I am more than my illness: language-learning and identity

First, some great news. I want to say that I was incredibly honored to be featured on the Fluent blog as a top new language blogger! I already read one of the other two blogs mentioned — How to Languages — and am checking out The Foreign Language Learning Challenge. Many thanks to Kerstin, and welcome to new readers coming this way!

I have so many posts I want to write — many of them half-drafted already — about my language habits (and how I scale them down when I’m really ill), what conversation exchange feels like as a person with mental illness (and an introvert!), and a thousand other things.

Today I’m thinking about identity and mental health. I stumbled upon Identity-Based Habits: How to Actually Stick to Your Goals This Year a few months ago. In this post, James Clear argues that changing one’s identity is a crucial strategy to build new habits, and thus move towards your goals: losing weight or becoming a better writer or getting ahead at work.

For a language-related example, instead of saying, “I want to be fluent in German,” we should say something like, “I’m the kind of person who never misses a study session,” or, “I’m the kind of person who studies an hour every day.” If you adopt this identity, Clear says, then you’ll be more likely to keep this new habit, resulting eventually in German fluency.

I’m not completely sold on this (and I find it interesting that there isn’t any research cited in the post, as Clear often backs up his ideas by linking to some), but on a broad level, something about it speaks to me.

When you’re mentally ill, it’s really easy to not feel like you have a mental illness. It feels like you are the illness. Numerous times, I’ve told people that I feel like there is nothing left of me except depression — it taints and warps and destroys anything else; it feels as if my identity is entirely rooted in being depressed and dysfunctional.

By taking Clear’s tactic and consciously trying to adopt another identity, I have something else to latch onto. Naming myself as “someone who studies languages daily,” for example, means there’s something inside me besides depression.

Even if my study habits falter at times, or if I wish I could study more (who doesn’t wish that?!), it feels a little bit comforting to be not just the person struggling under the boulder of depression or the person who sometimes feels like they can’t breathe from anxiety. I’m also someone who studies languages!

And if I’m someone who studies languages, then maybe I should go ahead and study some, right? If I can manage that, well, result! Temporary distraction, some minimal feeling of accomplishment, and — with time — noticeable progress. I think my brainweasels are not always so easily derailed, but in theory this virtuous circle is a good one.

Do you identify as a language learner, someone who studies languages, someone who speaks multiple languages, something else? Do you feel like this impacts how much you study or learn? Does it matter to you, or is your identity less tied to what you do?

The dual uses of distraction

I’m writing this somewhat hastily while I have the inspiration/spoons — as I said in my last post, I had a big interpersonal bomb go off recently, and I’m trying to focus really hard on keeping my head above water (I’m so grateful to my friends for their wisdom and tenacity and support).

You know what’s helping me a bit? Distraction. Things, like fluffy TV shows, that pull me in and engage my brain long enough to make me forget what’s upsetting me so much. Even better if I can absorb myself in something “productive” — I struggle with feeling productive “enough,” but I think that for me, feeling useless or like a net drain of energy, like I don’t contribute anything, is even worse.

So. Languages. You know how bloggers love to go on about how you have to study things that interest you? That if you find the rote “Hello, Mr. Brown, are you here on holiday? Where do you come from? What is your job?” dialogues in textbooks deadly dull, it’s okay? This is true! This is wisdom. Read about things that interest you in your native language and it will help you keep churning through the challenge of doing so in your target language.

And, as a not-inconsequential benefit, it will hopefully engage your mind and help you through anxiety loops, depressive spirals, or other unfun brainweasel manifestations.

I’m not saying anything new here, but I wanted to write this right now because I’ve just been reading an interview with a vegan cookbook author in German, and for a few moments my brain gave me a little peace.

It felt like a miracle.

