Review Your Successes

Welcome to the Effortless English Show with the world's number one English teacher, A.J. Hogue, where A.J. 's more than 40 million students worldwide finally learn English once and for all, without the boring textbooks, classrooms, and grammar drills. Here's A.J.

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The year is almost over. Almost done. 2018. We're at the end. It's Christmas time. A couple days. It's Christmas. Very nice time of the year. Wonderful.

It's a wonderful time of the year. There's a song. A Christmas song that has that line. That sentence. Very nice. Those of you who are celebrating Christmas, Merry Christmas to you.

And even if you're not, the end of the year is still a very nice time of year. New Year is coming. I think this is a very good time of year to review. You can review your life in general, your whole life if you like.

But especially the previous year. This is a good time. They always do this in the news and they review all the fake news stories from the year. that's not what i'm talking about i'm talking about your life it's a good time to think about your life the last year because again we get busy we get so focused on you know this week what's happening this week this week and then the next week and the next right and uh often we don't look back on the previous months sometimes we even forget about

all that we have done during the year. We forget about all the good things that have happened. It's easy to get focused on the problems and the frustrations and the busyness and even our failures, our mistakes.

And it's easy to forget about all the good stuff. So this is a good time not only to review the last year, that's good, but especially to do it in a way where you focus on the good things, the positive things.

And that's what I'm going to suggest to you today, that you do a year-end review, but with a specific focus, a review of your gratitude and your success.

Gratitude and successes, actually, more than one. A review of 2018. for gratitude and success. Let's start with gratitude. I recommend you start it with gratitude.

Take some time. Give yourself an hour to do this, to sit down. You can go to a coffee shop. You can sit at home with tea or coffee or water, whatever.

Whatever you like to drink. Whiskey. It doesn't matter. Okay? But sit down where you can be alone and you got some quiet. and really think about it. You know, you think back to January, try to remember.

Back in January of 2018, what were you doing? I got to think about it. I was back in the United States at that time. And it was freezing cold, the winter.

I was visiting family and snow and so cold. You think back to January and, you know, what was happening? What were you doing? Who were you with? What were your goals at that time, right?

Usually, often, at the beginning of the year, we make goals, we think about the next year, what do we want to do, accomplish, all that kind of stuff. Kind of our annual goals, a little bit shorter term goals.

If you think back to that, I had some goals too. I wanted to be in the best shape of my life for fitness. I wanted to improve the podcast for the Effortless English Show and do it more often.

I had some family goals too. And I had some goals in terms of religion or spirituality, whichever word you want to use. So think back to those goals of yours. What were your goals way back at the beginning of the year in January?

And then, you know, kind of review February. What were you doing in February? Just think, you know, what were the, what memories do you have? You might even, if you are someone who takes pictures, you could go back and look at your pictures from the year.

And pictures are a nice way to remind you of the different things you were doing through the year. And, of course, continue through the rest of the year. March, April, May, June, July, August, September, you know, all the way until now.

This will just help to get your memory going. That's the first step. Just, you know, review in general. So you just kind of remember all the things that happened, the small and large.

for you. Maybe you had some tough, painful, difficult things happen. Maybe you had some really big, wonderful things happen. And then you probably had a whole lot of just smaller, everyday things.

Just try to remember as much as you can. Step two then is then to go back and Step two, don't worry about the goals yet. You might remember your goals from the beginning of the year, but don't think about the actions you took.

Don't think about if you succeeded or failed. Don't worry about that yet. Step two, I want you just to focus on gratitude and appreciation. Thankfulness.

All these words mean the same thing. Gratitude, appreciation, thankfulness. All right? It's just appreciating, being thankful for all the things in your life that are good.

I would start with people. Think of all the people in your life this year that you appreciate, that you care about. Of course, you start with your family and your good friends and

Think about the time you spent with them this year. Maybe you did something special with them. Maybe you took a trip or something or visited them. Or maybe not.

Maybe you just saw them and talked to them on the phone. That's good too. Just remember all of that and appreciate them. And then I want you to think about why you appreciate them.

