You Can Achieve Anything You Put Your Mind To! | Success stories and anecdotes | Forum

Hey everyone!

From August 3rd to July 11th I was in Germany on a Rotary International Exchange Program. My goals there were simple to make friends, learn the language and learn the culture. I want to talk about my language success story.

I found Benny's Blog a couple weeks before I left for Germany. I read every single post of his. I made a clear goal to be speaking at a conversational level by Christmas. I wrote down all my goals in great detail. By the time Christmas rolled around I achieved this goal. But this isn't what this story is ultimately about.

After I had achieved becoming conversational about general topics I wanted to kick up my learning to a new level. I wanted to be able to speak at a C1 level! People told me before I left for Germany that most exchange students don't speak above a B1 at the end of the year. I was determined to prove these people wrong. I read Benny's post about attempting to pass the German C2 Exam in 3 months. I said to myself "Heck, if Benny can barely pass the C2 then I surely should be able to pass the C1 in 6 months!" Especially since I was already at a conversational level. If I passed this test it would mean I could study at a German University. Which is a big deal for me, because in the US Colleges/Universities are really expensive.  

I ordered a couple books to study for the test and then I rewrote a set of goals to pass the test. I studied endlessly everyday! While I was in school I would talk to my classmates. When I was around my host family I made sure to engage in conversation. I studied and reviewed an average of 100 words a day with Anki. I worked in my books every day as well.

My Test date was June 23rd and 24th. As March approached I went on a Europe Tour for 3 weeks where I mostly spoke English. Then when I got back to Germany, my mom and dad visited me. Which meant 2 more weeks of English. This really hampered me. I was starting to get worried if I would pass this test or not. I had posted on my blog and told all my friends and family that I would take this test. I even asked them to help me pay for the test (several hundreds of dollars). I was beginning to feel the pressure.

I started to doubt my German skills and wished I hadn't picked C1 and instead picked B2. The closer it got to being the day of the test, the more dreams I had about taking it. I skipped school some days just to study. I wouldn't stop studying! 

Finally the day of the first part of the exam came around. The first part was Reading, Writing, and Listening. I thought I did really well on the Reading and Writing but I thought I did horribly on the Listening Part. The next day I did the Speaking Part. I knew I did amazing! I had such a good feeling afterwards! 

They told me I wouldn't find out my results for several weeks, plus they would have to ship it to the US which takes more than a week. But I didn't care anymore! I was done! The weight was off my shoulders and I didn't care if I spoke with the write tenses or the used the write gender. I was free to speak what ever language I wanted.

Finally more than a month later after taking the test I got my results in the mail. As I opened the letter my hands were shaking… I was sooo nervous!

I pulled out the certificate… I passed!

I started jumping and yelling for joy! All that work paid off!  

Lastly, I wouldn't have been able to do this or even had the belief I could do this if it wasn't for Benny Lewis. This guy is my hero! Thanks Benny! Thanks for the inspiration! You proved to me that it's possible to achieve anything that I put my mind to!

 So what are you waiting for? Go do what you've always dreamed of! 

Previous to those 5 weeks I had only been speaking German. So much so I felt guilty whenever I spoke English How did it effect me after I spoke 5 weeks of English? Well when I started speaking only German again I felt like I had gotten out of the flow. Things came out choppy and not fluent. It could have been more mental than anything else. Around that time I was starting to get really self-conscious about my German.

I noticed after I took this test I could care less whether or not I spoke perfect German and ironically it seemed that my German was better than it was when I focusing on saying things correctly. 

I don't think I would ever do a test like this again until I was already confident in my language skills. It's a double edged sword. While it helps you learn the grammar and the necessary technical things about a language it can hinder your ability to just speak (Because you're always worried about whether what yous said was correct). 

I do plan on getting certified in Spanish… eventually. But not as quickly as I did with German. I had to work my ass off everyday for 7 months to get a 73%! Weeks leading up to the test my dreams where being haunted by the test.

So, before I decide to certify my Spanish in the future, I will want to be rather confident in my Spanish abilities. Just so I don't stress as much. 

But you're right about having a well defined goal. That's exactly what I did. I wrote down 2 pages that detailed what exactly I wanted and how I was going to do it. I had this taped above my computer as a daily reminder of what I was doing and why. 

Something that helped me figure out how to create a well formed goal was this article here. The Article discusses a technique used in NLP that helps individuals organize their goals.