Shadowing Practice: How I Became More Confident! (level - EASY) - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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Okay, what do they say around here?
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Welcome back to my channel.
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Today we're going to talk about confidence, how I gained it and how I maintained it throughout my life.
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So a lot of people ask me, how did I become confident?
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What did I do?
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How did I get the confidence?
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And the truth is, confidence is not something that is given to you, right?
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It's not something that somebody can magically put inside your brain.
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I think Mel Robbins said that confidence is the willingness to try.
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So the more you do things, the more you try doing things, the more confident you become.
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It's as simple as that.
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Now I was born and raised in a very small community slash village in Republic of Moldova, right?
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So let's just say I didn't have anybody giving me confidence lessons back then, but here's what I did that I didn't realize I was doing that helped me throughout my entire life.
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It's very simple.
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Delusion, playing pretend, imagination, fake it till you make it, all that cheesy stuff.
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But hear me out.
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Let's say you're a character in a play or in a movie, right?
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And someone tells you, hey, your name is this and you are this confident human being who just started a new job
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and is going to show everybody how amazing they are.
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It's a play, right?
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You play pretend.
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So this is what I did in my life.
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As a kid, I would imagine who I was.
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Like, okay, I want to be bold.
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I want to be brave.
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I want to be confident.
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I didn't even know what confidence meant at that time, but I wanted to be the center of attention.
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I wanted to be funny.
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I wanted to be fun.
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So I was imagining that I was all those things and I was basically pretending to be those things.
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And I liked the game.
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I liked who I was when I was pretending.
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The game stopped being a game when everybody around me, when the kids started believing that that's truly who I was.
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And let's say we had a little school project.
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They would be like, oh, Verdeca can present.
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She's bold and brave and she can do it.
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What?
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Or like, oh, we have to go to the director's office, but we're all scared to knock first.
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Verdeca can knock.
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What?
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So in a way, I started becoming the person who I was pretending to be.
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And you can do that in real life as well.
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And you can break it down into smaller pieces.
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Let's say you're somebody at work, you're somebody at home, you're somebody in the gym, you're somebody with a friend or whatever it is.
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But let's talk about what stops you from being confident and what are some struggles that people have with confidence in general.
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So number one, you're afraid of being judged.
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What if I say this and they think I'm stupid?
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Number two, you compare yourself to others.
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She's better than me.
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Why should I even try?
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Number three, you're a perfectionist.
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I won't do it at all if I can't do it perfectly.
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Number four, negative self-talk.
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I always mess up.
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I'm not smart enough.
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I'm not even going to do it.
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Number five, past failures or trauma.
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Last time I spoke in public, I froze and choked, so I'm not going to do it again.
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Number six, cultural or family conditioning.
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I was always told to stay quiet and not stand out.
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And number seven, lack of practice or experience.
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And we're going to talk about that a little bit more.
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So a lot of people ask me, hey, how can I get to your English level, for example?
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And the idea that people have is that they can do something,
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like a couple of things really quickly and get to a certain level or get to a certain level of confidence.
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Or they ask me, how can I be confident like you?
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And in their mind, it's like, oh, confidence, it's something that you can gain very easily.
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It's something that, you know, somebody can just tell me what to do, and then I'll get confident.
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Well, confidence is a skill, okay?
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Confidence is not a piece of information.
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It's not that you just take a course and at the end of the course you're confident.
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You could be a little bit more confident, but it's not going to be exactly what you expected.
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Confidence is a skill.
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If you start playing the violin and you have no idea how to play it, you've never played it before, you're extremely, extremely insecure, right?
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But if you practice every day.
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You take lessons, you improve, you pay attention, you grow, you learn, you make mistakes, you become more and more confident because you become better at it.
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You start a new job.
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The first day you arrive at that job, let's say your job is just to pick up the phone and say, hi company XYZ, my name is Rudika, how can I help you?
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At the beginning, this will be terrifying.
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The first time to pick up the phone
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and listening to a stranger saying hello and then you having to have
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that confidence of saying that sentence with a certain tone
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and certain clarity right it's really complicated you're you're not confident in doing
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that but throughout the day you're gonna have to do
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that maybe 20 times at the end of the day are you gonna be a little bit more confident in doing it?
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The answer is yes.
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What about in a week?
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What about in a month?
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Was there a manager able to give you that confidence on day one?
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No, you had to do it yourself.
