Micro Habits and a New Language

Learning a new language.

Have you ever thought about learning a new language? As adults, it becomes so hard to learn and retain anything new. We have so much going on in our brains, worrying about work, family, kids, life, finances that adding anything else into the mix just seems impossible. I have tried so many times to learn something different, I think I am getting the hang of it, and retaining it, but then I have to stay late for work, or laundry piled up, or the kids had to be somewhere, and I just ran out of time to keep up with it, and I forget all about it.

A little while ago, I spoke on our Facebook page about Micro Habits.  This idea is to build habits by starting with a step that is so small that failure is almost impossible. After 60 days, this small daily choice becomes a habit.

Some ideas you can do are:

-Drink water right after waking

-Journal 1-2 things you are grateful for

-Focus on breathing throughout the day

-Walk to get your mail everyday

-Learn a new language ;)

I have been working on many of these micro habits. We always have walked to get the mail everyday… I see many who drive there while driving home, but I will park at home and then walk over. Since that became a super easy habit, now we are walking to pick my daughter up from school. The day I am writing this was the coldest day yet since school has started, and we still walked to get her because it is a habit, and I actually would have felt like I have let myself down by not walking.  

Instead of water when I wake up, after my coffee – coffee will always be first and don’t try to take that away from me, but I have been having a tea to help increase my water intake. And now tea not just in the morning, but throughout the day has become a habit.

The next thing we have been working on is learning sign language. My girls and I tried a couple years ago, and we were so inconsistent that it never stuck. I met someone a while ago who told me that growing up, not being around a community who she could communicate with was the most isolating experience. I know first hand what it is like to always feel alone in a group of people and my heart breaks for anyone who also feels this way. Now though there is more of a want and need to learn sign language for our family. Between that person I met, and our need to learn, this has become a priority for us.

We started as a refresher on some of the common words that we learnt (mom, dad, eat, milk, etc.)

Then we worked on making it a habit to learn at least one new ASL sign every day, and using it each day.There are great sites, and youtube for this. Now that we have made that a habit we are working on learning 2 new words a day. At the dinner table at least one person will ask to look up a new word. What has also helped us it writing it down. Once we learn a new word, we write it down, and keep the list going on the fridge where we can see it everyday.

Using Micro habits, it seems to work great for us for learning a new language. Try to think of something that you say you wish you could start doing, and make a plan to start tomorrow to add small habits daily into your life and routine.

Happy new habit making mom tribe!