What is it that you appreciate about them? How have they been good to you? Maybe they just care about you and they just listen to you and talk to you.

Maybe they help you out sometimes. Maybe they give you good advice. Maybe they're good people and they're a good example. You look at them and you're inspired by something they do in their life and it makes you want to be better.

Maybe like with your parents, if your parents are still alive, then maybe it's just that... You know, you appreciate that they raised you and all they did to do that.

Maybe it's your shared history together. You've just, you know, gone through some big life events together. You have all those shared memories. Probably it's a mix of all of these things.

But think about it. Identify... It's nice to do this in writing. You could write all this on a piece of paper if you like. But you identify all these people that are most important to you and why, why you appreciate them.

And especially focus on this year. What did you do with them this year? What do you appreciate about them? Especially this year. In general, yes. And also specifically this year.

So people. Gratitude for people in your life. And of course, you can also continue doing this. First, you start with the people you love and care about, you know, family and close friends.

And of course, that's most important. But then you could even think about it even more if you like. And you could identify the people who are more like maybe more distant friends or acquaintances, people you met online even or connected online, even strangers that maybe, you know, did something nice for you.

It could be as simple, for example. For me, I can think of one. As simple as something like... There's my favorite coffee shop here in Osaka. There are several very nice people who work at the coffee shop.

And they just always smile and they're always very friendly every time I go there. It's just a nice... It's a very small thing, but I appreciate it. It's nice.

It always gives me a little bit of a nice mood when I go there and get my coffee and... It's just a few seconds per day. But I'm grateful for that. It's nice.

Because, of course, I've been to other shops and coffee shops, especially in America, where they're not friendly, where they don't smile. So just that little thing is very nice. I'm grateful for that, too. So you can also go through that, go through your normal day.

Even just little strangers like that or people you don't They're not friends, but maybe they still, there's something a little positive that they add to your life. And you remember that too.

Be grateful for that. So you start with the people that are most important to you, closest to you, and then you kind of go out from there. Of course, I'm very, very grateful for my family and my closest friends.

Very blessed and happy that I have them in my life. They're very wonderful. I include you, the Effortless English family. So positive, so wonderful. Always makes me feel good.

For example, social media on Gab. Gab.com. Twitter. Especially Gab and Twitter. Also our live Facebook. shows where i get to interact with you and just everybody you're so positive you know it's uh you know little things like just just thanking me for help you know the lessons or for just even just thanking me for the videos and the podcast very nice always makes me feel good thank you and also too just uh helping each other i i

I love it. I love it so much. Especially, this happens on Twitter a lot, and Gab, where Defendless English members and fans help each other. Someone has a problem, or a question, or a doubt, and the other members will answer their question and encourage them.

Or someone has a big success, they share their success story. They had an English job interview, and they got the job. or they've improved their English speaking so much and they share this on social media with our Effortless English, you know, on my social media. And the other members, they're always coming in and, oh, congratulations, that's great.

Really wonderful. Very, very, very grateful for you. Our international Effortless English family is so fantastic. In addition, when we do these live shows, mostly on Facebook, the comments, not only the compliments and the nice comments, but just the interesting ideas.

With these book clubs especially, I've so much enjoyed your insights, your ideas about the books, because very often... You'll make a comment or even ask a question that makes me think about the book differently. It gives me a different viewpoint on it, a deeper understanding of it.

And, of course, that benefits not just me. It benefits everybody because I talk about it and share it with everyone. And so you're really helping everyone. So thank you, thank you, thank you.

So we're just getting started. That's just gratitude for people. Next, I would like you to think about, for this year, 2018, all the things, or we could just say the general, I don't know, situations.

Not really specific people, but just the situations or things in your life that you appreciate. Now, this is a really good one to think about, because it's something we often don't think about.

And I like to remind myself of this. It's one reason also I like to read old books. because you start to realize as you read these books and they describe life in the past that, whoa, they didn't have all these things. They didn't have the internet.

They didn't have computers. They didn't have phones. They didn't have electricity. Okay, you know, a lot of things that we just don't even think about.