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People can guide you what to do, how to do it, but ultimately you have to be the one putting yourself in that situation,
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doing the thing that you're lacking confidence in and becoming more confident by doing it.
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So as a kid, when I was pretending to be someone confident, right?
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When someone would be like, hey, you go and knock at that door because we're all afraid, but you can do it.
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In my mind, I was like, oh shoot, they all think I can do it.
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I'm also shaking in my boots, but I'm going to push myself and do it because I have to live up to the expectations.
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And then I would go and do it and see that nothing terrible happened when I did it.
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The second, the third, the fourth time I knocked at that door, people already knew me, they would say, oh yeah, come on in, next time, don't even knock, whatever.
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And I would be like okay
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so the more you do it the better it gets
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so i was very confident in knocking at the director's door by the end of the year
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so confidence is the result of doing a thing
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that you're not confident in over and over
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and over again it's a very simple concept if you're afraid of public speaking
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There is no way somebody can just give you a guide
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or explain to you how not to be afraid of public speaking.
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Yes, they can give you tips and tricks.
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Yes, they can try to change your mindset around it.
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Yes, they can give you some sort of guidance, but ultimately you are the one that has to go on the stage with a mic in your hand,
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with that projector light in front of your face, and talk to a bunch of strangers the first time you're
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gonna do it is gonna be terrifying the second time you're gonna do it is gonna be also probably terrifying
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but at least you're gonna know what to expect third time
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you're gonna know what to expect you probably i don't know maybe work a little bit on a couple things
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and get a little bit better next time you'll get even better
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so on and
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so forth until you get to a point where you have
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everything covered you know what to expect you know what jokes to tell, you know how to breathe, you know when to drink water,
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you know you remember where the screen is, you know how quickly to go through the slides, you know what to add to make your speech more interesting and entertaining.
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You're basically a pro and as a result you're confident in doing that.
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So let's say somebody looks at you as a public speaker
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three years down the road after you've done it for so long.
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And they say, how do I get your confidence in public speaking?
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I want to be as confident as you are.
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You would tell them, do it.
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So there's a few different types of confidence, right?
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There is emotional confidence.
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There's intellectual confidence.
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There's professional confidence.
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There's creative confidence.
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And there's also situational confidence.
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Like you're super confident in the kitchen, but not on a stage.
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And for me personally, confidence came through
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doing the things that I was afraid of doing and understanding and realizing that nothing bad will happen if I do them.
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Because what is lack of confidence?
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Lack of confidence is basically stemming from your insecurities and your fears, right?
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You're not confident in doing something
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because you don't feel like you've had enough experience in that area to feel like you know what you're doing.
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If you do a thing a million times over, you are confident, you trust yourself that you can do it one more time
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because you did it a million times
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so you have to really think about it especially with speaking english right
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because a lot of you ask me specifically about english speaking
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like you you're not confident in it well you have to
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have this realization you have to like really think about it long
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and hard to to understand the logic behind confidence like what is this word
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when we say she lacks confidence in this or she walks confidently or he is not very confident in his job.
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That simply means that they didn't do those things enough.
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So if somebody doesn't walk confidently,
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right, it's probably because nobody really explained to them what it means to walk confidently and they have never tried it.
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And your posture and the way you present yourself also matters
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because if people look at you and you pretend that you have this, you know, confidence stance and you speak confidently your tone is very calm
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but also firm um you present yourself in in a way
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that people perceive as confidence whatever you say will also be perceived as the real deal
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so there's little tricks that you can do right fake it till you make it
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and somebody came up with a saying
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and i love the saying i know it could be interpreted
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in different ways people don't really see you know as black
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and white everything but
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when you look at the saying fake it till you make
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it this is what i'm talking about is kind of accepting the fact
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that you are a character in your own show
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and i know you've heard this idea before
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but it is true you are a character you have given yourself a description you have given yourself your name
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but also your role, like who you are in your life.
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And as long as you believe that truly, your actions, your words, your demeanor will follow that.
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And it works the same way with negative self-talk.
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If you give yourself a character name and a description that is very weak, it's very negative.
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This is Nancy.
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She is very insecure.
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She has a lot of fears.
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She's afraid of talking to people and she thinks she sucks at her job.
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If you tell yourself this, if you describe yourself as this character, you will be this character.
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So here's a few other things that I did or I would tell myself that helped me with my confidence.
