So today marks the end of my first 1-on1 Spanish tuition. So I thought I’d share what I learnt.. and don’t worry.. I’m not going to bombard you with a load of Spanish.

Firstly, I learnt that 3 hours of straight Spanish is too much. Next time, I will book them in 1 hour sessions.

- I think it’s important to apply what you know… in fact, it’s imperative. It’s hard to even remember everything you learnt in a 3 hour session, never mind apply it.

Secondly, I learnt that I need a Spanish teacher who speaks fairly good English. Miguel, the nice little Guatemalan dude I was learning with, only spoke a little English. For some people, total immersion might be the way forward… But I need stuff explained to me in English. This is what lead to the true learning here.

Because it wasn’t long into my first 3 hour lesson that I got confused about something… and when asking for an explanation, he would try to explain the concept in Spanish… and of course… I mostly had no idea what he was going on about.

So this lead to frustration. Then frustration was followed by impatience. I just wanted to know exactly what he was trying to explain to me, and the more he explained, and the more I continued to not understand, the more impatient I felt.

I didn’t let this show. Which in some ways was worse, because it was just boiling up inside. But, I made a quick analysis of how I was feeling, and decided a few things.

1) Letting frustration fester was only going to prohibit me from learning and lessen the likelihood of me eventually understanding what he was trying to tell me.

2) Feeling impatient was only going to increase my frustration, due to the fact that I would feel I am not learning fast enough.

So. I decided to just change how I was feeling. To accept 'what was' - That the sessions were too long and the teacher didn’t speak enough English for me. Once I accepted that which was, my feelings of frustration and impatience subsided.

I became more present in the moment, more attentive, more connected to the communication between us, and as a result, experienced a greater capacity for understanding.

I recognised impatience as what I think is my top character flaw many years ago, so since then it’s something I have become more and more aware of when I notice myself ‘choosing’ that response. It’s something that I am determined to improve until I have the patience of a saint.

So I guess the point is…

We always have a choice as to how we respond to any given situation.

You can either choose a response that will serve you, or sabotage you.

Choose wisely.

❤️