We just think are just normal. We're born and they're already there and they're just part of our lives every single day, our whole life. But these are amazing, wonderful things that make life a whole lot easier and much more comfortable.

And I think it is good to appreciate these things sometimes, to realize that people made these. And in the past, people had to think of these things and invent them and create them.

And then other people had to make companies and build them. And it was not easy. It's a reminder in general, not just technology, but also ideas and philosophy and religion and so many things.

Our ancestors gave us this. Our entire life, everything in our life, yours and mine, is built upon what our ancestors created. We were born, and it was here for us already.

And yes, in my lifetime, we've had technology improvements, especially in the area of computers. But, I have to say, even when I was already, when I was born, just a baby, already life was very, very, very, very, very, very, very comfortable and convenient.

because of thousands and thousands of years of our ancestors human beings learning often suffering struggling to make our civilizations to make life better for their children and their grandchildren and their descendants and they did and it was hard work and we should appreciate them we should remember them

We shouldn't have a spoiled attitude like, oh, all of this magically appeared from nowhere. It did not. And it could all disappear. It could all very easily fall apart.

So we should appreciate the civilization we have and all these little technology toys. And we should not forget the other side of it, which is the philosophy, the wisdom, the spirituality, the religion, the

the morality, all of that, because that is even more important than the technology. So be grateful for all of that, too. Think about it. All these things in your life this year that have made your life easier, more comfortable, that you did not create, that come from your ancestors.

Next, still focusing on gratitude and thankfulness. Just think about this year, 2018, from January to now, any good luck you had. Anything good that happened to you that really you didn't deserve.

Meaning you didn't earn it. You didn't do anything really to get it. It's just good things happened to you. You could call this blessings. You could call this grace.

You could call this just good luck. But we all have it. Maybe you had some bad luck too Of course, it can happen also, but you probably did have a lot of good luck.

Just good things that happened or good things in your life that are just there and you're just lucky to have them. Or situations or events. Maybe you just did a random internet search and you found Effortless English. That's kind of some good luck.

I hope. Or maybe you just met somebody interesting who gave you some interesting ideas. You know, all these things that happen that are just kind of good fortune, good luck.

Be grateful for those too. Write those down. Also in the area of gratitude, just beauty, beautiful things in your life. This can be people. For example, children, babies.

They're just beautiful, right? They're just so delightful and wonderful and they're laughing and they're funny. It could just be, you know, nature. Maybe you went for some walks in nature.

Maybe you visited some place in nature. Maybe even just in your own town or city. There's just some beautiful places. Beautiful people. That they didn't really do anything.

They don't do anything specifically, but... They're just beautiful just because they exist. And that gives you some happiness. Something to be grateful for, too.

And think back from January until now of all those examples that you can think of. One quick example just popped into my mind immediately. It was just a few weeks ago. I was...

Walking in the mountains in Japan and, ah, so beautiful. So many beautiful places we walk through and the mountains and the trees and rivers. Ah, it was fantastic. Great, great, great, great, great.

Very grateful for that. Wonderful. And finally in the area that's still in gratitude, the last one of all. most importantly, is just to be grateful for being alive, for life itself.

I think that's a very, very, very good one. Just to remember that even if you had a tough year, a difficult year, you're still alive, and just to appreciate that.

Now remember, go to EffortlessEnglishClub.com. EffortlessEnglishClub.com. Join and commit to my VIP program. Because, of course, it's time to start making those new goals.

Looking forward to 2019. Make some huge, big improvements with your English speaking. Speak English fluently and effortlessly and powerfully and think in English.

Join my VIP program now at EffortlessEnglishClub.com EffortlessEnglishClub.com Go there. EffortlessEnglishClub.com Let's talk about goals now. As we review the year of 2018, our next category, you start off with gratitude because it puts your mind in such a positive, good mindset, attitude, right?

Thinking about all those things, small and large, that you're grateful for, you're thankful for, that are wonderful and beautiful and good in your life.

So hopefully, when you finish that, you should be feeling really good. That's when you want to look at your goals and your successes. So this is the next category. So next, we're done with gratitude.

Let's focus on specific things. What were your successes in this past year? Let's start with what did you learn this year? What did you learn? Well, this might be very specific things like, okay, I learned English.

I learned more English. I know more vocabulary. Right? That's good. So there might be very specific areas of knowledge that you learned. It might be more like life things.

You learned how to be more patient. You learned more about relationships. You learn more about different areas of life, but basically go through it again and review it.

Again, start in January, then February, March, April, May, and go through each month and try to think, what did I learn? What did I learn? What did I learn each month? And then for the whole year, what are the things that I learned this year, small or large?

Small and large. Next, again, focusing on your successes. focus on the areas of improvement how did you improve your character this year in what ways are you a better person inside now compared to January did you learn a little more patience did you learn a little more kindness a little more honesty a little more wisdom we're talking a lot about character right now because of our book club so it's a good time think about it how did you improve your character maybe it was just something very small but that's okay find the small successes small successes are very important it's important to remember them because lots of small successes create big ones so don't ignore the small ones even if they're tiny very very small it's okay they're still important remember them how did you improve your character this year

Okay, the next area of successes to think about, skills. Now, this one's probably an easier one. Sometimes it's hard. Character, that's kind of, it's hard to, it's not as clear, right?

But skills, this is an area where you should very much be able to identify successes. These are things you can do. Performance, right? These things can even be measured oftentimes.

So, for example, did you improve your English this year? Are you more fluent? Is your understanding, your listening ability better? Is your reading ability a little better?

Do you know more words? Is your pronunciation a little better? Any of these things. Any one of those is a good improvement. So, even if it's small, remember it.

Write it down. Skill improvements. Maybe you have a hobby, a sport. Did you improve in your sport in some way? Did you get some new skills? Maybe job skills.

Maybe you learned some new job skills. Just anything that you perform, that you do... Write down anything that improved, that got better from January till now. Anything that improved for skills, abilities.

Connected to this, think about fitness. Fitness and or health, maybe both combined. Health and fitness. Did you improve? Any successes did you have? The important thing here is, because we're going to go to the next one,

is your goals now. You've been thinking, you're writing down all your successes, even small ones. But I want you to think about goals. What goals did you achieve?

You thought back to January, what were your goals for the year? Well, which goals were you successful? Did you achieve them? Which ones did you achieve?

I did it! Now, as you go through this, you may, probably, I'm guessing, you may have some goals and you realize you did not achieve them. You had goals in January. Maybe you forgot about them, or maybe you tried it, but you just didn't achieve them.

And then you think, oh, I failed, oh no. But you need to think about this carefully, because that's not necessarily true. That's why I want you to think about improvements, not just goals achieved.

So I'll give you an example of this. One of my goals back in January was to have the best fitness of my life. I'm 50 years old this year. I wanted to have the best, the top fitness of my whole life this year.

It was my goal. Did I achieve it? No. I'm not in the best fitness of my life right now. Probably the best fitness of my life was three years ago. Just as I was starting the Camino de Santiago.

Because before the Camino de Santiago, I was running and training lots of running. I ran a marathon. Not a race. I just ran one myself. I mapped it out and ran it around San Francisco.

It's probably even longer than a marathon. And then after that, I flew to Spain and I walked for a whole month. And I was also doing push-ups and pull-ups and handstands at that time. I was in really, really good fitness shape at that time.

Am I... Better than that now. I'm not. So did I achieve my specific goal? I didn't. Does that mean I totally failed? No. Because even though I didn't achieve my goal, I did improve my fitness.

My fitness is better now than it was in January. A little better, not a lot. But the important part, when I think about it, is my fitness is still very good.

I didn't achieve that peak level, I think because, you know, when I think about it, in terms of what did I learn, I learned that for me to get motivated to reach a kind of a high, high level of fitness, to train really hard, to try to, you know, get the personal best, the peak level.

For me, I really, really, really want or prefer or even need some kind of event to train for, a challenge, a race. Three years ago, it was the Camino de Santiago.

