Believe in Yourself or you need to believe in yourself more!

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You also didn't grow up speaking Chinese. Our brain monitors the sounds heard around us during our first year of life, and cuts out the ability to make sounds (Phonemes) that are not found in our native language(s). That is one reason why people who learn a second language have accents. They can't quite make the phonemes in the second language that are not found in their native language.

Rather than focus on what you can't do, focus on what you Can. Perhaps with practice you'll be able to mimic the sounds somehow.. and, perhaps not - maybe in time the best you can do is Close Enough so that native speakers can understand exactly what word(s) you're saying and acknowledge that you are legit trying and doing the best you can. After all, the whole point of verbal language is to be able to communicate with people who speak it.. so, if you achieve that, then that's successful!



Didn't have to go further than the first sentence. Dude, a few years back you had convinced yourself that you could not get a job because you could not figure out how to navigate the process of getting a job & keeping it. Sounds to me like you've successfully gotten and kept a job if you're tired by the end of a days work. Congratulations! On the job, on proving your negative self wrong etc etc. All of that is positive progress.

Nothing worth doing is easy. That's why we have to Push ourselves beyond what we (falsly) believe our limits to be and into next level performance. Whether workouts or practicing a language or learning a skill or finishing reading, or writing ?, a book etc etc if we always give up when we're tired and seek the comfort of some blankets or whatever then we'd never achieve anything great. Although, sometimes rest is Required in order to perform later.. and if we're truly exhausted, it means we did all of the work we could so should be able to rest well.

Believing in yourself and having positivity doesn't tell you what you can do.. but it does tell you you can do More/doesn't let you just give in and give up when the going gets tough. If you've had a long day at work but you're determined to go for a run in the evening, put your shorts and shoes on and headphones in and go. Back when I was in the habit of running I worked a long day on a few hours sleep and was Very Tired.. if I sat down I'd have fallen asleep on the couch. Instead I put my shorts/shoes/headphones on and ran 16km around the dyke of a blueberry farm and back home. Whatever it is you wanna accomplish you've gotta want to accomplish More than doing other things or quitting for the day just yet and resting and have the discipline to Just Do It Anyways.


Why would you want to force yourself to have a desire for something you simply don't? Either you do or you don't and you set your mind and intentions to it and get it, or you don't. Desire is quite personal.

Sometimes it's frustrating that people we care about don't have the desire to do things they ought to to take care of their own health etc, over eat under exercise, prime candidate for heart/lung problems and an early death. We can express our frustrations at these people but they're not stupid and they know all this stuff and either they want to live longer or they want to eat cheesecake, sit around, and have a higher probability of shaving a decade or two off their lifespan.

It IS possible to be motivated by a coach or trainer, someone to hold you accountable, someone to yell at you to get your ass in gear. A lot of great athletes and achievers of all types utilize other people to get their asses in gear. I know I have at times and it's been very good for me. But you've got to first have the innate desire to make the most of their assistance, and hire them to do their thing.. it's not going to work if they just bark orders and you tell them to f**k off and mind their own business lol.

Similar story with drug addicts.. we Try in so many ways to help them, and sometimes encouragement helps, but if they don't help themselves then nothing changes. No matter what the thing is - fitness, learning, breaking addictions, each of us has to do the work Ourselves as no one else is going to do it and save us or make us - that's all on us.

I suppose it's possible to be motivated by books, too. I haven't read it yet but I have a copy of David Goggins' "Can't Hurt Me," book that's apparently one of the best motivational books ever written. Maybe someday I'll get around to reading it and have a better idea of the power of it's words. I'm sure it can be very motivating.. just as spoken words from trainer or motivational speaker can be.

Of course. All of what you said is true.

And this is also true.

Part of making a certain sound in chinese is being able to to roll my tongue into my upper jaw. The instructor and my SO have a deep upper jaw inside. I don't. People who have the deep upper jaw can roll their tongue into it. I don't have this so I can't do that.

Even if I heard the sounds around me as a baby and I was born Chinese would I have been able to still make this sound if I had to roll my tongue into my jaw? I have a feeling no. I have a physical trait that prevents me from making certain sounds.

I've been told to believe in myself, believe I can do anything I set my mind to, etc, etc. If I'm right and a physical trait prevents me from making a certain sound(s) then how would my having a positive attitude and believing in myself apply in this case? How would it work?

I never thought of looking it like this. Focus on what I can instead of what I can't. I do think I can learn how to maybe read and hopefully write the written language.

It would be helpful if I could do that especially if I am able to know how to use their pinyin on wechat which is their social media platform.

I will get to the rest later.

Oh man! A story to tell you. I got a teaching job in China! I teach computer science to chinese students.

Never in a million years thought that would happen! I would not have done it though without others especially my SO to help me to do so and the particular school that accepted me. If one is a believer one could argue that God from the Bible made it possible as well. Or one could argue that if one is new ager then one could argue that others put positive vibes into the universe on my behalf.

Me, I just accept that certain strings were pulled for me and I am grateful for that.

So, I got to be there during all of the lockdowns.

But, because of my being in China there are certain things I can't talk about until I am in a different country or back in the USA. So, in order for me to be employed I had to give up a certain amount of my freedoms I would have in the USA. Sometimes, in order to get what you want you may have to pay a price and that price may be small or it may be huge.



I don't really understand the phrase nothing worth doing is easy. Why would I expend more energy to do something especially if I may not even be required to do it and I have no desire to do the steps that would be required to do it? Let's say I'm tired on a consistent basis after a long day. Other then pushing through the tiredness what specific steps can I do to relieve myself of the tiredness or consistently not feeling up to it? Is there a way to get rid of those things that happen on a consistent basis?





So, you simply just did it. No specific methods or techniques. Let's say you're tired on a consistent basis how do you keep it from wearing you down? Just have grit as others would say? Don't be lazy! Believe in myself! Telling me to "Just do it" like in the Nike commercial doesn't help.




Maybe it is something that is required or maybe I desire the outcome but don't desire to do the steps to achieve the outcome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vuetQSwFW8

Take a look at this video. His message is we must want and desire success as much as we desire to take a breath. If I don't desire to do the steps that would lead me to success the I don't really desire success. How do I make myself desire to do the things that would lead me to success or desire to refrain from things that would lead to failure? There are no instructions or anything that tell you this at all. How do I gain the desire to have the desire for success as he says to do? He says a lot of words but to me his message like messages given by those similar to him are devoid of anything of substance and value. If I have little to no desire to do the steps that would lead me to the outcome I desire like success now what? How do I want to desire success as bad as I want to breath?

Before I went to China, I tried getting employed through voc rehab which I tried for a second time. The person at the first of the sessions for job coaching would play this man's motivational videos which I kept saying told me nothing.




I guess this could work. But, again what if the innate desire really isn't there and I am fooling myself? How do I get this innate desire? How do I desire to have the desire exactly?



Again, how does one get the desire to have the desire?



How do I will myself to desire?