Learning Japanese has changed the way that I see the world in so many ways. Perhaps the thing that I appreciate the most, though, is the confidence that it has given me in all facets of life.

This one time, I told a friend I wanted to start learning piano.

“Did you play as a child?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“Then you might not be able to,” he said bluntly.

I'm pretty sure that I had a conversation just like this when I was a teenager, but I wasn't talking about learning piano. I was talking about learning Japanese. And the sad thing is, I believed people when they said that Japanese was too difficult. That it was already too late to learn a new language if you didn't learn it as a child. Back then, I didn't know people that were teaching themselves languages. I didn't know of any websites that detail success stories. So when people told me I couldn't do it, I believed them.

Now, I have a different perspective though. I have realized that people tell us we can't do things that they believe themselves incapable of doing. I notice things like this so often. I don't think that people do it intentionally. When they say you can't do something, it's because the negative person in their heads is telling them the same thing. But listening to these people is so dangerous. It's tempting to falter when we encounter their lack of faith, because it's hard to have faith in yourself, especially when trying to do something that you're not particularly confident about in the first place.

Japanese can be that thing that you always look back to, though. The time when you did do what you said you wanted to do.

That's why, when my friend told me that, I thought, “I'm pretty sure I can learn piano. I learned Japanese, after all. Even after everyone said it was too hard. Even after all the times I told myself it was too hard.

Learning Japanese taught me the value of sticking to something that's important to me. And I want you to have that, too, if you don't already.

So I looked at my friend, and I said:

“If I never quit trying to learn piano, I'll learn it eventually. Maybe in a few months. Maybe in ten years. If I keep practicing, the result is inevitable.”

Just like it was with Japanese. I quit. And I quit. And I quit. But then, I stuck to it. The result was inevitable.

My friend gave me a quizzical look. Then, a few seconds later, he nodded his head.

“Yeah, I guess that's true,” he said.

Learning Japanese might feel like swimming across an ocean. But you can do it.

Just keep swimming. You will reach the shore.

(On a side note, I'm kind of embarrassed to admit that I still haven't tried learning piano. Distractions, whims, whatever—all that stuff I talk about in Mindset Prep of Phase #1. If I really cared about learning piano, though, I would go ahead and do so. If I committed and kept swimming, there's no reason that I wouldn't learn it.)