around the world, right? But yeah, that's actually keeping it simple, having a four minute conversation, you know? Having a four minute conversation, that's once per day, really simple,  write it down in your in your log.

But yeah, going back to just the main ideas is  making sure that you're cultivating a nice mixture of activities: listening to podcasts, watching TV  series, talking with people, think really deeply about what you want to accomplish and even imagine  yourself at the end of your life, all the people, your friends, your family, your workmates,  the people from your spiritual community, what are they going to say at your funeral? And to think really where are you going and so that really puts things into perspective to write  a mission, a clear mission, to really refine it and then keep coming back to that and so that's  one thing you can do when you're journaling. You can refine that mission,  you can come back to it.

Another thing they talk about in that book as  well is breaking your life into dimensions, right? So you think about your body, your  mind, your spirit, your social life and so. This is something I do, so I kind  of like having each dimension, like my spiritual practice: meditation. 

From there it's like my exercise, right? So it's like my health and vitality and  there's work as well, so it's like my craft and calling and each of those areas I kind of  clarify what I want for my life and of course there's a social aspect of everything, and then  there's the learning aspect of everything, right? So it's like you constantly need to be learning  to be curious, to be developing, and this is where reading books comes in, but apart from  that journaling is like really useful because, I mean, first of all there's  so much you can do in there, and it's like each each page of your journal  is a canvas.

So you can do gratitude practice, just sit down and think about, "Hmm,  what am I grateful for in my life? " There's a ton more for you to learn with Justin  and other incredible teachers and experts. You can get the full interviews from Beyond  Borders anywhere where you listen to podcasts.

However I would recommend that you listen on the  RealLife English App. It is the only place where you can get a transcript for the full episode and  learn all the most important vocabulary and more. Plus, many learners like you tell me that they  are frustrated that they don't have anyone to practice what they are learning with.

Well on  the RealLife App you can have conversations in English with people from all around the world at  the touch of a button and discover new cultures. So if you are ready to step outside the  classroom and live your English then download the app now by searching for RealLife  English in the Apple App or Google Play Store or simply click on the link up  here or down the description below. It's not waking up every day and believing that  loving what you're doing, because it's not always fun, right?

Sometimes it's difficult, it's hard,  you know, just like running, waking up and going for a long run and you're hurting and you don't  want to and you failed, your body sore, right? Kind of the same thing-- like lighting that fire,  you know? Having that fire, keeping that lit, keep staying passionate about it,  um, there's a deliberate practice, which is actually mastering the skills, and  I felt like we didn't really give it a go.

We had a lot of things going for us at that  time, right? But we were immature, like we had too much going on, we were trying to do events,  we were trying to do podcasts, we were trying to do the, you know, YouTube videos, trying to do  like blog posts and we were a small team, right? So it's like, we're trying to do too much, there's  so much we're trying to do and we just had so much to learn, so I would say like just coming back  and having that humility, looking at ourselves taking responsibility for our own failures,  right?

And then experimenting, you know, if something's not working, if Plan A doesn't  workm try Plan B, if Plan B doesn't work try Plan C, keep going. And if you keep doing, if you keep  doing the same thing you get lost in that and that becomes the path to failure because you're not  experimenting, you're not changing, but if you're changing and experimenting, that gives you hope. Because you start building, you start building new strategies, you start discovering new paths,  for example, like in that same time period there was reason for hope because we  we had started Learn English with TV Series.

Perseverance is the answer, right? So it's really hard to say, um you know, when the right time to keep going isn't when the  right time to quit is, but in our case there was just a lot going well and I thought we really  hadn't like learned and grown to the point where we were really masters of our own craft. And that we needed to really give it an honest chance before we could stop and say "Oh  this didn't work out and feel good about it.

" Yeah and we're always learning, it's  not like we've figured it out now and and we're just laying back and waiting for the  the money to roll in, or the success to roll in, or whatever the case is. It's like always  an uphill battle but it's one, I think like, you said it's the passion that we've cultivated,  that passion that we're willing to keep rolling the boulder up the hill in some sense, even  when it's difficult we're willing to push. And something else you said there, the  focus too, at that in that moment that was like about four and a half years ago or so  that we stopped doing the podcast for a while, dedicate yourself and focus yourself on  something, even if it's maybe-- it's not the absolute best thing, but just the fact that  you're showing up every day or every week, whatever the case is, and you're doing that, you  know, you're continuing to do it, um like you said until you've become a master of it in some sense.

I want to know are there any habits that you  have found to help set you up for success. Is there something you absolutely have to  do every day like journaling or meditating? Comment it down below for me and your fellow  learners and see what other people have said.

Maybe you will discover an exciting new hobby. Now let's see what Justin's  final favorite habit is. It's just so much to be grateful for and  if you sit down and make a practice out of actually just writing it down, even just a couple  minutes a day, uh it's actually scientifically proven that it's going to drastically change  your general feeling of well-being in life.

It's kind of like, I've read that we're evolved  for to feel fear, to look out for danger, right? To constantly be kind of  pessimistic. But gratitude kind of trains your brain to be like velcro for  the positive things, because normally we're like velcro for the negative things, right?

We have a built-in negativity, but we can train our brain to be positive about things  and to kind of deflect the negativity. Yeah, most of our default program tends to be to  complain about things when things aren't going exactly how we want them to go. When we feel  something is unfair a lot of us will default to complaining or to feeling victimized and I  think when you start practicing gratitude it really helps you to flip that around, so that instead of complaining maybe if you you start complaining about something you  catch yourself you can turn that into, "Well, what am I grateful for in this situation or  this moment?

" or whatever the case is, and if you can-- I think having the concrete practice  of doing it every single day, like writing it in your journal or just taking a few minutes  to reflect on it at the same time every day, that can be really good to build a habit but  then you can start to branch that out and to try to think of it in other moments of your  life, if you find yourself complaining or you find that you feel something is unfair or  whatever the case is even before a meal like you can stop close your eyes and just  like just connect to yourself, connect to the moment connect to the food, the smells, the  presence of the people that are around you. I think it's very powerful if you can make that a  practice, it's mindfulness in some sense, right? I think you're right Ethan, and it's so true. 

I think it comes back to this idea that we have total control over what we focus on in any  given moment, so maybe they are judging you but if you're not thinking about that, that  doesn't have to hinder your connection with them. It's about what you say, right? It's  about what you do that opens the connection.