🥳 Start 2024 right and review these

Pre-P.S. Want to start 2024 with more clarity and purpose? Click here to learn about my FREE 21-day annual review challenge, which starts on January 11.

Want an added boost of accountability and feedback? Upgrade to the Rocket Fuel version for just $24 and get video feedback from me on your reflections and your English.

Happy New Year, Reader!

Are you ready to embark on another year in your language journey?

A new year brings new hope, energy, and intentions. It's also the perfect window of opportunity to change things up and make new commitments.

But before you can do that, it's important to zoom out and reflect on this last year of your language journey, such as:

the progress you've made
the lessons you've learned, and
the areas you still need to improve.

That's why the most important thing you can do this month for your language practice is an annual review.

No matter how you feel about this past year, an annual review can help you contemplate your ups and downs, let them go, and come away with more clarity and purpose for 2024.

There are hundreds of templates to use and questions to ask, but as long as you're being intentional and blocking off time for reflection, there's no wrong way to do your annual review.

That said, when it comes to reviewing your language practice, you should try to focus on three things:

Managing your energy
Managing your inputs
Managing your actions

Let's dive into each one separately:

1. Manage Your Energy

“Manage your energy. Then manage your time.”

– Tiago Forte, creator of 'Building a Second Brain' 🧠

If you can master a second language, you can master anything.

That's because in order to master a second language, you have to master yourself. And an important piece of that puzzle is getting good at managing your energy.

Exercise, sleep, diet, social outings, and meditation are just a few ways to improve your overall energy. But it doesn't end there.

Here are a few questions to consider for your language practice:

What habits or activities made you more likely to start or continue your daily practice in 2023?
What habits or activities made you less likely to start or continue your daily practice in 2023?
What sequence of habits or activities gives you the best chance of being more consistent with your daily practice in 2024?

2. Manage Your Inputs

“Your actions are a consequence of your thoughts. Your thoughts are a consequence of what you consume. Choose better inputs. Get better outputs.”

– James Clear, author of 'Atomic Habits' 📚

Are you being intentional about your content diet?

The things you consume, and the way you consume them, has an enormous impact on the value you get from them. You have to optimize your language practice for the result you want.

For example, watching Netflix shows with subtitles turned on is entirely different from watching them without. And focusing on audiobooks for your "reading" time will produce different results than consuming the same material as a physical or digital book.

Audit your content diet by asking the following questions:

What is your biggest challenge or bottleneck in your language journey today?
What kind of content would help you overcome this in 2024?
What do you need to cut from your content diet to make room for the inputs that will help you take the next step in 2024?

3. Manage Your Actions

“Although we presume that we act because of the way we feel, in fact we often feel because of the way we act.”

– Gretchen Rubin, 'The Happiness Project' 📚

The most important transformation you need to make once you go from zero to one is to start creating more than you consume.

There's a time for passive learning and consumption. But once you reach a certain stage of your language journey, you need to turn your focus to active learning. That means speaking and/or writing. Mostly, it means getting out of your comfort zone and facing your fears.

Be honest with yourself and answer the following:

What actions did you procrastinate in 2023 to avoid discomfort and/or inconvenience?
Did you give yourself permission to make mistakes and fail forward in 2023?
If you keep repeating the same actions from 2023, will you be where you want to be in your language journey in 2025?

If you make and take the time to answer the questions above, without interruption, you'll have a better 2024 than 99% of language learners. You'll have zero regrets about time wasted one year from today, too.

And if you want to take a deeper dive with me into your 2023 and 2024, with accountability and personal feedback, join my new 'Zero Regrets in 2024' 21-day annual review challenge: