Mindset Shifts that will Positively Impact Your English Fluency

/ Steven Hobson / Business English

Do you have a goal of improving your English fluency?

English fluency is essentially having the ability to make yourself understood by native speakers of English and involves several language areas from grammar to vocabulary to pronunciation.

English fluency also includes how competent you are at structuring your message, developing an argument, and voicing your opinions.

There are many elements to consider when attempting to define English fluency, and it can therefore be quite difficult to measure.

Although English fluency covers many language-related topics, what many language learners neglect is the mindset element of English fluency.

Your mindset is a set of beliefs that influence how you think, feel and behave. It has an incredible impact on your confidence and your ability to speak fluently in English – the effectiveness of how you communicate in English and make yourself understood.

Working on my clients’ mindset is a huge part of my coaching approach. I love working with mindset and in this lesson, I share 3 ways how you can shift your mindset in a way that will positively impact your English fluency.

1. Aim for Excellence in English Fluency instead of Perfection

I have found that many professionals who lack confidence in speaking English tend to be perfectionists.

What does perfectionism do? It basically highlights mistakes and imperfections so that you try to do things perfectly. This can be useful if your job involves having zero tolerance for mistakes, such as being an architect or a financial manager.

But when it comes to improving English fluency, perfectionism gets in the way as opposed to helping you achieve it. This is because you need to be tolerant of your mistakes and imperfections to consistently be improving your English fluency.

One of the keys to consistent English fluency improvement is to make a mistake, learn from it, then move on.

The Vicious loop of Perfectionism

Perfectionists put a lot of pressure on themselves not to make mistakes in English. The result of this is normally a lack of participation in meetings, which leads to a negative aftereffect like frustration and the feelings of “I am not shining as much as I should. I could be contributing so much more.”

A lot of perfectionistic tendencies are rooted in fear and insecurity which create a kind of vicious loop of perfectionism that looks like this:

You fear being seen making a mistake.
You stay in your comfort zone and don’t take risks.
This results in you not reaching your potential in terms of expressing your ideas.
This causes frustration.
The loop then repeats.

Perfectionism will get in the way of you reaching the English fluency levels you strive for because it causes you to be counterproductive.

So what can you do about your perfectionist tendencies so that you can keep high standards but take risks at the same time?

Suggestion: Rechannel your strength rather than aim for a lower goal.

Rather than thinking that letting go of your perfectionism will somehow cause you ‘harm’ in the form of embarrassment or being judged negatively, view this mindset change as adjusting your standards.

Strive to be excellent and not perfect. Furthermore, embrace the idea that on the road to achieving English fluency, you will do some things imperfectly.

Additionally, remind yourself that your work colleagues care much more about your message (what you say) than how you say it. Your colleagues are not ‘looking for’ your English mistakes. They want to hear ‘you’.

Don’t forget that English is your second language, and therefore shouldn’t be treated like your first. When speaking in your first language you don’t have to worry so much about making language mistakes. But for the second language, there is a price that you may have to pay just to express your ideas, and that price is the possibility of making mistakes.

Make sure that the reward of expressing your ideas in English during meetings is bigger than the price of making mistakes.

2. Switch Your Focus from Making Mistakes to the Message You Want to Communicate

The second mindset shift that will positively impact your English fluency is closely linked to the first one about letting go of perfectionism. Moreover, it is one of the most powerful changes you can make to increase your confidence in speaking English in front of others.

Something I learned from the renowned peak performance coach, Tony Robbins, was the following: Wherever you direct your attention is what you’re going to attract.

So in the context of Engish fluency, if you’re going into a meeting worried about making English mistakes and how other people will judge you, that’s where your focus is. As a consequence, you will make more mistakes and reduce your fluency.

This sounds counter-intuitive, but the more you focus on AVOIDING making mistakes, the more unstructured and less fluid your speech will become and the less confident you will feel.

The result? Frustration after meetings and stress before them.

There is a simple solution to this, though. And that is consciously switching your attention to the message you want to communicate while taking away your focus from making mistakes.

This way the communication of your message will flow much better, you’ll sound more confident and consequently speak with more authority.

Suggestion: Increase self-awareness and modify your self-talk to change your focus.

Step 1: Increase self-awareness

It’s essential that you work on your self-awareness and start listening to your inner voice while preparing for your English meetings.

What are you affirming to yourself? What language are you using? Are you lifting yourself up or knocking yourself down? What emotions are you feeling before an English meeting?

Focusing too much on committing mistakes causes anxiety. Whenever you feel anxious this is a strong sign that the self-talk you are producing is focusing on the wrong thing, no matter what you’re feeling anxious about.

Step 2: Confront your fear of making mistakes by ‘getting over yourself’

I saw this powerful documentary about the winning mindset of the now sadly deceased basketball player, Kobe Bryant.

While on the subject of not performing so well in one game and receiving criticism, the interviewer asked him, “How did you get so mentally and emotionally so strong that it doesn’t bother you?”

Kobe responded, “Get over yourself. Ok, you feel embarrassed but you’re not that important.” Then he asked himself, “Why did those mistakes happen?” and resolved to fix them.

If you find yourself focusing too much on making mistakes, ask yourself: “What’s the worst thing that could happen?”

Step 3: Modify your self-talk to change your focus

Now you need to change your inner voice’s language by switching from negative language to positive, for instance:

“I better stay as quiet as possible because I don’t want to make mistakes.” to
“I’m going to focus on what exactly I want to communicate and say it as clearly and confidently as possible.”

Try these 3 steps the next time you are preparing for an English meeting.

3. Welcome the Feeling of an Imposter

Some of my clients have told me that having to speak English in meetings makes them feel like a fraud.

They distrust their ability to speak English effectively enough in front of others which, in turn, prevents them from being ‘themselves’. As a result, they feel like an ‘imposter’, which causes stress and anxiety.

This is called Imposter Syndrome.

I started to really understand the impact Imposter Syndrome can have on people when I first started life coaching. As well as this, it is something that I have had to overcome myself as I grew from being a teacher to an owner of a language school.

Imposter Syndrome is an indicator that you are growing

The key thing I learned about overcoming Imposter Syndrome was something a client of mine taught me.

She said that if you want to grow, if you want to get to that next level, then Imposter Syndrome is something that you have to go through. It’s part of the process of growth, no matter what the life area it is in.

Imposter Syndrome defeats most people. This is because it’s such an uncomfortable feeling that our natural reaction is to literally run away from the situation that is causing it. It happens subconsciously, therefore people don’t recognize it as Imposter Syndrome, they just feel this enormous mental resistance and a deep, uncomfortable feeling.

Suggestion: Confront it and Welcome it.

But, contrary to running away from it, you have to confront it. Furthermore, create the desire to feel like an imposter! Sounds ridiculous, right? But I’m absolutely certain that if you’re reading this article you are somebody who wants to grow, not just your English communication skills, but in other areas of your life.

So embrace the fact that feeling like an imposter is just your brain telling you that you’re stretching yourself. You’re growing.

My advice? Whether it is speaking up in meetings or giving presentations in English, welcome the feeling of an imposter.

Take Action

During this month I challenge you to put into practice the 3 suggestions mentioned in this article:

Rechannel your strength rather than aim for a lower goal. (Perfectionism)
Increase self-awareness and modify your self-talk to change your focus from avoiding making mistakes to communicating your message well.
And lastly, confront and welcome Imposter Syndrome.