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So before doing something, I would think what's the best it could happen.
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I would actually create an imaginary situation of the best absolute scenario
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that I would get from that action or whatever I decided to do.
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So you don't think about what's the worst it could happen, you think about what's the best it could happen.
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Second step, you actually do it.
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You block the intrusive thoughts that tell you, do not do it.
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This is risky.
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This is dangerous.
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You might look stupid.
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Somebody might judge you.
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Whatever.
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These are intrusive thoughts.
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They're not real.
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It's not proof of anything.
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Next step, if I did the thing I decided to do and I made a mistake or it wasn't great,
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I wouldn't hold on to the shame or embarrassment feelings longer than like 10 I would accept them.
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Oh shoot, that didn't go very well.
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Yeah, maybe I should have done that. That sucks.
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Okay, well 10 seconds are up.
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Next time I'm gonna do this differently and you learn from it, right?
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You do not spend a whole day thinking about how you messed up.
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So if I made a mistake, so be it.
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Tomorrow's another day.
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If I said something silly, oops, tomorrow's another day.
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I learned this from my Canadian friends, to be honest.
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I was so amazed by how easily they let go of their mistakes there.
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I come from a country where, or from a culture, an Eastern European culture, right, where mistakes are condemned.
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Like if you make a mistake, you're dumb, you're stupid, like you're not supposed to make mistakes.
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If you're not going to deliver something perfect, then don't try at all.
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So this is a mindset, a cultural problem too, right?
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And then when I moved to Canada and I would make a mistake at my job and people will be like, okay, well, let's learn from it next time.
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Let's just do this instead.
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That's it.
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Moving on.
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There was no extra time spent on the mistake made.
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Whatever you did, you don't think about it longer than necessary unless it's in a constructive way.
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Beating yourself up and thinking about it the whole day or the whole week or however long you're thinking about it
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does not bring you anything, no benefits.
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You're only going to be solidifying those insecurities and those fears that will stop you from doing this thing again.
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Next step, again, about the mistakes because I would always make mistakes all the time.
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But what I realized that really helped me
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was to be grateful for the opportunity to do that thing
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so I could learn from my mistakes or I could learn from whatever happened.
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Because some people might not even get the opportunity
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and I would also be grateful for the courage I had to commit to that and try it.
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If I'm home, sitting on my couch comfortably, not pushing myself to do anything new, not trying to do anything interesting,
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not pushing myself to think outside the box means
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that I am stagnant I'm not doing anything I'm I'm I'm stuck
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and if you want to be stuck that's fine
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if you want to be on the same level for the rest of your life
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that is your choice that is okay but if you want to grow
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if you want to improve
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if you want to become more confident in something you have to put yourself on
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that stage you have to put yourself in front of those people.
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You have to get yourself out of the house.
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You have to do things that don't necessarily sound so appealing, but by doing them, you will learn so much.
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I think ultimately the biggest thing that helped me was blocking the intrusive thoughts.
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Understanding that I have control over my thoughts was literally a game changer.
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And it is a learning process.
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You can just immediately stop the intrusive thoughts and be done with them.
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They will always be there.
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They're part of your natural instincts.
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Don't do this.
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Something bad might happen.
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Don't do this.
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You might embarrass yourself.
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Oh, you did this.
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You made a mistake.
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You embarrassed yourself.
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Don't do it again.
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And the fear and insecurities are made up things, right?
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They're thoughts.
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They're not real.
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There's no, you can't touch them.
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The same way you create these thoughts in your brain, the exact same way you can create better thoughts in your brain or block these thoughts in your brain.
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So let me give you an example.
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When I was in Canada, I had an interview for a higher position
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and obviously I prepared for it and I kind of knew the general ideas that they would ask me.
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I prepared answers, I prepared ideas, whatever.
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I was very prepared.
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But then they asked me a couple questions that I wasn't prepared for
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and of course I did what I could to answer as well as I could in the moment.
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But after that I was like, I should have said this and I should have said that and I should have said that.
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And I started getting these unpleasant emotions like regret or shame or I don't know, trying to beat myself up.
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And I had to be like, whoa, no, I see these thoughts.
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I have to block them.
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What I can do is learn from it, right?
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I have 10 seconds to feel this and then I have to let it go because, okay, next time I'll have an interview, I'll think about it from this perspective.
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and if they ask me again something that I'm not prepared for, I'm going to buy myself some time.
