Being shy is holding you back.

Michel Marcelino
Jul 24, 2017 · 3 min read

Let me tell you a cool story about myself.

I had the same problem of being concerned about making mistakes in English. If you are studying for a long time — or even if you live in a country where people speak English — it’s very common to feel embarrassed if you say something wrong. But let me tell you a secret: every time you make that mistake, you have a BIG chance of not repeating it.

I was only 14–15 years old when I first came to Canada. I had a good level of English, but not even close to what I have today. At that time, I had the same feeling as you have now. And worse: I was in high school here, and all my classmates were Canadian. Oh, and no one — absolutely no one — was a foreign student like myself, because I studied in a small town called Whitby. So I was the only one “learning” English. All of them were there to learn only the school subjects: biology, math, history…

So, one day, I was attending the biology class, and I had this British teacher who was a little bit of an assh*le. For some reason that I can’t remember, I had to leave the class to go to the principal’s office (I wasn’t in trouble Ok?). The principal had given me a note on a piece of paper to tell the teacher that I was dismissed from the class that day. So I came up to the teacher and said: — “Sir, the principal made me a note. Here.”

And then the damn teacher started laughing and saying (with that British accent that I can’t forget): -“Oh, he MADE you a note?” And I said: -“Hmm… Yes?”. After that, he said it was OK and I could go. And then I was confused. What could have been so funny?

A few minutes after, a classmate comes to me and says: “It’s not: he made me a note… The correct is: he wrote me a note.”

I never made that mistake again.

Now, remember: I was shy. The only reason I made that mistake was that I was sure it was correct… But I wasn’t. The thing is: if I wasn’t sure I was correct, maybe I would not have said it, and the teacher wouldn’t have laughed at me, and my classmate wouldn’t have corrected me.

The lesson is: not being afraid of making that mistake made me learn a new valuable lesson. And once you learn this, it's life changing.

I hope that now YOU can use this in your life — in fact, not only in learning English. Use it to everything. I know it’s cliché, but it’s true, and I can’t stress this enough. Every mistake is a lesson that you learn for life — and when people correct you, you have a big chance of not repeating it!

So, please, stop being so shy. Nobody will remember your mistake in the next morning! Everybody is busy looking at their phones and checking their Instagram to remember that you used a wrong preposition, or that you pronounced a word wrong. Honestly: no one really cares about anyone else but themselves.

So, please, make mistakes and learn from them. If you make a thousand mistakes in a day, you will have learned a thousand new things. Remember, if you make a mistake, it doesn’t mean you are a failure. Remember this quote from Thomas Edison, who “failed” a thousand times before he actually got it:

I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.

Please, allow me the honor to make you go out today and make mistakes. All you have to do is remember to learn from them.

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