Shadowing Practice: Adulting Habits that Improved My Life - Learn English Speaking with Video
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I've always wondered at what point in our lives do we feel like we've truly grown up?
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Is it when we move out? Or finish school?
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Get your first job?
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Become a parent?
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Because for the longest time, I felt like I was waiting for this one definitive moment where I would step into adulthood, like, here it is.
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But it's not happening.
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That's what adulting is.
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But I feel like throughout the years, I have developed some key habits that have made me feel more enriched
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and embodied And today I'm gonna share them with you.
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So let's get started First up, we've got meditation.
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And wait, wait, wait, before you click out of this video thinking I already know I should meditate.
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I should eat healthy.
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I should stop using social media This video is not intended
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for us to should all over ourselves They are just tools that we can use, depending on how we're feeling to figure out what's going to help us out in the long run.
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And meditation has had a profound impact on my life.
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There is like a common misconception saying that meditation is like clearing your mind, like making sure that your brain is completely rid of thoughts.
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That is not true.
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That's like essentially telling like your heart to stop beating or your eyes to stop blinking.
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Your brain is meant to think.
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So of course you're going to have these thoughts.
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When I'm meditating, I kind of imagine myself sinking back into my mind
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and watching my thoughts as if they were clouds in the sky.
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You just sink back and observe.
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And if I catch myself daydreaming, then I'll be like, oh, I'm daydreaming.
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And then I'll sink back down and observe my thoughts.
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And that's pretty much what my sessions look like.
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For me, I started to notice that the things that used to bother me don't.
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Or I've noticed that my temper has calmed down.
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Or I noticed that certain things don't overwhelm me like they used to.
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And practices like these definitely help just mellow me out and ground me during times of just uncertainty.
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Ever since I've been prioritizing my sleep schedule, I have been performing better, I've been thinking more clearly, and I'm just a better version of myself.
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Like, I like to get at least eight to nine hours every single night.
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And God, it feels freaking amazing.
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I recently read this book, Why We Sleep, by Matt Walker, and it just convinced me to clean up my sleep schedule.
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I think he does a much better job explaining why sleeping is
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so essential for us in essence when you sleep your body and your mind repair itself So if you're not sleeping, you're not giving your body a fair chance to do what it needs to do
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And I love sleeping in my bed I want to take
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a quick minute to thank brooklinen for sponsoring this video I have been using brooklinen for the past three years
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and their bed sheets are my absolute favorite It's actually my favorite place to shop for luxury bed sheets
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and high quality home goods.
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So Ben and I wanted to do a little refresh for our bedroom so we thought we would do the sheets.
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We want something a little bit more bold so we decided to go for this graphite and steel oxford stripe combination.
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I got the luxe hardcore bundle and this includes a flat sheet, a fitted sheet, four pillowcases, and a duvet cover.
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I love that you can mix and match from over 20 colors and patterns and have your bedding fit your personality.
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Investing in quality bedsheets is like investing in your self-care because you are making bedtime exciting again.
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And personally, I am so stoked when it's the end of the day
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and I get to just slip into my delicious Brooklinen sheets that are just impossibly soft.
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They get softer with each wash somehow.
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And I'm definitely not alone in my love for Brooklinen.
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They have so many five-star reviews, I believe like over 100,000, and I attest to this.
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Honestly, I have the deepest, best sleeps in my Brooklinen sheets.
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They're so comfy and so slinky.
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I cannot recommend them enough.
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And right now, they're having their birthday sale, which is their largest sale of the year.
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Everything is 25% off, So this is the perfect time to try Brooklinen for yourself or stock up on your favorites.
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I will leave everything in the description box.
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So please click the link if you are interested.
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Reading is hands down my most favorite high quality leisure activity.
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And it's because in one spot, I can travel to all parts of the country.
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I can even like time travel to different time periods.
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I can enter the minds of the most brilliant and most hilarious people.
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And I feel like my love for reading really started the second I graduated from college.
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I was like, oh wait, I don't need to read anything that anyone assigned me.
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Like I get to choose what books I wanna read.
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And that just blew my mind.
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And I would say like the biggest tip to get you started on reading is just read things
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that you find fun, addicting.
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So I remember like for the first couple of years, all I was reading were thrillers and erotica.
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They were very engaging.
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And then from there, I feel like the genres began to splinter.
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I started to really dive into non-fictions
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because non-fictions are essentially textbooks where I get to explore any topic
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that I find fascinating or that I wanna understand better from psychedelics to politics to the attention economy.
