Growth and Stagnation
As humans, we tend to view ourselves as having fixed value, which is both a detriment to our progress and the #1 reason why we fail, especially when pursuing intensive learning experiences. We only have this fixed mindset when we do not actively set the intention for embracing failure in situations of delayed gratification. Therefore, we recommend to Speechling learners that they embrace the growth mindset, both actively and intentionally.
Humans in a fixed mindset state tend to be highly aligned with their egos (loosely defined as the inner-critic almost all of us hear in our heads during every waking hour), concealing their mistakes, and remaining highly focused on presenting an egoic ideal, or a false self, determined by external societal conditioning from birth, because left to our own devices in this 21st century existence, we've been shaped to crave social/external validation more so than inner growth, which isn't an achievement inherently visible to others. People constantly looking for social-affirmation in their inner work aren’t serious about it.
From the perspective of a computer, your brain is a multilayered mechanism. Your mind can run multiple apps running over its core operating system (OS), which, left untouched by the described societal conditioning, is at a baseline, content, grateful, and full of wonder, like a child. As children, we’re blank slates, living in a truer, unfiltered world. Puberty marks the onsite of desire, which leads to overthinking, and building an ego and identity. Without guidance, this can get out of control, defaulting to playing a movie-like scene in our heads, pulling us out base reality, and tarnishing any glimpse of true happiness. You are not your mind, and it should be a tool, not something driving you 24 hours a day, 7 days per week, 365 days a year, for life.
Ideally we should strive to transcend to level of awareness beyond the ego, otherwise known as the "monkey mind", which harbors states of worry, fright, anxiousness. Although useful in certain situations, we shouldn't always be running our monkey mind program. It’s useful, but it's not always useful, and often detrimental to be always be running in the background.
Effective Speechling learners need a growth mindset. Failing is painful, but should be viewed as a growing experience. Cultivating and possessing a growth mindset means viewing yourself as having a variable, changeable absolute value, capable of moving away from fearing to embracing failure. Embracing failure translates to becoming better, and to do so optimally, this process should be pursued with shamelessness. No pain, no gain.
We'll eventually include features to help you with the external self-progress assessments, but you should always compare yourself with respect to how you're doing with the curriculum and becoming a better version of yourself, and not how the other learners sound on Slack, Reddit, etc. Unless you're willing to completely switch lives with a person who possesses traits (like fluency in a certain language) that you desire yet do not quite possess entirely, there's no point in being jealous, because it's always best to be entirely you than someone else entirely.
People succeed the most using Speechling when they truly want to use it. You don’t need to rules for yourself. Record one or two when you get the chance at work, or on the bus, record up to 12 a day at once! You won't need a timed-schedule or even a heavily regimented day. You just need to build the habit.