Episode 30: An Open Letter to Beginner Me

In this episode, I simply read a letter I wrote to beginner me. She was so excited to start her language journey, but she was also very lost. She had no idea what was ahead of her, but she jumped in head-first with a lot of motivation...and fear. I've made a lot of mistakes in my language learning journey, and it's hard not to look back and wish I'd done things differently. It would be too easy to focus on the past, realizing that if I knew then what I know now, everything would have been easier.

Instead of going down that path of "what ifs," I decided to write this letter to myself. Honestly, it was a very healing process. Writing out my doubts, understanding where they came from, and encouraging myself to just keep going allowed me to accept and move forward from my history of mistakes. I decided to turn this letter into an episode to share with you because I think we all need to give ourselves a bit more grace...a bit more compassion. I hope this letter speaks to you in a way that reminds you of how far you've come since your beginnings. I hope it reminds you to go easy on yourself, find joy in your journey, and celebrate all your accomplishments along the way.

If you struggle to let go of a challenging past, and you find yourself thinking often about where you "could be" if only you'd started earlier, studied harder, put yourself out there, or whatever, then I encourage you to write a letter to yourself. Let beginner you know how far they're going to go and how proud you are of them. Because you know you can do it, and you deserve to tell yourself so.

• Music in this episode is "Metaphor" by Jason Shaw on audionautix.com