Maintain motivation

[rdearman]

I think for everyone the motivation to learn anything will wax and wane over time. I have been listening to an interesting audiobook on learning, not languages but generally, and most of the advice seems to be very short timescale. Obviously learning a language is a long term commitment, so I wonder how you all keep up the motivation? Do you for example have simple cookie cutter methods like anki three times a day. Or do you have a motivation scrapbook? Or a personal trainer like a spouse who forces you onward?

Do you do long spurts of activities or short steady? Or a mixture? How do you keep yourself memorizing another wordlist, or reading another grammar book, or watching another film?

This topic fascinates me mostly because I frequently tire of languages and often take breaks.

[sillygoose1]

Usually I'll use film or books to keep my motivation up. The idea of being able to watch something in another language without any help is thrilling to me. Some days I'll mix up long sessions or short spurts. Sometimes I don't do anything at all. I think that a big part of retaining motivation is being fresh, so for some it may not be a big help to do something for long periods of time everyday.

But I'll be honest, on those days where I feel like giving up language learning forever, I look up attractive women who speak the language I study. For some reason that does the trick.

[neofight78]

I think for everyone the motivation to learn anything will wax and wane over time.

Well, I think you have it right there. If you're trying to maintain motivation over time you're on a hiding to nothing. Motivation is a very fickle beast. The goal has to be to create a habit and a commitment. Then if on any given day you feel motivated then great, if not, well it's not catastrophic to your routine. For me the key is to really treasure the habit. Every day that you study, you affirm the habit, every day that you skip study you weaken it. If you remind yourself of that, then it's easier to resist the temptation to take days off.

I think also pitching your study routine at the right level is important. Perhaps maybe you are burning out slightly? Set it at a level which requires you to push yourself slightly on the bad days, and is a breeze on the good days. Never commit to a routine when feeling highly motivated, it's like going food shopping when hungry!

I do flashcards, I find that helps, because I think "Well yes, I can skip today, but that just means I'll have a pile of cards tomorrow". So that's a kind of "stick" rather than "carrot" approach.

Perhaps try observing your motivation and what effects it. Maybe you will find some clues. Back in my younger days I was into cycling, and I always made sure I ended rides coming down the hill to my house and not climbing up to it. That way I always finished on a high, and that's what I associated with the ride, rather than slogging up hills. So perhaps putting more fun activities at the end of your study session may help.

I think a big motivator for me, has been the desire to express myself in Russian. So after a lesson, I'd look at all the corrections and learn the vocabulary and expressions so that next time I needed to express a particular thought or idea I could do it. So basing what you are learning on your communication needs or even just curiosity can help, rather than following a strict textbook order. If you can find a tutor or exchange partner with whom you really get on with, it can be a very good motivator.

Setting short terms goals, things that are just ever so slightly out of reach can help too. If you know 2800 words, put on a burst to hit 3000. If you nearly understand a video clip, work on it until you get it 100%. If you're getting close to B1 level, book an exam and make a push to get to that level. If something funny or interesting happened to you in the week, but you're missing a few words to explain it, then learn them and tell someone the story.

And of course, if you have no motivation for a long time, then life is too short to be torturing yourself, and maybe you should be doing something else with your time!

Just a random collection of thoughts, hopefully some bits may be of help!

[iguanamon]

I agree with sg1. I keep my eyes on the prize. When you've already learned a language to a high level and can enjoy speaking, listening, reading, that's all the motivation I need for a language that isn't at that level yet. I know that if I invest the time to get better, my experience will be that much better. So that's what keeps me going with no problems in motivation.

[basica]

I generally have intense motivation when I first begin something, I can probably run off motivation alone for the first month or two and during that time I'm incredibly obsessive (and that's probably what drains me out in the end) and will focus on that thing in every free moment I have, reading about it - studying it, being on Anki, Memrise or whatever (when talking about languages) and then after 2 months at the most, I'm out of steam and that's the end of that.

Seeing that I know that I am like that, there are two things that I know that keep me continuing on (or at least heavily strengthen my chances): developing a habit and create myself a system where I can see a chain that I don't want to break. With the former, I try to study the same things at the same time and I keep to it. With Serbian long after my initial motivation ran out, I kept up with my routine out of habit and because it feels so weird to do anything different now.

