How happiness helps you learn Welsh (not the other way round)

Aran Jones Author, SaySomethingIn

Most of us think that once we get something we want, we’ll be happy.

It’s upside-down.

‘If I was rich, I’d be happy,’ we think, ignoring all the unhappy rich people. ‘If I was slim, I’d be happy’, we convince ourselves, ignoring all the unhappy slim people. ‘If I could speak Welsh, I’d be happy,’ we dream, ignoring all the unhappy Welsh speakers.

That’s just not how happiness works.

Sure, getting something we want will give us a dopamine kick – just look at everyone jumping around Wrexham in deserved delight this last week or so.

But long before the next football season starts, the dopamine will have worn off and Wrexham supporters will be back to their baseline levels of happiness. And the first time they lose a game in the Championship, some of them will be unhappy again.

What we actually need to be happy is practice.

It sounds kind of crazy, I know. But happiness can be practised.

If you practise being happy, you become happier. When you’re happier, even the most difficult things feel easier. And as a delightful by-product, you learn better.

More good news…

And there’s one last piece of good news.

There’s a fascinating little overlap between how you can practise being happy and how you can practise learning Welsh. I know, it sounds almost too good to be true!

Here’s how it works.

The way to practise being happy is to practise being in the moment. In sports, you’ll hear people talk about this as being in The Flow. Outside of sports, you’ll often hear people talking about meditation (which can actually be lots of different things).

But all you need, to practise being happy, is to practise being in the moment.

You can do this in lots of ways – by focusing on your breath, by focusing on the flame of a candle or an apple, or by focusing on the sounds you’re hearing in an app (more about that in a bit!).

It really doesn’t matter. Just make the effort to focus, and that’s all you need.

When you start making the effort, your brain will start trying to trip you up. You’ll lose focus, because thoughts will start bubbling up for you.

Background chatter

You know the kind of background chatter most of us have spinning around most of the time. ‘Am I doing this the right way? Am I breathing the right way? How much time has gone past? How much longer do I have to do this? Why didn’t I tell that idiot what I thought of him? What am I going to have for lunch? When are Wales going to win another game of rugby? Why did I eat that bloody chocolate?’

This is very typical brain behaviour. And it’s okay. It’s normal.

You just need to keep making the effort. Whenever you notice that you’re thinking about something else, bring your attention back to whatever you’re focusing on. Each time you bring your attention back, it’s like managing a single press-up. The more times you bring your attention back, the better you’re getting at focusing.

If you keep on making the effort, you’ll gradually notice the gaps between thoughts becoming longer. When they become long enough, at some point you’ll notice that in the quietness of that gap between thoughts, there is a simple, clear but very powerful happiness.

Over time, if you keep making the effort, you’ll become able to go straight to that happiness and stay there for five or ten minutes at a time. When you spend five or ten minutes every day being happy, you’ll begin to notice that it’s having an impact on everything else in your entire life.

Everyone can do this. You don’t need any special skills, you don’t need any qualifications, you don’t need to be gifted or talented.

You just need to decide to practise being happy.

Overlap

And here’s how it overlaps with learning Welsh.

When you learn with SaySomethinginWelsh (there are plenty of other courses out there you might choose instead, I just don’t know much about them so I can’t write about them!), you hear a prompt in English, you have to say it in Welsh, and then you hear it (twice) in Welsh.

You need to focus to keep up to speed, and that focus is the same as the focus on practising happiness.

Thoughts will arise, just as they do when you’re practising happiness. You’ll think things like ‘I got that one!’ or ‘Why can’t I do this?’ or ‘I’m making too many mistakes’ or ‘Damn it, I got that one right last time’.

And the faster you can bring your attention back from the thoughts to the next English prompt, the better you will do.

If you notice your thoughts, and practise bringing your attention straight back to the lesson audio, you’re actually doing the same practise you need for happiness, and you will become better at it.

But it works the other way round, as well.

If you practise focusing on something regularly, every day, and the gaps between your thoughts become longer, and you get better at coming straight into the moment and experiencing happiness, you will find SaySomethinginWelsh much easier, and you’ll learn faster, and you’ll be a Welsh speaker sooner. Win-win.

But don’t take my word for it.

Try it for yourself…

Find out more about SaySomethingIn here.