3 things you need to have for the best self learning outcome. They are:

1. Motivation
2. Planning
3. Environment

The first thing is to have a strong sense of motivation. Have a strong desire to learn. Imagine yourself being able to speak Japanese. What can you do? What do you want to do? Think about all the things that you can dream of. This will give you a surge of motivation. Motivation is tricky because it goes up and down on a daily basis. Sometimes you don’t feel like doing anything. Some other times, you can’t have enough of learning.

The latter situation is good if it happens to you from time to time so you can learn more things than usual and be happy about it. The former situation is very hard to deal with. If you deal with it the wrong way, you might get into the downward spiral or the vicious cycle. Imagine you don’t feel like doing anything so you absolutely do nothing that day. How would you feel the following day?

You might feel disappointed with the fact that you did nothing or that you stopped your learning streak. Then, you feel like nothing really matters any more, and you’ll start spending less and less time learning Japanese. Eventually, you even forget the basics, and that’s when you’re completely gone.

To avoid this situation, set a few goals at the beginning based on what you want to do with Japanese. And make a small goal for every day. Think about something you can do consistently even when you’re busy or low on energy. Some examples might be like you watch one video in Japanese every day, you learn 2 words every day, or you write something in Japanese before you go to bed every night.

Think about the least stressful way of learning Japanese, and continue doing it just like you sleep or eat something every day. And when you have a sudden surge of motivation, do more for that day, and get back to your routine. This way, you can control your motivation without being let down or putting too much pressure on yourself.