So. Try it. Keep doing it. What are your other hobbies or interests? Yoga or motorcycles or local politics or heavy metal or gardening or knitting or martial arts? Find blog posts or magazines or newspapers or books (or videos, podcasts, etc.: this isn’t limited to print!) about these things in your target language.Stick them in your RSS feed reader; add them to Twitter; bookmark them; subscribe for email updates; download them on your phone: whatever it takes so they’re there in front of you to look at.

It just might help both your language-learning and your mental health, even if just for a moment.

Why language-learning habits (mostly) work when I’m depressed

For a lot of people, language study feels like this: going into a classroom for a few hours once a week, fumbling around to remember what you learned last week, & then going home and leaving that language alone until you realize class is tomorrow and you still haven’t done your homework. This attitude can be reinforced by peer pressure in school: after all, why would you want to do extra work for class that you didn’t have to do? That would make you a nerd, a loser, an asskisser, right?

It’s a shift to move from that clunky, slow, and not very effective method to integrating your new language into your life every day. It takes effort. But it can be very rewarding! And importantly, for me, making “little and often” a study strategy is more adaptable to fluctuating levels of energy, willpower, and focus brought on by long-term mental illness.

Habits can be really helpful for me — when anxiety clouds my thinking so much that decision-making seems impossible, auto-pilot gets me through the day. I know that eating poorly and irregularly makes me feel worse — and I know that it’s also something I’m very prone to letting slide when I don’t feel well. Fortunately, at this point I could probably put together a bowl of overnight oats in my sleep, which sorts out breakfast, at least (however, I do keep a box of muesli around for the days when even that seems unattainable).

Making language study as automatic as possible also means that I’m more likely to get at least a little done no matter how lousy I feel. Studying distracts me from the noise in my brain, and the feeling of accomplishment afterwards sometimes helps break the low mood cycle. Or at least gives it a kick.

How do you build a new habit? Productivity bloggers seem even more numerous than language-learning bloggers. Advice on starting new habits is anything but scarce. Sometimes it’s just a matter of trawling around until you find something that clicks with your brain. I want to be very clear that what works for me may not work for other people — nothing I talk about here is a panacea!

My number one tool for this right now is Lift, where you can set yourself habits (some of mine: daily gratitude list; doing yoga; learning French or German, of course!), check them off on the website or the iPhone/Android apps, and receive — and give! — support from other users via props or comments. It’s been pretty motivating for me to build up long streaks — nearly 300 days and counting for a few habits! — and the fact that I can get reminders sent to my inbox helps, as does the encouragement from others. (I do find some people there have super-strict attitudes towards productivity and a relentless “mind over matter” philosophy, but for the most part I’m lucky to have encountered more realistic, kind, and compassionate people.)

Here are a few other links I’ve found useful:

36 Lessons I’ve Learned About Habits, from Leo Babauta at Zen Habits. I appreciate Leo talking about starting small, to make habits more sustainable, and that lots of bits of time will add up to big results. Learning a language isn’t like cleaning out your garage, where you can leave it for a week and pick up pretty much where you left off. You need repeated use in order to make things stick. Cramming for four hours before an exam didn’t work in high school, and it won’t work for language acquisition now.

And crucially, I also like what Leo says about dealing with disruptions to routine (see also Live Like a Hydra by Buster Benson). No matter how strong-minded you are & how disciplined, there will be days when the train is delayed and you get home too late to study or you have to suddenly stay very late at work or someone in your family might be ill, or you yourself. Life happens, you know?

For me, getting habits in place is comparatively easy — it’s when I break them that I stumble. I had nearly a 2-year streak on 750 Words, and then one weekend my cat had just died and I had a bad cold and I fell asleep on the couch and didn’t do my words before midnight. And though I made a few attempts, I was never able to get back into using the site from there. I definitely need to work on my resilience! If others have tips for getting back on the wagon especially, I’d love to hear them.

In my next post, I’ll give some specifics on how I use habits and a “little and often” philosophy to keep language-learning as part of my daily life, even through bad patches of mental health.

What study habits do you have? How have you incorporated them into your life? Are there habit strategies you find useful — or useless?