Talking about paths and directions is hilarious for anyone who knows me because my sense of direction is … not the best! I have many skills, but navigation isn’t one of them. But stay with me…
It’s good to speak with other business owners. All kinds of topics come up and even though we’re doing different things, maybe in different countries, we often have the same questions or challenges. When those conversations are in other languages, you soon see where your vocabulary gaps are!
I was speaking with someone in Romanian about the financial part of being self-employed – tax and submitting tax returns as a freelancer in the UK. Fun topics! The other person asked me a question and things slowly started to fall apart for me. I’m no tax expert, but it would have been ok in English. In Romanian… That was suddenly 100 times harder.
Then it was as though I were standing at a fork in the path and I had to choose. If I go down the path of “I don’t know anything and this is really unprofessional and everything is terrible!” – and this was a really inviting path to go down, it would have been awkward. My conversation partner wouldn’t have got her answer, and I would have left feeling as though I’d failed.
That day must have been a good day because I chose the “focus on the message path” instead. I don’t always choose that one, but the destination is better. My answer was nowhere near as detailed or fluent as it would have been in English, but I did answer the question and the conversation then moved on to other – – easier – topics!
For context – this colleague and I don’t use English in our conversations and part of me is happy about that because I wouldn’t learn anything if we just switched to the language that’s easiest for communication. And sometimes you don’t have this option available to you.
I don’t find myself comparing my efforts to native speakers of my additional languages and finding that I’m not good enough. I compare myself with myself! And I get frustrated – because I’m not as fluent as I am in my first language or even additional languages in which I’m more fluent and capable. But this comparison extinguishes curiosity and the courage to try!
We get to choose which path we take! Sometimes the pressure of the situation, the fact that we’re tired or maybe just having a less confident day makes the first path seem appealing. But I’m going to try and remember that it’s a choice and I have the power to decide where I’m going!
Have you ever visited this crossroads?
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