Your 13 most common limiting beliefs
And why you should get bored
In this email:
Reflect: are you being your own worst enemy?
Watch: a 5-minute video on why you have to be bored
Report: What happened inside the Joy Luck Café last week
What I’m up to: exciting, creative stuff ahead!
Reading time: 6 minutes. You can do this :)
Struggling to focus? Read one section at a time. Your brain loves everything more if you don’t overload it.
Struggling to understand? Support your reading with paragraphs you don’t understand by copying them here.
If you see a difficult or strange word or expression is in red, click on the link: I usually add stuff to help you read there.
No shame in getting help if you need it. It’s part of the process.
But first, let’s define the problem.
What’s a limiting belief anyway?
Is it just something coaches made up? Is it just Instagram pop psychology?
No it isn’t, truly.
In a nutshell: A limiting belief is a thought or state of mind that you think is the absolute truth and stops you from doing certain things.
Sometimes our inner voice is really mean.
Here’s some of the stuff I’ve heard my clients say over the years:
1. My pronunciation is very bad and people not always can understand me because of that, and they will dislike me or judge me.
2. I can't get a new job in an international company because my English is not good enough. But I am also terrible at learning. I feel stuck.
3. I am going to get humiliated. (me: holy cow. That's a strong word, isn't it? No wonder you're scared 💜)
4. My colleagues are going to think I'm ridiculous when I speak English.
5. My grammar is still not good enough. (me: and if you never practice, it will never change :) it also matters less than you think )
6. I can't respond in a spontaneous way because I have to think before speaking, so… I just won't. I hate being slow.
7. People will think I am ignorant because my English isn’t already perfect, and I am a great professional in my native language. (me: I call this THE GAP! We will talk about it)
8. People may laugh at my accent. Or they may ask me to repeat things because they don't understand me.
9. I am afraid when I speak people don’t understand me, or I can’t understand their answers.
10. When I improve slowly, I feel angry at myself. I have no patience.
11. I will look or sound very stupid when I speak English and it's less than perfect.
12. People will laugh at me or judge me because of my silence.
13. I go blank when I am on the spot, it is so difficult to articulate my inner thoughts. I don't want to lose complexity, so… I prefer saying nothing. (me: this is another thing we need to talk about. For sure.)
Do you recognise yourself in any of these limiting beliefs?
Which are really about language… And which are about your relationship to the process of learning that language? To having to go through the imperfection of the learning process before you can express yourself fully?
Why being bored might be good for your mental health
Here is the link if you want to open it in another tab.
Watch Harvard Professor Arthur Brooks share why boredom is actually great for us. Drop that phone. Stop reading this newsletter. Go and let your eyes and mind wander watching the sky… It might be the best thing you do for your mental health.
Tip: remember that watching a video on speed 0.9x doesn’t distort speech and makes everything easier. Also, activate closed captions, YouTube has them for all English speaking videos! Click on the “CC” button in the bottom bar, on the right hand side.
The three ways you can work with me whenever you’re ready:
Discover more about or join The Joy Luck club here. My group space to speak English, grow and bloom together… Without breaking the bank. All details are on the page: we are waiting for you! It’s a small space for now, and I am hoping it grows. If you join us now, you’ll get two benefits: being in a smaller group (which allows for a more intimate experience) and a lower price. See you inside?
Flow and Bloom is my 1:1 English and French coaching programme. Want to find out if my work can serve you? Then fill in this form, and I will get back to you!
Do you want to be the next person to stop being afraid of speaking and start to love their English (or French?) Then reply to this email — in Italian, English, French, Spanish or German — and let’s chat. No pressure of any sort to actually work with me if you speak to me. It should be obvious, but let me write it out. I hate pressure on me as a buyer. I won’t make others feel pressure of any sort either.
Have a conference or a talk in English coming up that feels more scary than exciting? Let’s get ready together at my Coaching Clinic! Fill in this form, give me some context, and let’s get you some quick, practical & super focused practical support… Along with someone cheerleading for you in the corner (I am an excellent cheerleader, my clients say 😂)
Our last Joy Luck Meetup was wonderful!
We also had a summer experiment, meeting at 1pm instead of 7pm.
It worked very well! It was a great idea — the group said they like it much better at lunchtime, and so do I. We all have more energy and are happier. I’ll let you know in my next issue if we stick to this time going into Autumn.
Maybe meeting 1pm works better for you, reading this? Write if you need any info.
We talked about Vale's cool watercolor art and Sara's love for travel and food. One of us gave a fantastic presentation on Lee Miller's life, covering her modeling career, a surprising scandal, her shift to war photography, and her struggles with PTSD. That led us to discuss the phrasal verb "ended up" for those unexpected life turns.
We explored the balance between being precise and just letting the words flow when speaking a foreign language, and we even touched on AI applications, like "temperature" in LLMs and how difficult it is to explain complicated topics simply. We also mentioned what I call The Gap: feeling frustrated by the gap between our competence in our native language, and the language we are learning.
What I am up to
Two weeks ago, I hosted a small, intimate real-life event here in Barcelona. I called it Co-Creación Selvática: people I have met at writing workshops around town and I will get together to share writing and creation time together for a few hours this coming Sunday.
Most of us met three months ago at a workshop held by Argentinian writer Gabriela Cabezón Cámara at Casa Amèrica in Barcelona, and she encouraged us to get together for writing again after the workshop. I also believe in community, very much, so I took it upon me to actually make it happen. And we’re doing this!
I really miss in-person interaction with groups of people doing cool stuff, so I am really excited that I am actually making this happen! Yay! Can’t wait for our next meeting.
You may have missed:
Listen to my interviews about language learning, multilingual life and solo travel as a woman here. In English, Italian and French.
Italian speaker? Listen to me on Spotify, or read my biweekly cultural bulletin.
Read my archive (and find past, free speaking prompts for practice) here.
About me:
My name is Paola.
I’m a trained and certified language coach, and I speak 5 languages fluently.
I believe in making language learning and cultural growth available to as many people as possible, which is why this newsletter has no paywall, and won’t ever have it.
I also believe in slow, gentle communication: we have enough stressors in our lives. Let’s make our learning space a space of peace and kindness, pushing back against notifications, social media noise & mental fog, and expectations of instant responses.
My mission is to get others to access a wider world thanks to their English — speaking a language well is so much more than just a skill you can put on a CV, it’s a door to other amazing, colourful, far away worlds! — and to help them do so joyfully, without judging themselves, and being okay with messing up. Making mistakes is part of the game.
Learn with joy, consciousness & (self-)love. Everything else will follow!
