I have decided to have to a motivation planner this year.

What is a motivation planner?

It is used to recall and take notes of special and positive events that had occurred and will occur during the year. We all need some form of ‘pick me up’ every now and then. I do not want to have to arrive at the time of need to get a confidence boost. It is  a form of self-motivation which does not depend on changes to the environment to effect it.

How will I do it?

To do that, I will divide the year into 4 quarters. I learnt this from following quarterly reports from the Housing Development Board (HDB) and the school’s term planner. Each quarter shall consist of 3 months (January to February, March to June, July to September, October to December).

In each quarter, happy dates are noted:

- Anniversaries

- Birthdays

- Pay checks

- Personal achievements: studies, enrichment

- Life changing events: marriage, new baby etc

If I have bad days during the month it would be noted in Green to signify the birth a new phase in life to look forward to at future date.

Why do I need to have  a motivation planner?

1. So you won’t feel alone. I remember 3 year old kids feeling frightened and experiencing separation anxieties when they joined kindergarten classes. Some of them become so frightened they pee in their pants. The feeling of being left alone to face a new experience can be so overwhelming that teachers and parents have to build his emotional confidence for a few weeks. I had stage fright in the final competition of Mandarin story telling contests and I had no idea where it was coming from. Especially after having been on stage of 5 years before that, I never knew it could happen to me. I still get stage fright now whenever I had to come on stage to perform.

I think it is the feeling of being all alone. It is a feeling of loneliness yet not alone. By remembering happy moments or events, I allow positive energy to fuel positive activity.

2. To understand growth as the process is taking place. We can be so caught up with the daily activities that we forget to see how we’ve grown overtime. Some of us eat more and gain weight. By the time we realise it, we have put inches on our waist. Ironically, we are able to pinpoint the problem by that time damage has been done. “Ya! I have been eating lots of chocolates and muffins past few months.” You can’t help but sense a lousy feeling creeping up inside as you say this. A motivation planner serves as a remedy for such potential misguided feelings. You’ll feel motivated not to indulge in activities that can be damaging to your personal welfare in the months to come.

3. Vitamin supplements for the soul. A motivation planner is just like vitamin supplement to your daily food consumption. When someone  praises you for a job well done, it motivates you, doesn’t it? A feeling of being recognised for your effort. Take it well and you will grow deeper in wisdom and confidence with the experience you’ve gained.

4. As a control for positive and negative emotions. When we come under pressure to perform or fail to perform to our expections, it is easy to fall prey to negative emotions. What better than to have your personal motivation chart right in front of you to remind ourselves of our personal achievements? Keeping negative emotions at bay and allowing positive ones to flow through.

What will it look like?

I write it down with pen and paper on my year calendar. I am using one that is sent to me from a friend in England. Each month is divided into 3 parts: postcard, recipe and days of the month. I write down the achievement of the month on the postcard, and mail it to a friend. Then I try out the recipe of the month. Probably the nicest gift I have received so far.

What do you think of  motivation planner? Have you done something similar to encourage and motivate you?

There is  someone I follow on twitter, Brad Issac , who inspires me to create this motivation planner for myself. “Expect to be motivated”, as it says on his profile. I did.

1. Interactivity: Can you chat with someone online? Can you read other people’s submissions  and make comments  on their pieces? Can you submit your writing and request for a review? Is there a whiteboard feature? Can you also draw and type on the whiteboard. How active is the community?

2. Speed of delivery:  How fast do my questions get answered by the panel or members of the forum? It is necessary to keep my momentum going, so when we can get quick response, we can learn better.

Livemocha

- Chatrooms: both text and audio with people who are willing to offer time to help you while you are online.

- Free step by step exercises to take you from stage zero.

- Personal rating scale once you’ve completed a stage.

- Email alert to keep you on your toes with your personal progress (yes we forget to exercise too!)

Ning.com

- A social networking platform which means individuals can spend more time getting to know one another.