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It's just, the books are endless.
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And so they act as building blocks so that I can understand the world better at my own pace.
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And reading fiction also serves more purpose than simply entertaining.
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it actually makes you practice empathy because when you're reading a book, you are temporarily in someone else's mind.
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And even if you find that character insufferable or you don't agree with their life choices, when you're reading, you are forced to look at things through their perspective.
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So you start to understand why they are the way they are.
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And when you're reading, you kind of find characters that are similar to the people that you know in your life.
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And so it makes you empathize with other people in your relationships as well.
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And I also have a book club if you guys wanna join.
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It's called Curl Up Club, which I will also leave in the description box.
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Please join us.
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Let's talk about stretching.
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For the longest time, I have not been able to touch my toes.
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Like it actually was a goal of mine to be able to touch my toes since 2019
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There was something that happened last year where I Realized that I needed to be more in tune with my body.
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So I decided to do yoga three times a week and Let me just show you the progress look I
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Can touch my toes look I?
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Never thought I would be able to do this like I I always knew in theory
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that my mind and body were connected
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but now i really do understand it's because
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when i'm stretching not only am i releasing the rigidity from
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my physical self it's actually made my mind a lot more flexible too
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when i'm holding these poses like i could feel my body
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resisting i could feel my mind resisting especially saying like ah i don't want to do this it's uncomfortable
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but holding that pose and breathing through everything has just been a very powerful exercise.
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I've read somewhere that yoga activates the parasympathetic nervous system, and that's what controls your body to relax and handle stress.
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And so in that hour of yoga, that's when I'm working out my parasympathetic nervous system.
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So it's teaching my body to handle stress in a healthy way.
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And I think it's ultimately like building patience, like teaching my mind like, hey, this sucks and it's uncomfortable, but we're gonna stay here.
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We're gonna be uncomfortable and you're not gonna die.
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So I feel like that's what I'm kind of training my mind to be.
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Hard work looks different in so many ways.
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It doesn't mean that I need to sweat or burn a ton of calories.
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I'm still doing the work, but it looks different.
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So if anything, it just made me appreciate strength and resilience in all different types of forms.
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Let's talk about cooking.
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I think a big adulting flex that I'm proud of is
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that I'm able to open up a fridge
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and be able to whip up a meal using the ingredients inside I've always loved food
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and eating but cooking was a skill that Took me a minute to cultivate
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and it started off by creating like a rolodex of Recipes that I just knew by heart.
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I think as long as you know three
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Where they're just no brainers like you don't need to look at directions
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or measurements you can just eyeball everything and assemble it, that is an amazing start.
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I think what makes cooking daunting is when you don't know how to cook something.
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Like you're like frantically looking at the instructions and like figuring it out and it's just like you're not in the zone.
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But once you have like three recipes that you just know by heart, suddenly it becomes an extremely fun therapeutic experience.
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You know, you put some music on, a podcast, and you just get into the flow of cooking something from beginning to end.
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There is something extremely satisfying about it.
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And at the end, you get a delicious home cooked meal.
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Sometimes like there's this pressure to always have to make a new recipe and try something new.
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But I don't think that's necessary.
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I think just, you know, going to your tried and trues are so solid
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and I think once you feel comfortable with those
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and then you're feeling a little frisky
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and you've got some extra time then you can add a new recipe at least that's the mode
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that I've been going towards writing is a very polarizing activity it's interesting because when you write
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as if someone is gonna read it suddenly you can't really write anymore
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but if you're writing as
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if no one's gonna read it except for you then the freaking pen just flows that's the type of writer I am.
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I like to write for my own eyes only.
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And when you're writing, you're essentially transcribing that voice inside your head.
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And I think because I have so many thoughts and ideas, they all like can slip away if I don't capture them immediately.
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So writing has really helped me be more responsible and it's helped me with my mental health.
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It's helped me with adulting especially because this is how I stay on top of things.
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The second I think I have to do something, I'll just jot it down.
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Like you should see my reminders app on my phone.
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I have a list for everything.
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And I feel like this is the best way to have a running log of things that I need to do, things that inspire me, recommendations.
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There's a lot of like therapeutic factors that writing has done for me.
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First is the release.
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There was a moment where I realized a lot of the times my entries were written when I was upset or angry.
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And I feel like when you are filled with negative emotion, like you want to do something about it.
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And instead of doing something irrational, like scream at someone or throw something, when you write, you're transferring that energy onto the paper.
