What’s your New Year’s Resolution for next year? Is it to learn Igbo?

I hope not. 🙂

Why do I say that? 

Well, think about it.

When you say you want to learn Igbo next year, what does that actually mean?

Just “learning Igbo” is a very vague goal that most likely won’t inspire any action.

I’ve mentioned before how I would make New Year’s resolutions to learn Igbo and never actually learn any Igbo. I believe this happened because I never made my goals SMART.

SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based.

Making your Igbo language learning goals for the year SMART is essential to making it happen! Like that one quote says, “a goal without a plan is just a … wish.”

 

So why is saying you want to “learn Igbo” not a SMART New Year’s Resolution goal?

Here are 5 reasons:

1.Not Specific – Saying you want to learn Igbo is not specific.

Learning Igbo can mean so many different things. But what exactly do you want to learn?  How to speak your Igbo dialect to the elders in your village? How to read the Igbo Bible? How to conjugate common verbs?

Each of those goals have different priorities and require different strategies to accomplish them.

So can you see how having a general goal like learn Igbo is overwhelming? You have no focus.

It makes you feel like you have to learn everything and anything that deals with the Igbo language and that’s just not realistic.

 

2. Not Measurable – Saying you want to learn Igbo is not measurable.

If learning Igbo is your goal, how do you actually measure that goal?

How do you know when you accomplish this goal if it’s not measurable?

How can you even track your progress if you make a general goal of just learning Igbo?

You can’t! lol

Having a non-measurable goal will have you feeling like you will never complete the goal.

 

3. Not Attainable– Saying you want to learn Igbo is not attainable.

If your goal is to learn Igbo in next year, I’m assuming that you mean you want to become fluent in Igbo next year since that’s the end goal for most of us.

However, is this goal realistic for you? Are you willing to invest in resources and put in the effort it will take to become fluent in Igbo next year? Be honest, will you have time to reach this goal with your school, career, and personal life commitments?

The goal of learning Igbo fails to include the main actions you will take to actually make the goal happen.

So if you think you will be too busy to become fluent in Igbo by next year, you might want to consider picking a smaller goal so you are not setting yourself up for disappointment at the end of next year.

 

4. Not Relevant  – Saying you want to learn Igbo is not relevant.

As I said earlier, saying you want to learn Igbo can mean anything.

So are you going to spend time learning how to explain complex mathematical equations in Igbo? Is it important for you to learn how to hear the Ngwa dialect? Do you even want to learn how to write Igbo with the correct spelling and grammar? Do you care about knowing how to count in Igbo from 0 – 1 billion?

All of these goals could technically fall under “learning Igbo”, but they may not be relevant to your life to know how to do these things.

 

5. Not Time-based – Saying you want to learn Igbo is not time based.

The goal of just learning Igbo is a wish without a deadline.

Without a date on the actual calendar to reach your goal, what is going to put pressure on you to actually get the job done?

Without a deadline, your learn Igbo goal sounds more like I want to learn Igbo …. one day.

When are you going to actually learn it?

 

The Solution!

So how do you avoid the failure that usually comes with making “learn Igbo” your New Year’s Resolution?

Turn it into a SMART goal!

I truly believe that by making “SMART” New Year’s resolutions, you will get closer to reaching your Igbo language goals next year. 

But are you having trouble making your Igbo language learning New Year’s resolution SMARTer?

If so, I want to help you with this!

If you want help in creating your Igbo New Year’s resolution goals next year, then I invite you to join my Igbo Study Group. 

I dive into more details about how you can make your Igbo goals SMART and actually complete them with the within my study group. Join me inside my study group if you want to dive into language goal planning with me. I can’t wait to help you plan your Igbo language goals.

Comment Below

I hope I was able to convince you to make your Igbo language learning goals for next year SMARTer.

If you are ready, share with me your SMART Igbo language learning New Year’s Resolution goal for next year in the comments and let’s make this happen!

Añụlị afọ ọhụrụ! – “Happy New Year!”

 

Need help completing with your Igbo goals for the year? Sign up for my Igbo Accountability Email Series today!