- Gets you involved with the native culture of the language you are learning.

Flashcard

- If you do not like talking or chatting with people online to improve your language skills, use flashcards.

- Build your confidence for each flashcard you work with.

Empty Cereal Boxes As Bookcases.

Whenever we have empty cereal boxes, the first thing I do is to cut two faces (front and back)  diagonally half way towards one end. That is all you need to do to start reusing them. You can also label these boxes at the front to organise them according to your preference.

]]> http://childhoodspeech.com/2010/01/recycling-cereal-boxes-as-bookcases/feed/ 0 http://childhoodspeech.com/2010/01/positive-attitudes-to-picking-up-a-new-language/ http://childhoodspeech.com/2010/01/positive-attitudes-to-picking-up-a-new-language/#comments Mon, 18 Jan 2010 04:20:41 +0000 Hanifa K. Cook http://childhoodspeech.com/?p=3018

A list of  top 5 positive attitudes to picking up a new language:

1. Read New And Old Books:

If you are seeking knowledge, go for books that support and feed your quest for it. It does not matter how old or how popular the book is. Most bestsellers now are delivered to you by movie makers who are willing to spend millions of dollars. If you cannot read, watch the story.

Albert Einsten:

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create.

When you turn 40, like yours truly , you will seek new reasons from your childhood to understand how you’ve come to be the person you are now. Old titles then become your source of inspiration and new books are your guide to future self-growth.

We all learn from people who have experienced the journey before us. Do not feel disappointed if you have just discovered a book written in 1950. How many have heard of  “The Absorbent Mind” by Maria Montessori which was written more than 80 years ago? Only those in the know (Montessorians) or want to know about childhood education would have heard of it or knew of the title.  The author would not have written it if she had not felt so strongly about the subject.

2. Know the name of the language you want to speak.

Get involve with native people. If you can’t travel (no money, not willing to spare the time to travel), go online and meet them on social sites. Be specific and learn to pronounce the name of the language in other languages. Spanish, Spanyol, Espanol,西班牙. If you are passionate, you will want to find out every detail of how this language is spoken by people everywhere. Treat it like your mother or native tongue. Better yet, eat the food, sing their songs, dance to their music, get yourself immersed early even before you are ready to speak your first sentence.

3. Be realistic.

It is impossible to USE the 11 languages that you know how to speak. In practice, people need only 1 language to survive anyway. Bilingual people use two languages effectively only to get along with others who do not speak their native language.

There is only one universal language that works for everyone, the language of intuition. When one person is looking at you across the hall and smile, your intuition tells you he may be interested to get to know you. Your instinct guides you to either ignore it or smile back. Making new friends is just a smile away. I just met a new friend this week, a Korean woman who sends her daughter to school everyday like me. At first I thought she was Chinese. After the school bus drove off, we started chatting in English. Her English is not perfect. And I don’t know Korean. It does not matter. We could still communicate.

4. Choose your language carefully.

You may think that Hindi is not for you but as soon as you start listening to Hindi songs, you could sing the song at the first note. If you have been speaking a new language for many years and still speak with a native accent, it does not mean you are bad at learning languages. “Changing accents does not make you speak clearer”. Read more.

5. Be loyal to the language.

The language should feel simple and comfortable to use from the beginning. Drive yourself to succeed from the start. That will motivate you to do more and stay loyal overtime. Bilingualism is an acquired skills; there are many techniques and lesson plans. There is no subsititute and short cut to fluency.

So, what do you think? I think it is hilarious too. If you want specific results, you must already know your keywords or in search engine language it means be specific. If you are not certain that the phrase you are looking for can be found online, add open and close inverted commas at the beginning and end of your search phrase.

For instance, if you are looking for “youtube videos of childhoodspeech.com” on your the browser search, you will get results specific to that search. If you do not use the inverted commas, you will get a list of possible results based on the internal phrases the search engine reads. A more detailed discussion can be found in the following post.

Custom Search