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I'm going to say things like, hmm, that's a really good question.
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Let me think about it for a second.
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I just gave myself a couple seconds to wire up my brain.
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So I would learn from it.
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If I were in the same situation again, what would I say?
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And then this becomes a positive, constructive experience.
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It's not something to beat yourself up for
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because learning from it actually takes you further Beating yourself up pushes you backwards Okay,
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another thing I remembered about confidence that I started doing
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when I was young and I still do to this day Is never think about yesterday
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and always think about today and tomorrow and it sounds a little bit cliche
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But let me explain in my opinion or in my understanding
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My version of me yesterday was slightly less experienced than the version of me today.
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And the version of me tomorrow will be slightly more experienced than the one today.
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So if I am here today thinking about my version yesterday without trying to learn from what I did and my experiences,
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then I'm always kind of stuck one step behind.
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But if I'm grateful for yesterday and I'm trying to learn from my experiences
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and I'm looking forward to applying this new knowledge or whatever I learned tomorrow, then I'm in this continuous growth sort of mindset.
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For example, content creation.
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I never really thought like a year ago, if you told me that I would be a content creator in 2025, almost turning into a full-time content creator,
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I would have literally laughed so loudly in your face because I had a full-time job.
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I had a career.
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I thought I moved to Canada to live there forever.
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And the biggest struggle at the beginning of my content creation career was the fears
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and the insecurities because most of my following at that time on Instagram, I had 727 followers or something,
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were friends, family, people who knew me.
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And I was thinking about me making that content
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and them analyzing it and dissecting it because they all knew me
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and I thought they would judge me and I thought they would criticize me
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and I just thought
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that they would think how dare she like how does she
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think who does she think she is pretending to do her
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makeup routine like who wants to listen who wants to watch
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that and yes it was cringe and yes it was kind of weird and probably was embarrassing too.
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But the feelings of embarrassment and shame are feelings that you put inside your head yourself.
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And it's kind of funny how you want to create a piece of content
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and you start analyzing it through your own lens, through your own vision goggles, right?
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And through your friends.
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And you don't even know
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if your friends are going to think about it the way you think they're going to think about it.
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So you're just putting words in their mouths
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and you're just creating your this imaginary consequence like
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if i post this i'm gonna embarrass myself my friends are
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gonna laugh at me my family is gonna think oh my god she's
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so cringe or whatever right you don't even know
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if that's gonna happen you create that scenario you have no proof this will happen
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so i started posting on tiktok because I knew that none of my friends were following me on TikTok.
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My name on TikTok was the foreign son for the longest time, so you couldn't really look me up under Rodika.
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And I would post like little nail videos or some other types of random content.
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And for the longest time, I did not want to post on Instagram because I knew that everybody who knew me from work, my friends from back at home,
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everybody knew me would be on Instagram until one day I quit my job
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and I was like you know what I want to grow my Instagram page I don't know how to do
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that but the content that I'm posting on TikTok seems to be doing
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so well might as well post it on Instagram too
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and I said okay I'm gonna try with one video I'm
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gonna post it on Instagram see what the response is
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and then go from there
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and funny thing my first video I posted on Instagram had
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a really good response my friends were commenting saying this is
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amazing I love it for half a year I did not want to post on Instagram
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because I decided that people were going to laugh at me
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when actually people were being supportive
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and I held myself back not them I had no proof
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that they would think like that I put those thoughts in my head
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so then I realized okay this lack of confidence
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that we're talking about that I had I was not confident in posting my content on Instagram is made up.
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Okay.
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Lack of confidence is made up.
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Confidence is also made up.
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However, when you are confident, it's coming from experience.
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When you have a lack of confidence is coming from inexperience.
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So instead of saying I am not confident, I would say I am inexperienced.
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And if I want to say I am confident in this,
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I would probably say I'm experienced in this because I don't see a way of becoming confident without being experienced in something.
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Anyway, so the point of this video was, I guess, to make you aware of the fact that whoever is confident just means that they're experienced.
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And if you want to become confident, you need to become experienced in that area.
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If you guys are telling me, hey, I'm okay with listening, I'm okay with reading, I'm okay with writing, I'm just not confident in speaking.
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Guess what you should be doing?
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That means you are inexperienced in speaking.
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That means you have way more experience in listening to things, in reading things, and in writing things.
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So what you gotta do is speak more.