If I'm just doing it for fitness, it's a very, very, very general goal. I don't know. It's very hard for me to do that. Though on the weak side, it seems like, oh, a failure, right?

But no, it's not a failure because on the other hand, I'm 50 years old and I still have a very good level of fitness. I'm at a very good, what I would say, a fundamental or baseline. I still walk my minimum.

I walk an hour every day, often more. I'm still doing push-ups and pull-ups and handstands. I'm not doing the most ever. I'm not doing the hardest ever in the past, but I'm still doing them.

So overall, my fitness level is still very good. And so I count that as a success. I did not achieve the goal. But it's still a success. So you should think about this with your own goals too.

You know, maybe you had specific goals and maybe you did not achieve the exact goal. Maybe you said, I'm going to be fluent like a native speaker this year. And maybe you didn't do that.

But your English still got much better. You're definitely much more fluent. Your understanding and listening ability is definitely much better. So it's still a success.

It's still a very good success. It's still a fantastic success. Don't forget that. Too many people, they get... Remember, a goal is really just a direction.

The purpose of a goal is to help them motivate you and move you in a good direction. So you try to do the goal, but sometimes you don't make it. But as long as you're moving that direction, as long as you do improve in that direction, it's still a very good success.

We've talked about this recently in some podcasts. But it's good to remember the reason why is because too many people, they make a goal, and often they make a very difficult goal, a very, very tough goal, a very far away goal.

And they work and they work and they work and they don't achieve it. And then they think they failed and they get depressed and sad. Oh, I failed. But that's a crazy way to think about it.

They didn't fail because they actually improved a huge amount. In fact, maybe the goal was too difficult for them right now. Or maybe the goal was just didn't fit somehow.

So the specific goal, okay, they kind of failed, right? They didn't get it. But on the other hand, They made huge, huge, huge improvements or even small improvements.

They got better is the point. That's a success and you should focus on the success of that and maybe just modify, change the goal a little bit. You know, like for me, I said that I realized, okay, just to say I want to be in the best shape, it just, something about that goal just did not inspire me.

I need something a little more specific to For me, I really, I realize now, I really need like a trip or a race or an event. So I know, oh, on this day, I'm going to have to, I have to perform at some level. That really gets me inspired and motivated.

So it was good to learn that. And even though I did not achieve the goal, I'm still happy. I'm still counting my fitness as a good success because overall, this year, I've had very good fitness level. I was already pretty good fitness in January and I'm in good shape now.

So be very, very careful about this with those goals. Don't get depressed because you just missed a goal because if you do that, you're completely missing the point of a goal.

The goal is just like a compass. It just points you in the right direction. The important thing is you move that direction and you get better and you improve. Those are the successes.

Celebrate them and remember them this year. Do that now. And then January, you can make new goals and maybe you change your goals. Maybe the goal was too difficult or maybe you're now ready for the goal.

You improved and maybe next year you'll achieve it. Or maybe you'll just do something completely new next year. We'll see. We'll think about that in January.

For now, just celebrate the successes and the improvements. Okay, finally, one more category. Okay, we had gratitude. We had successes. One more category to review for this year.

Contribution or contributions. Contributions. The first one, gratitude, is what did you receive this year that you're thankful for? The second one, success, is what did you do this year?

What did you achieve? And this third one, contributions, is what did you give? And it's good to review that and to remember that. Why? Well, think of that movie.

I hope you can find that movie and watch it. It's a Wonderful Life. I talked about it, I think, last week in the podcast, the Christmas show. It's a Wonderful Life.

It's all about this. It's all about a man who thinks he's a failure, who thinks he's useless, he's depressed. And then through the movie, the whole message of the movie is he realizes that he is helping lots of people. He

He understands and he realizes all the ways he contributes to his family and his town, his community. And it completely changes his life in a good way.

It's very good to remember this too, that not only do you receive, not only do you achieve things, but it's also about giving and helping and contributing to others, right?

