YouTube / iTunes / Spotify / Radio Public / Pocket Casts / Google Podcasts / Breaker / Overcast
Listen to ArtisanEnglish.jp posts & lesson intros here.
Phrase: Give your all
For many people, January is the time of year when you give your all, turn over a new leaf, work on self-improvement and become the person they’ve always wanted to be.
The sad part is that most of them give up in a very short period.
The road to failure is paved with good intentions.
To do something and do it well, we have to give it our maximum effort.
In other words, if you want to be successful in a new endeavour, you have to give your all.
Give your all means to do something and give it your maximum effort. This means working until the job is finished or your goal is reached.
In Japan, one of the most used words is がんばった (ganbatte). It translates in English to try hard or do your best.
In my opinion, most people have lost the true meaning of what がんばった means.
You don’t ganbatte at the easy stuff like having an extra beer or doing something you enjoy.
You がんばった at the stuff that’s not easy at all – that’s when you need to give your all.
Change is one of the hardest things in the world to accept.
It’s especially hard when we are trying to change ourselves or our habits.
I see this all the time with English language students.
Many students want to improve their English skills, but they are reluctant to do the heavy lifting.
They’d prefer to continue having the same kinds of conversations about the same old topics because real-life convos are ‘too challenging.’
It’s all in their head, though.
Once students start having conversations at a higher level and realize that after accepting the challenge and giving their all, they can do it, they get better at it.
Don’t pave the road to failure with good intentions.
Pave the road to success with hard work by giving your all.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least a 7th-grade education (age 12).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 78.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.