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Get more experienced in speaking.
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I lack confidence equals I lack experience.
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Don't blame it on your personality.
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Don't blame it on your parents.
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Don't blame it on anybody else.
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Blame it on the inexperience.
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How simple is that?
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Oh, I'm not confident in picking up the phone.
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Pick up the phone more.
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Oh, I'm not confident in riding a bike.
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Ride the bike more.
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I'm not confident in driving.
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Drive more.
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I'm not confident in speaking English.
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Speak more.
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And whatever you feel like you're not confident in, most likely is a skill that needs to be practice.
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And I don't want to say practice makes perfect because nobody's perfect, but practice makes better.
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More practice makes much better.
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I am very proud of you that you made it till the end of this video because again, I was rambling.
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So I really appreciate you being here.
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Thank you so much for watching.
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Make sure you hit that notification bell to know
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when I post the next video and let me know if you have any questions.
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I will happily reply to them in the comments.
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Okay, love you.
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Bye!
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B1 speaking lesson is built on the video “How I Became More Confident!”. This video has 368 sentences and 4200 words to shadow. The speech runs for 23:13. The speaker talks fast, about 181 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 87% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| pretend verb | /pɹəˈtɛnd/ | To speak or behave so as to give a false or simulated appearance. |
| confidently adverb | /ˈkɑnfɪdəntli/ | In a confident manner; with confidence; with strong assurance; positively. |
| intrusive adjective | /ɪnˈtɹuːsɪv/ | Tending to intrude; doing that which is not welcome; interrupting or disturbing; entering without permission or welcome. |
| insecurity noun | A lack of security; uncertainty. | |
| embarrass verb | /ɪmˈbæɹəs/ | To disrupt someone's composure or comfort with acting publicly or freely. |
| terrify verb | /ˈtɛɹɪfaɪ/ | To frighten greatly; to fill with terror. |
| mindset noun | /ˈmaɪn(d)ˌsɛt/ | A way of thinking; an attitude or opinion, especially a habitual one. |
| inexperience noun | A lack of experience. | |
| inexperienced adjective | /ɪnəkˈspɪəɹi.ənst/ | Not experienced; lacking knowledge because lacking experience. |
| perceive verb | /pɚˈsiv/ | To become aware of, through the physical senses, to see; to understand. |
| insecure adjective | /ɪnsəˈkjʊɹ/ | Not secure. |
| embarrassment noun | /ɪmˈbæɹ.əs.mənt/ | A state of discomfort arising from bashfulness or consciousness of having violated a social rule; humiliation. |
| constructive adjective | /kənˈstɹʌktɪv/ | Relating to or causing construction. |
| imaginary adjective | /ɪˈmæd͡ʒɪˌn(ɛ)ɹi/ | Existing only in the imagination. |
| analyze verb | /ˈæn.əˌlaɪz/ | To subject to analysis. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| make up verb | /ˌmeɪk ˈʌp/ | To constitute, to compose. |
| pick up verb | To lift; to grasp and raise. | |
| mess up verb | To make a mess of; to untidy, disorder, soil, or muss. | |
| come on in verb | Synonym of come in (“to enter”). | |
| come through verb | To come into a room or other space through a door or passageway. | |
| come up with verb | To manage to produce, deliver, or present (something) by inventing, creating, thinking of, or obtaining it. | |
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. | |
| look forward to verb | To anticipate, expect, or wait for, especially with a feeling of approval or pleasure; to be excited or eager to. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- What did I do?
- How did I get the confidence?
- What if I say this and they think I'm stupid?
- Why should I even try?
- Guess what you should be doing?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | if you told me that I would be |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is given · was born · being judged |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | you've never played · you've done · have never tried |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | person who I · people who knew |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 136 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, you're, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: cliché /kliˈʃeɪ/, delusion /dɪˈl(j)uːʒ(ə)n/, perfectionist /pɚˈfɛk.ʃənɪst/, situational /sɪtjuːˈeɪʃənəl/, realization /ˌɹɪə.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: confidently /ˈkɑnfɪdəntli/, inexperienced /ɪnəkˈspɪəɹi.ənst/, embarrassment /ɪmˈbæɹ.əs.mənt/, imaginary /ɪˈmæd͡ʒɪˌn(ɛ)ɹi/, perfectionist /pɚˈfɛk.ʃənɪst/
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 pretend, confidently, intrusive.
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.