You Don’t Need Perfect English to Speak with Confidence
An English learner striving for perfection will always be a less confident speaker than a learner who embraces mistakes as part of the journey.
During the twenty-plus years I’ve been helping managers and leaders develop their business English fluency, a common challenge I’ve seen is dealing with perfectionism.
In today’s guide, you’ll discover why you don’t need to speak perfect English to become a confident speaker.
It’s crucial to embrace the idea that perfectionism is not the way to build English confidence.
When developing fluency in English, the perfectionist mindset often becomes a barrier rather than a benefit. This is because fluency thrives on trial, error, and continuous improvement.
Perfectionism holds you back from leaving your English comfort zone, whereas stepping out of your comfort zone brings growth and builds English confidence.
However, many non-native English speakers fall into the perfectionist trap. They worry about making mistakes, being judged, or not expressing themselves perfectly.
Perfection is impeding you from progressing. This is one of the reasons why many English learners stay at a plateau after reaching intermediate and advanced levels.
Be more focused on the clarity and impact of your message, rather than how you sound in English.
So today I’m excited to show you three actionable steps to overcome English perfectionsm. These are:
1. Aim for Excellence, Not Perfection
2. Focus on Your Message Instead of Your Mistakes
3. Prioritize Progress Over Perfection.
Let’s dive into each one.
1. Aim for Excellence. Not Perfection
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.
One way of doing this is changing your language from, ‘That was perfect.’ or ‘That went perfectly.’ to ‘That was excellent.’
When you make this mental change, you’ll find that you’ll be more willing to voice your opinions in meetings and generally enhance your quality of spoken English.
2. Focus on Your Message Instead of Your Mistakes
Wherever you direct your attention is what you’re going to attract.
Switching your focus from making mistakes to the message you want to communicate is one of the most powerful changes you can make to increase your confidence.
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’.
So you need to embrace this and confront those thoughts in your head that are telling you you’ll be judged on your mistakes.
Focus on giving as much value as you can to your listeners. To do this, ask yourself these self-coaching questions:
1. “What unique insights can I offer that would benefit my listeners?”
2. “How can I tailor my message to address the needs of my audience?”
3. “Am I more focused on how I sound or on the clarity and impact of my message?”
4. “How can I simplify my communication to ensure my listeners understand the core ideas?”
3. Prioritize Progress Over Perfection
Whether it’s using a new phrase correctly or feeling a bit more confident during meetings, recognize the small victories that show you’re improving.
You simply have to value the journey.
Like any adventure, there are ups and downs. View mistakes and failures as feedback. Feedback as learning. Learning as growth.
Embrace the idea that you will do some things imperfectly on the road to achieving English fluency, and that’s ok.
Conclusion
Perfectionism can be an obstacle for non-native speakers trying to improve their English fluency. But by rechanneling your drive toward excellence rather than perfection, and by accepting mistakes as a natural part of the process, you’ll find yourself reducing stress and making far more progress.
Remember, your ideas are more important than perfect grammar. Speak up, share your thoughts, and allow yourself the space to grow.
