Learning a new language by creating new habits #100DaysofX

Hi dear reader, Xavier here.

A few months, I stumbled on the twitter of 100 Days of X. I already have seen some people doing the 100 Days of Code on Twitter, or on Dev.to, but at the time, I’ve always scrolled away without looking in details.

But during an afternoon, being a little too bored, I’ve decided to look further on this subject, and what I’ve found was pretty amazing! My journey into 100DayOfX started on the nice 100DaysOfX.com website, and all the documentation that it bring about why this challenges exist, how it works. Since I am very interested by how to create and change habits (if you are interested, I can suggest that you read The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg, and The 5 Second Rule, by Mel Robbins), that gave me the impluse, the little push I needed to start creating a new habit and stick to it.

Really motivated, I commit to 3 challenges : 100DaysOfEnglish, 100DaysOfSpanish and 100DaysOfMeditation. 💪🙂

To do so, I used Duolingo for the language learning, and Petit Bambou for the meditation. But after a few days, I realize that 3 challenges at the same time was too much for me, so I have decided to drop the meditation challenge to focus on the languages.

And last week, I’ve finally completed those 2 challenges \o/ This was a pretty huge deal for me, and made me learn some stuff about myself.

First of all, it made me learn a lot of English and Spanish vocabulary, obviously. Indeed, during the challenge, I finished the English and Spanish skill trees from a French perspective, and started the reverse trees, which mean I learn French as an English and a Spanish person. I have to admit that I prefer the last ones, since there seems to be more complete, so I feel that I learn more new words.

Secondly, I learned to listen to myself a bit more. During this challenge, I have experience some down moments and some really thriving moments. So I have adapted the amount of learning I did during this challenge. On average, I finished a complete skill of each language a day. Less during the down times, and more during the highly motivated times, but I tried to do a little bit every day, and even when I missed doing them, I didn’t let the culpability get to me. It may seems an obvious things for some of you, but for me, it wasn’t as clear when I started those challenges. I also planned a break, during some vacation I spent with some members of my family in Amsterdam (a very beautiful city that I can only encourage you to visit). This break was really refreshing, and doing nothing (no work or challenge, made me enjoy the company of others more 😄).

And to finish, I must say that I learned to persevere more. I have to admit that, most of the project I have done so far, have never finished. And with those two challenges done, I am more motivated to finished the others like the Advent Of Code 2015 I am currently doing. And even if it is hard to complete a project or an objective, just the fact to finally have it done, and reflect on the evolution that happened to me since the beginning of them is really amazing. It feels good, and it makes the future feel even better 😃

To conclude this mini post, I just want to say that you should give yourself some challenges in life, some short term, some other on a longer term. Personally I will definitively do so. It will definitely make you stretch, make you grow, and even if this is difficult, you will become a better person, and more aware about what you are capable of. For my part, I will continue the on going project I have with 10xlearner, continue to learn publicly, continue to experiment, and try to do it more publicly, to share some knowledge, and maybe motivate other people to do so too 😉

Thank you for reading this article, And until my next article, have an splendid day 😉