My dear friend Shamar Loi - who is per se one of the reasons you should use Substack - asked recently what the community would recommend to someone who speaks two languages at high level, but feels insecure about it. My go-to answer is: start collecting external proof.
Confidence is a feeling. Feelings lie to you on a bad day and can lie to you again on a good one. Proof is different. Proof is the moment you actually did the hard thing in the language and survived it. Nobody can argue with that and in this way all the insecure voices in your own head have at least something that tells them: “Nope, you’re wrong”.
Years ago I joined an online ‘mastermind’ of language teachers. Every other woman in that group was a native French speaker. I was the only one who had learned the language as an adult, the obvious outsider in the room.
I could have stayed quiet or asked them to let me interact in English. Instead I fully joined the conversation, in French, in real time, in front of people who could well judge my performance. Regardless of their opinion - of course they were very kind and never shared it - that was proof. Confidence had nothing to do with it.
This is what led me to accept a help request when one of my acquaintances in Italy asked me to help him with French. He was then hired by the telco Orange - going through the job interviews in French too. He told me he followed my way of working and the base I gave him helped him through.
Proof compounds.
Dutch was worse, because I had less opportunities to practice (I live in Brussels and the language in the streets is mostly French). I went to Dutch-only events on my own and made myself talk to strangers.
It never felt natural. I don’t think people who haven’t done this understand the amount of willpower it takes to keep choosing the harder conversation when the easy one, in English, is sitting right there waiting for you to take it.
And then some days ago, my legs were shaking over something that should have been the easiest exchange of all: telling a couple of Italian boys about Brussels, in Italian, my own language.
Insecurity doesn’t check your passport. It finds you even in your mother tongue if you’ve spent years avoiding the version of yourself who speaks up first. The only reason I did it anyway was the same pinch of discipline that got me through the French mastermind and the Dutch events.
Not confidence. Discipline. And a good amount of love for Brussels and the “new me” I could discover during these long years.
I think about ‘past me’ a lot, the one who used insecurity as a reason to avoid things. I understand her.
But I’ll be blunt: being insecure and avoiding the hard conversation is a luxury. It’s something you can only afford when nothing real is on the line yet.
The sooner you realize you can’t afford it anymore, the better, because the bill eventually comes due in the form of opportunities you talked yourself out of.
So if you’ve ever asked yourself what to do about feeling insecure in a language you’re learning, here’s my actual answer.
Stop trying to talk yourself into confidence first.
Go and do something hard in that language instead, something with real stakes, where you can’t fake it and there’s no safety net.
Take the work call instead of asking a colleague to cover for you. Sit with native speakers and talk about something you actually care about. Then do it again.
Each one becomes a piece of evidence that contradicts the insecure story you’ve been telling yourself, and evidence is much harder to argue with than a pep talk.
If it doesn’t go well? It means it doesn’t go well YET. So, you should just keep working and try again later. It’s all a matter of self-discipline.
Journaling in your target language is one of the lowest-barrier entry points I know.
If you’re tired of studying without ever really using the language - the Frequency Circle is where I respond to everything you write, every week. Courses, meetings, and daily practice included. Italian, Dutch, French. $23/month (free trial week available).
My honest recommendation: stay at least a month. One week is not enough to feel the difference. If you write twice a week for a month, but are still unhappy, you’re getting your money back.
The Frequency Circle is my hub. If you want to work with me directly on WhatsApp, upgrade to the $89/month tier when you join - or anytime from inside the community. I offer a two-week trial once you’re in.
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