5 Learnings from Studying Spanish at Midlife

¡Hola! This fall semester I am both a communications professor at UCS and a student taking Spanish at El Camino College. Our last day of Spanish class was this week. I am grateful to our wonderful professor Maria Barrio de Mendoza and my fellow students.

¡Hola! Este semestre de otoño soy profesora de comunicaciones en USC y estudiante de español en El Camino College. Nuestro último día de clase de español fue esta semana. Estoy agradecida a nuestra maravillosa profesora María Barrio de Mendoza y a mis compañeros de estudios.

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So many of you encouraged me at the end of August when I started my Spanish studies.

My daughter got me started on the Duolingo app over the summer.

Learning Spanish was on my to-do list for YEARS.

We think we have plenty of time, but we never really know.

So I enrolled in Spanish 1 this fall to formalize the learning process.

Why?

1. I live in Los Angeles, where there are millions of Spanish speakers

2. Learning a new language is like taking my middle-aged brain to the gym

3. The flow state of studying is a welcome respite from our troubled world

Here’s what I learned, in addition to 2 years of high-school Spanish …

HAVING A BEGINNER’S MINDSET IS BOTH HUMBLING AND NECESSARY. It was hard to speak up in class week after week, not always giving the right answers or pronouncing words correctly. What I came to realize, though, is that’s part of the learning process. Making mistakes is how we learn.

IT’S POSSIBLE TO LEARN ANYTHING NEW AT ANY AGE. Yes, it takes me a lot longer now to memorize Spanish words and verb conjugations than it did when I took French in high school. Keeping at it and pushing through the messy and difficult parts was the breakthrough.

OUR COMMUNITY COLLEGES PROVIDE SO MANY OPPORTUNITIES. Our class was blessed with a dedicated professor in Maria Barrio De Mendoza. She made learning fun. It was inspiring to meet students who are decades younger than me and forging their paths in the world.

LEARNING A SECOND LANGUAGE SHINES A NEW LIGHT ON ENGLISH. As a communicator, I’ve always been fascinated with the English language and the nuances of word meanings. Learning Spanish is making me re-examine English and how I write and speak.

IT IS HEAVENLY TO BE IN THE FLOW STATE OF STUDYING. The world can be a difficult place, and there are many problems that don’t have nice, neat answers. But in studying a language there’s always a right answer. And somehow that makes solving other life problems easier.

Skip Perfection

As a busy leader, how can you get more done?

How can you be more effective in less time?

Here’s a two-word solution: SKIP PERFECTION.

Get a project, a task, or an email to “good enough” place, and call it complete.

Submit that deliverable, and move on to the next task.

Because that frees up your time for the real work of leadership: spending time with people:

* Sharing a vision
* Inspiring action
* Giving feedback

My LinkedIn content creation journey is an exercise in skipping perfection.

In July and August, I posted daily as an experiment. More here: https://lnkd.in/g6qsVmJS

Now I’m posting a few times a week, a more sustainable cadence.

What enables me to do this?

* Not overthinking or overdoing
* Considering the ROI of more effort
* Tapping “post” before I feel fully ready

Of course, this doesn’t mean doing sloppy work or abdicating responsibility.

It simply means asking: what is the true level of effort needed?

It may be much less than we think.

P.S. Perfection is a theme I’ve explored before: https://lnkd.in/gVpwuJjv. So it’s no surprise that this week I was drawn to the Hidden Brain podcast episode on “Escaping Perfectionism.” Psychologist Thomas Curran joined to talk about the dark side of perfection and better ways to walk through life. Highly recommended!

What’s Your Intention for the Fall Season?

fall leaves on trees as a metaphor for setting intentions for the autumn seassson

A lot can happen in 3 months.

You can end the year strong.

BTW, calendars are an artificial construct.

But the psychology of a season and a 90-day time frame is powerful.

Here are a few questions that can help you define your autumn intentions:

👉 How do you choose to lead?

👉 What do you want to change?

👉 What are you saying “yes” to?

👉 What are you saying “no” to?