Then there's the other aspect which is not breaking the chain. I don't know why I like so much of having a chain of having done something so many days in a row. It seems kinda silly when you think about it, but I do know that I do care about it and that it does motivate me. Knowing that I have studied my anki deck 143 days in a row motivates me to do more, same goes with Glossika and memrise (even though there's a bug in the iOS app which didn't record a couple of my days which annoyed the **** out me).

The thing that motivates me the least (ironically) is my desire to speak the language well. That is my ultimate goal and something I really desire deeply, but in terms of motivational power - it seems to bring very little to the table when it comes to me trying to keep it going. The same can be said of any other long term task I've managed to accomplish - the habit and the desire not to break the chain have contributed more to me keeping on keeping on than the actual desired result itself.

Which only stands to show how weird I am I suppose

[arthaey]

I've recently become a convert to the school of thought that "motivation" is fun but fickle* and one should instead rely on "discipline".

Motivation is a very fickle beast. The goal has to be to create a habit and a commitment. Then if on any given day you feel motivated then great, if not, well it's not catastrophic to your routine. ... Never commit to a routine when feeling highly motivated, it's like going food shopping when hungry!

So exactly what @neofight78 said.

*What's the official forum policy on swear words? I had originally intended to phrase things slightly more strongly, but then I couldn't find the forum policy anywhere.

[AlexTG]

I guess I'm only really motivated in the moment. I say "X would be a fun way to spend the next few minutes" and then I start doing X. Then when X is no longer fun I stop. There are things in life which I'm willing to slug away at for delayed benefits, but improving my language skills is generally not one of them. Not when there are so many fun ways of improving.

Another factor is that I learn languages in order to read books/poetry, watch TV/movies and listen to songs. The way I improve is to read books/poetry, watch TV/movies and listen to songs. So I don't really need to keep the long-term goal in mind, I'm already there.

Edit: I should also point out that since I'm such a language geek, in the early stages I enjoy doing courses. I can also get a kick out of reading grammars and language histories. Obviously not everyone enjoys such things, I consider myself lucky in this respect.

Edit Again: Sometimes I feel like reading non-fiction, sometimes poetry, sometimes novels/short-stories. And within each category I have different interests at different times as-well (sometimes I want to read economics, sometimes linguistics, sometimes computer science etc). I try to make sure I have different types of material available in my languages at all times to make sure I'm ready to take advantage of any particular interest when it strikes.

[aabram]

This year I understood something that hit me like a ton of bricks.

I do not need more motivation, I need more discipline.

Ironically, just yesterday I nitpicked a post comparing language learning to excercise and now I'm going to make exact same comparison myself. Ouch.
Last year I started to go to gym regularily and after few months I understood that the problem I and perhaps many others too have is not that my motivation comes and goes, no, not at all, it's my discipline that comes and goes. And that's the crux of the problem. This applies to language learning as well. Motivation is easy to find and easy to rekindle. Discipline is the dirty work that I tend to avoid. Progress comes not from having enough motivation but from having discipline.

I'm not saying this applies to everyone, but that's what I've discovered about myself. For a long time I did not distinguish between those two very different things.

[garyb]

Motivation's never been a big issue for me; I find that the more I learn of a language the more I want to learn, and like others I get motivation from wanting to be able to understand books and films and to interact well with native speakers.

If I do lose motivation, it's usually from feeling overwhelmed. This happened to me with music for a while: it seemed like there was so much to learn that I didn't know where to start and I'd never have time to learn it all, which put me off even trying. That's partly from perfectionism, an impossible goal of learning and knowing everything, and partly from not having a structured approach that breaks things down and makes them manageable. I had a similar thing with French a few years ago, I felt like I wasn't making progress and would never reach my goals, and what got me going again was putting a bit more structure and study back into my learning rather than just relying on input and conversations.

I have however come to believe that there is "healthy" motivation and "unhealthy" motivation. The unhealthy type does the job, it keeps you going, but in the longer term it leaves you with a bad taste and can lead to you wasting time that could be spent on something that you have healthier motivation for. With French again, I realised that a lot of my motivation was from feeling a need to prove myself and be taken seriously by native speakers following bad experiences; I had lost touch with my original healthy motivation of connecting with the culture. That was a big part of what made me quit the language and instead put my time into languages that I had more positive types of motivation for.

[Serpent]

I don't believe in discipline, only in dedication. Well, you need discipline if you have to learn a language you hate.