Comments on: Intermediate Goals, Mini-Dreams

By: How To Compete Against Yourself: Don’t Do Your Best, Do Better Than Your Personal Average | AJATT | All Japanese All The Time

Mon, 30 Mar 2020 12:37:21 +0000

[…] records. Break 0. Then break average. Let the records break themselves. Don’t do your best. Don’t aim high. Aim upward. Inch forward. High will take care of itself. He’s a big boy […]

By: Practical Tips on What To Do Instead of New Year’s Resolutions | AJATT | All Japanese All The Time

Sun, 18 Aug 2019 14:37:28 +0000

[…] could also split the difference and make New Fortnight’s Resolutions for every 2~3 weeks 1, that way you’re really marching to your own tune, really spinning on your own axis, as […]

By: Why America Doesn’t Win Wars Any More and What (Ironically) That Can Teach You About Learning Languages | AJATT | All Japanese All The Time

Sun, 18 Aug 2019 12:39:14 +0000

[…] in a field as apparently vast and infinite as language acquisition, playing it as a longish series of short, winnable games with, again, limited objectives, turns out to be a winning […]

By: What Is The End Game of Learning A Language? | AJATT | All Japanese All The Time

Thu, 30 Jan 2014 23:37:06 +0000

[…] Intermediate Goals, Mini-Dreams […]

By: kai

kai — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 18:18:04 +0000

I agree with this but what about shorter goals. Like daily goals. I find that monthly goals are good, more motivating and less stressful than the long term ones, but I also notice that feeling of being addicted comes from the micro goals. I know there is a post on time-boxing as micro goals but I’m thinking more along the lines of learn how to write one really awsome sentence. Then you’ve created value for yourself, instant achievement, except what’s the point of having it if you don’t use it. So go to the mall and write that sentence on napkins and leave them on tables. Removable graffiti. There, now the value is being used so it actually affirms itself. Then learn another.

Learn all the words for all the foods to order a single meal from a restaurant, then go to that restaurant and order than meal.

These are little wins that are wins even outside the contexts of the long term goal, that’s what makes them such victories.

Another example is in programming. You could either study a bunch of examples of a bunch of concepts, or you could pick one concept and just learn what it means. Then think of a way to use it to improve your life. Then learn how to code it while doing so.

By: Stop With The Resolutions, Start With The Crack | AJATT | All Japanese All The Time

Sun, 06 Jan 2013 08:57:10 +0000

[…] Make short term goals that are in harmony with some long term strategy you might have. Don’t make a resolution for a year. For example, suppose your long term strategy is to write a book. It does no good to say: “This year I intend to finish writing a book”. […]

By: December Korean Goals | Faith In Korean

December Korean Goals | Faith In Korean — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 18:47:27 +0000

[…] /intermediate-goals-mini-dreams Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this. Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged ajatt, anki, bilingual, dreams, fluency, goals, immersion, inspiration, integrated korean, korean, language learning, motivation […]

By: Don’t Have High Standards, Have Wide Standards | AJATT | All Japanese All The Time

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 03:24:02 +0000

[…] to score, and from further away. On the soccer pitch of your Japanese life, you want to make the goal so wide that virtually any ball you kick can get […]

By: RyanSharif

RyanSharif — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 19:22:14 +0000

I tend to have the opposite feelings on setting goals. To each their own.

By: Chagami

Chagami — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 16:58:01 +0000

I like this article, but I’m not sure about the last third that mentions one month goals and such.

I love making intermediate goals and having mini-dreams. Getting to (n)-hundred/thousand Kanji brings out such motivation. But I find that as soon as I put a deadline on these goals, it becomes work and the wheels fall off the cart.

Japanese shouldn’t be, “Okay, by next month, I’m going to have watched 250 episodes of anime”, it should be, “Time for a marathon of my favourite anime!”

And what’s even worse is if you get through your month of dutifully watching those 250 episodes, you feel that next month, you have to do the same or better. Inevitably, you won’t do your quota, and you’ll feel like a failure, burned out, and that you don’t have the “will-power” or determination to learn Japanese.

Mini-Goals = Sense of Achievement
Mini-Goals + Deadlines = Inevitable Sense of Failure

By: Travis

Travis — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 11:43:30 +0000

The graph in my opinion is rather accurate. I’ve noticed in my learning experience where my output, in particular, will “rubberband”. Rather, my input will exceed my output by a lot, then my output will quickly catch up and it’ll start over (at a higher level of course).

By: Unclean! Why Would AJATT Do A Tie-in With Other People’s Stuff? | AJATT | All Japanese All The Time

Sat, 25 Dec 2010 02:27:14 +0000

[…] you, giving you traction and providing workable, enjoyable intermediate goals on your way to a more comprehensive, native-like […]

By: Ron Wren (hatman900)

Ron Wren (hatman900) — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 04:26:24 +0000

I think this comment is relevant, so here it is.
I like to use concept maps to display this kind of idea. I never make any though, just imagine ’em. But they’ve got branches that go like: Immersion – Music – Rock – LM.C – Punky Heart – Chorus – Chiisa na tsubasa o hirogete – tsubasa – wing. They’re kinda like that. I think it’s pretty cool. I would’ve typed some of that in Japanese but I’m using my Grandma’s “compy” witch doesn’t have the font support or whatever it’s called. (WAH! I want my reps to be kanji and not blocks… *sniff)

By: Mitch

Mitch — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 07:08:45 +0000

I like the idea of setting goals. I never really thought about it until I read this page though. I remember when I was younger and skateboarding that’s exactly what I’d do. Things like “I want to ollie off the ground” turned into “I want to kickflip” then into “I want to Kickflip smith that 8 set rail”. I never did that last one, but I could’ve!

Same thing applies to this. Right now I’m at about 150 kanji after a week. By the time school starts I want to be at 400. And although I don’t quite understand full sentences yet, I’ve started mining things I personally say using the kanji that I’m studying at the moment. Soon I’m going to be getting me a dictionary and volume 1 of Kenichi. Thanks for the advice Khatz. It’s helping a lot!

By: making goals « Language Fixation

making goals « Language Fixation — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 22:45:27 +0000

[…] i’m going to take Khatsumoto’s advice about short term goals. I’m just going to pick some raw numbers for this month for all of the language tasks i want […]

By: Edna Deary

Edna Deary — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:18:26 +0000

Have you heard of this school’s method – www.paulnoblelanguages.com – it sounds similar to what’s being discussed here. Do you know if it’s any good?

By: Two Months of Chinese | Jacob Job

Two Months of Chinese | Jacob Job — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 03:53:51 +0000

[…] months of work, I need some different goals. (Khatzu has a good post about intermediate goals at this link.) We’ll go big to […]

By: 1Mw: 31000 german words read « Language Fixation

1Mw: 31000 german words read « Language Fixation — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 01:41:45 +0000

[…] 31000 german words read I’m making good progress towards my goal of reading a million words of german. I’m starting to get really caught up in the novel […]

By: will

will — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 13:26:12 +0000

I started learning Japanese after I was challenged reading this
japansugoi.com/wordpress/so-you-want-to-learn-japanese/
but although its been difficult, its well worth the effort to be able to communicate in Japanese

By: All Japanese All The Time Dot Com: How to learn Japanese. On your own, having fun and to fluency. » Processes Not Results, Or: Everything I Ever Needed To Know About Life I Learned Washing Dishes

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 12:01:09 +0000

[…] We’re always trying to get somewhere…Sometimes that makes sense. And things like intermediate goals can be very useful. But often, if the goal is too far away, or the task is cyclical, perhaps it […]