Learning Mandarin Chinese can be exciting yet overwhelming. Unlike Spanish, French, or German, where an English speaker can correctly guess the meaning of a few words, Chinese uses a different system of writing and pronunciation. Chinese presents a challenge to the native English speaker. It is not surprising that one can run into mental resistance to learning Chinese. There are several barriers that can cause one to quit or become frustrated with Chinese. One such barrier is the fear of failure. When we fear failure, we are basically saying that we are afraid of letting ourselves or other people down. Fear of failure is being afraid of not living up to other people’s or one’s own expectations. We harshly and unjustly criticize our abilities by saying that we are not good enough.
The fear of failure brings out the inner critic. We become our own worst enemies. To compensate we believe we must get things right the first time. This is perfectionism. If we feel that we cannot be perfect at something, then we shy away from the task or we procrastinate. We develop paralysis by analysis. We forget that native speakers are generally not masters of their of own language. How many English speakers know the 8 parts of speech or the names of the 12 verb tenses? How many times have we made mistakes in grammar as a child and an adult. Still, we speak our language effortlessly despite not having perfected it. When keeping that thought in mind, you can silence the inner critic that berates you for not always getting things right.
How do you deal with your inner critic? How do you deal with an entity that is as much a part of you as your own skin? Denial is a sure way to failure. Rather than deny that the inner critic exists, acknowledge and accept the fact that this person is real. This person is the part of yourself that is afraid of change. Learn to stand up to that person, and you may very well be amazed at the results in your life.
The inner critic is notorious for making mountains out of molehills. If you stumble and fall, the critic is there giving you the worst case scenario. This can lead to frustration. One solution to this problem is to put everything into perspective. As stated before, expect to make mistakes. If you or someone else catches the mistake and corrects it, chances are that you will not make that mistake again. The important thing is to be aware of your mistakes, to build on those errors, and to progress in your Chinese studies. If you find yourself getting frustrated, take a break from your activities and allow your subconscious mind to do its work. One saying that I heard is when your intention is clear, the methods appear. When you develop a habit of consistently working through those periods of frustration, you put yourself in probably the top 5% of of the world’s population of great achievers. Tell that to your inner critic!
There is a little known saying that life’s real failure is when you give up when you are so close to success. Chinese is indeed a challenging language to learn. You can find a good amount of advice on how to deal with the fear of failure but it all comes down to doing something. It all comes down to action, not over thinking or over analyzing the Chinese language. This involves going to Chinese meetups in your local area. If none are available, there are several programs online that allow you to interact with native Chinese speakers. Sign up to take the Chinese Proficiency Test (HSK). One cannot stress enough the importance of listening. Listening to any language for the first time sounds like one giant mass of garble. However, as your brain forms new neural pathways and begins to interpret sounds, you will begin to hear certain sounds being repeated. You will recognize these repeated sounds as common words. Once you learn the words, you will build your vocabulary and listening comprehension skills. Learn one more word, one more sentence structure. The key is progress, not perfection. If you focus on progress instead of perfection, you can learn to silence your inner critic and conquer your fear of failure.
The fear of failure is indeed a bane of your success. However, the fear of failure’s evil sibling is more subtle but just as insidious if not more so. It is called the fear of success. Next in this series, we will delve into the fear of success and why it is yet another mental barrier to learning Chinese.
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