Your Successful 101

On Learning a Foreign Language

Amanda — Wed, 26 May 2010 00:26:38 +0000

I have seen many 101 lists with goals that include learning a foreign language. As someone who has studied foreign languages, and is now teaching language, I find that “learn a foreign language” is an incredibly vague goal. Becoming fluent in a foreign language is not really any better because what qualifies as fluent varies between person to person, and “fluent” is not a place you can easily pinpoint.

Furthermore, learning a specific amount of vocabulary from your target language may not be enough to learn it, unless you already have working knowledge of that language. Vocabulary is important when it comes to language, but you must be able to use those words, so pronunciation and grammar also play a large role in learning a foreign language.

What should you do? If you choose to learn the language on your own, I would first suggest learning the alphabet. This goal is a little more concrete, as you can judge your progress by whether or not you can successfully say the alphabet from memory. It also gives you a good foundation for learning the rest of the language.

After this however, how you want to learn the language is up to you. Vocabulary is by far the most accessible part of any language, and picking a specific amount of words to learn allows you to put concrete parameters on your goal, provided you also have a good way of assessing whether you have learned a word or not. But you must not neglect to learn grammar, because no amount of words will help you if you do not know how to string together a sentence. DO NOT BE AFRAID OF GRAMMAR. It is your friend. It can also help to study the grammar of your native language first. If you come from a linguistic background, I would also suggest learning the morphology of your target language.

Even if you choose to learn the language on your own, seek out opportunities to use your new language. Look for a local conversation club, take a class, or find someone who also speaks the language. Not only will this help you to learn the language, but it will also be a way for you to judge how much you have learned.

Changing Goals

Amanda — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 19:52:07 +0000

So what happens after you’ve already embarked on your list and something changes and renders a goal (or goals) on your list unlikely to be achieved?

There are two options:

Do nothing and accept that you will probably fail the goal.
Change the goal to something different.

Whether you choose to change or not is entirely up to you. But if you’re looking for a opinion, I say pick change. Life changes, and so you should along with it. So participating in Project 365 isn’t feasible for me? Fine. To keep the same reasoning behind the goal intact (i.e. challenging my photography skills), I instead changed the goal to taking 101 pictures of things that make my happy, and document them in some way. So the professional soccer team I wanted to go see is, quite possibly, no more? I’ll change the sports/exercise related goal to something that makes more sense for me, like doing yoga. (Read more here about these changes)

The 101 in 1001 challenge is about improving who you are and that’s all about change.

Setting Realistic Goals. Or Not.

Amanda — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:34:19 +0000

“Well, of course I’m going to set realistic goals,” you might be saying, “I’m certainly not going to put ‘travel to the moon’ on my list.”

But that’s not exactly what we mean by setting realistic goals. Or not setting realistic goals. At the end of the 1,001 days, do you want to have every goal accomplished? If so, then it might not be wise to set uncontrollable or unrealistic goals such as ‘fall in love’ when there is no certainty or guarantee of a love interest popping up. Setting realistic goals involves examining your life and identifying what you are able to – and want to – accomplish within the next 3 years.

If, however, you want your list to reflect the things you would like to accomplish, or have your goals represent how you wish your life to be like at the end of 3 years, then set your goals high. But be mindful that in setting goals higher (or, less realistic) creates a greater possibility of failure – but arguably creates a possibility for greater success as well.

This is not to say that your list must be completely, 100% realistic. Mix it up as you so choose. Give yourself a couple grander things to work toward. Whatever best suits your desires.

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Deciding How Many Goals to Tackle

Amanda — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 16:43:12 +0000

When I first came upon the day zero project, I knew instantly that it was a fabulous idea. I just wasn’t sure if it was a good idea for me. 101 goals seemed daunting, and (almost) three years is a long time. If I was going to commit to such a project, I wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t give up part of the way through. There are plenty of other goal projects out there (30 before 30, bucket lists), and the 101 in 1001 can be modified in anyway that you choose (ex. 50 in 500). Before you even begin thinking about what goals you want to accomplish, it would be wise to decide how many goals you want to accomplish and in what time frame.

This is where you have to decide what best suits your life. Regardless of which project you choose, our quick tips will help you be successful in setting accomplishable goals.

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When is this goal complete?

taraSG — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 21:05:19 +0000

We recommend that you take a minute to write down when you would consider each goal achieved.

Why is this important?

I for one have had to go back and check to see what I really meant when I wrote down a goal. Most of these will be self-explanatory, but feel free to be as specific as you want. A good thing to make sure to note is how many days, weeks, or months you require for a continuous goal to be complete. I would recommend leaving some “free” weeks (for example my weekly goals are counted out of 101 instead of 141). You may also want to limit your number of continuous goals. These will be very hard to keep up with for nearly 3 years. If you want to do a daily goal, I very highly recommend doing it for only a few weeks or months.

Check out Amanda’s and my 101 lists for example of how you can blog about when a goal in complete.

Identifying the Reasons for Each Goal

Amanda — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:18:42 +0000

Identifying the reasons for adding each goal to your list seems like a lot of work, so why should you do it?

The ability to complete goals will be dependent on how meaningful and well-thought out each goal is. You are more likely to feel motivated to accomplish something when you know why you want to do it. Which is why we suggest identifying the reasons you want each goal on your list. It can be done in your head, on a piece of paper, or on your blog (like Tara and I have done) – as long as you have a well-thought out reason why, it doesn’t matter.

As someone who went through a list crisis a few months into the 101 in 1001 challenge and changed many of the goals on my list, I can say with certainty that this is probably one of the best things you can do when crafting your list to ensure success.

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