Thank you. You can do it, right? You just encourage them. You just gave them a few positive words. Maybe they were feeling a little down. Maybe they were excited to try something new and you were like, yeah, go for it.

Do it. You can do it. Little positive words. You encourage them. Who did you encourage and how did you encourage them? All through the year, think through again, month by month, January, February, March, all the way till now.

As part of this, Also think about, who did you just support? Support means, often support just means listening. You don't have to do anything super difficult or tough.

Often you can support someone just by listening to them. When they're having problems, you listen to them. You're just a sympathetic, you know, a kind ear to listen to their problems.

And if they're excited and they have they're happy, then you listen to them and let them share that. That is a contribution. Indeed, in our modern world, with people so distracted by their phones and everything, the ability to sit and really, really listen to someone is a fantastic contribution.

And it's not common. In my own life, I can't tell you how many times I'm around people and you're trying to have a conversation and they're looking at their phone and they're constantly distracted they're not really listening it's very annoying and you get the feeling like they don't care so if you just you know turn the phone off or ignore it and you listen to someone or maybe you're on the phone you talk to them on the phone but again you're truly listening that is a important meaningful contribution have you done that this year think about it remember it who have you listened to who have you supported and said positive things to

next for contribution. Who have you helped and how have you helped someone directly? Maybe at work, you've done direct work, right? You contributed to the team, you contributed to the company, your co-workers.

You've directly helped by doing jobs, by doing projects. Maybe in your family life or your private life you've directly helped people. Maybe they're having problems and you've helped them in some way. Maybe you gave them a little money.

Maybe you helped them fix something at the house. If it's your family and you have kids, you fed them, you bought them food, you bought them clothing, you gave them a house to live in for your family, your wife and your kids.

All those are important contributions. Again, so many people kind of spoiled attitude They're not grateful for these things. And on the other side, so many people do these things for others and they don't even realize that these are important things.

They're really helping these people. They're really contributing. You don't have to do that. You choose to do it and it's a contribution. And it's a very important one.

So remember that. Remember it. How have you helped people directly? Next category, coaching. This is another way you can contribute to people. Coaching or teaching or leadership.

In this last year, who have you taught? Who have you coached? In what ways have you helped other people learn or improve or get better or achieve something?

If you're a parent, of course you've done this with your kids. Maybe you've done it with other people as well. So in what ways this last year have you contributed by teaching or coaching, giving advice or

Important contributions. Again, go through your whole year. You can see why this takes so long. So we're at 42 minutes and I'm just talking about it. You've got to sit down and think about it.

So this will take at least an hour. And I recommend really, really do this and do each step of this. You can pause. You can play this podcast again and pause after each suggestion.

Think about it. Write it down. Then go to the next one. You might even need an hour and a half to do this. But it's worth doing, you know, once a year to do this.

And finally, just a general category of contribution is, I would just say, kindness. In the last year, how have you been kind? K-I-N-D. How have you been kind to people, animals even?

And again, these can be very small things. Going back to my example of the coffee shop, the smiles from the staff, that's a very small kindness, right? That's just a kind, very, you know, nice thing they do. It's very small, but it's still a contribution.

It adds a little bit to me. They're contributing to me when they do that. Well, what about you? How do you give little things? How do you contribute in little ways with just small, little small kindnesses?

Smiles, a little nice word. even just a gesture. There may be big things you do that are quite large and difficult, but I imagine it's probably lots and lots of small little things. Try to remember them as much as you can.

All the ways you've contributed kindness. And that's all. That's all. That's your whole life review there for this year, 2018. Your year in review. But a year in review.

A review focused on contribution. A review focused on successes. A review focused on gratitude. Do that and if you want to share, tell me on Twitter. Tell me on Gab.

I'm AJ Hogue on both of them. A-J-H-O-G-E. And share some of your thoughts about your own positive review for the year. We'll talk about new goals in January, but for now, let's just think about all these great and wonderful things from the past year.

Have a Merry Christmas and a fantastic New Year. Lots of love to you. Go to EffortlessEnglishClub.com Join my VIP program at EffortlessEnglishClub.com

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