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I know that writing when you're pissed off can be just a frustrating process
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because my mind is going like 100 miles an hour.
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But I hate that my hand can't match my thoughts.
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So it forces me to slow down.
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And as I'm taking the time out to really figure out like, okay, why am I pissed off?
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What's bothering me?
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I can feel my whole body start to calm down because that's what maturity is.
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It's about delaying your reaction to things.
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And so when I write, I know that I'm buying some time for me to cool off.
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And the benefits of this is that I can actually see what exactly is in my head.
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Because a lot of times when I'm talking, sometimes I just forget what I've said and I just go in circles, when I write, I actually get to see exactly what has been bothering me.
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I can pinpoint patterns.
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I can spot things that resonate with me.
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It's essentially collecting data.
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And with that data, you can become a better version of yourself.
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So anyway, all these habits are just reminders to keep your wellbeing in check.
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I know adulting is hard, but we're all in it together.
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And I would love to know what habits help you in the comments down below.
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I love getting new ideas and maybe we you can do like a part two.
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And lastly, I wanna thank Brooklinen for sponsoring today's video.
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Just a little reminder, they're doing their birthday sale where everything is 25% off from now to May 3rd.
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Link is in the description box.
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I wanna thank you guys so much for watching and I'll see you guys in the next one.
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Bye.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 171 sentences and 2279 words to shadow. The speech runs for 12:12. The speaker talks fast, about 187 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 82% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| sheet noun | /ʃit/ | A thin bed cloth used as a covering for a mattress or as a layer over the sleeper. |
| essentially adverb | /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/ | In essence: by nature. |
| recipe noun | /ˈɹɛs.ɪ.pi/ | Any set of instructions for preparing a mixture of ingredients. |
| fiction noun | /ˈfɪkʃən/ | Literary type using invented or imaginative writing, instead of real facts, usually written as prose. |
| bother verb | /ˈbɑðɚ/ | To annoy, to disturb, to irritate; to be troublesome to, to make trouble for. |
| habit noun | /ˈhæb.ɪt/ | An action performed on a regular basis. |
| sink verb | /ˈsɪŋk/ | To descend or submerge (or to cause to do so) into a liquid or similar substance. |
| yoga noun | /ˈjoʊ.ɡə/ | Any of several Hindu or Buddhist disciplines aimed at training the consciousness for a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquillity; especially a system… |
| uncomfortable adjective | /ʌnˈkʌm.fɚ.tə.bl̩/ | Not comfortable; causing discomfort. |
| reminder noun | /ɹɪˈmaɪndə(ɹ)/ | Someone or something that reminds. |
| toe noun | /təʊ/ | Each of the five digits on the end of the human foot. |
| meditation noun | /mɛdɪˈteɪʃn̩/ | A devotional exercise of, or leading to, contemplation. |
| meal noun | /ˈmiːl/ | Food that is prepared and eaten, usually at a specific time, and usually in a comparatively large quantity. |
| stretch verb | /stɹɛt͡ʃ/ | To lengthen by pulling. |
| delicious adjective | /dɪˈlɪ.ʃəs/ | Pleasing to the sense of taste; tasty. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| calm down verb | To become less excited, intense, or angry. |
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. |
| back down verb | To take a less aggressive position in a conflict than one previously had, or has planned to have. |
| clean up verb | To make an area or a thing clean; to pick up a mess; to tidy. |
| cool off verb | To decrease in temperature, activity, or temper. |
| grow up verb | To mature and become an adult. |
| hands down adverb | without much effort; easily |
| move out verb | To leave one's present location; to leave somewhere for another place. |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 76 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, you're, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: bother /ˈbɑðɚ/, therapeutic /ˌθɛɹ.əˈpjuː.tɪk/, breathe /bɹiːð/, thriller /ˈθɹɪ.lə/, empathy /ˈɛmpəθi/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: sheet /ʃit/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, fiction /ˈfɪkʃən/, meditation /mɛdɪˈteɪʃn̩/, delicious /dɪˈlɪ.ʃəs/
- Long words — get the stress right: essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, uncomfortable /ʌnˈkʌm.fɚ.tə.bl̩/, therapeutic /ˌθɛɹ.əˈpjuː.tɪk/, hilarious /hɪˈlɛə.ɹi.əs/, recommendation /ˌɹɛkəmɛnˈdeɪʃən/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like sheet, essentially, recipe.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | I've been prioritizing · have been using · I've been going |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've always wondered · have developed · has had |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is not intended · is meant · is just read |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.