Shadowing Practice: How To Journal & Why You Should! + New Notion Template - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

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hi everyone it's Simon welcome back to the channel if you're watching this I would say most of you like the idea of lifelong learning and building further success and happiness in your life and
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hi everyone it's Simon welcome back to the channel if you're watching this I would say most of you like the idea of lifelong learning and building further success and happiness in your life and
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that's why we need to talk about journaling a daily journaling practice has been proven by Harvard Cambridge and Stanford University studies to dramatically increase people's
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performance at work their learning retention when studying improve well-being after stressful or traumatic events even improve your speaking and
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communication skills the problem is many of us find it just too hard to keep the Habit don't know how to do it well and just well often get stuck on that blank
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page without knowing the right tools or techniques to actually make it effective so in this video I'll reveal why you need to take journaling more seriously
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and give you all the simple tools and approaches you need to benefit from its life-changing power I'll also show you some concrete examples of prompted
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Journal sequences that you can try today in my updated stoic Journal template in notion and if you like the look of it you can even download it at betting.com
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notion Essentials right now but first let me show you why we all need to listen to those High Achievers who swear
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by daily journaling as with any important thing in life I think we just have to know our why to truly commit to making it happen and to actually value
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it it's not a simple coincidence that a high percentage of the world's most successful and influential people keep a journal and I think if most of us
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realized quite how positive the impact of journaling can be on our lives more of us would do it this is why I think you should be journaling daily according
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to this study conducted by Harvard Business School participants who journaled at the end of the day had a 25% increase in performance when compared with a control group who did
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not Journal as the research is concluded our results reveal reflection to be a powerful mechanism behind learning confirming the words of American philosopher and psychologist and
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educational reformer John dwey we do not learn by experience we learn from reflecting on experience in a second study by Cambridge University they found
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that journaling helps improve your well-being after some really stressful events participants asked to write about such events for 15 to 20 minutes resulted in Improvement in both physical
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and psychological health and the third amazing example is about communication a Stanford University study found the critical relationship between writing
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and speaking writing reflects clear thinking and in turn clear communication when I got all of this information I was convinced I've since tried to dedicate
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and devote 20 minutes a day to doing it 10 minutes in the morning before breakfast and 10: in the evening or at the end of work the question is do you do it could you do it I'd love to hear
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from you guys in the comments how you find the active journaling because let's be honest it's not easy to keep it up that's why you need to consider a simple
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problem first friction we'll look at some ancient journaling strategies that can unlock your writing in a little bit but first you'll want to choose
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carefully how and where you like to journal because the right tool will dramatically remove the friction to starting and improve your ability to
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commit and be consistent there are a bunch of tools and journaling options available and I would always suggest you choose the one that makes it easiest for
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you to sit down and actually commit as I see it here are the four main options you could choose from and why I think the fourth is my personal go-to option
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so the first one is paper and pen for many of us this is still the favorite option and the power of actually writing putting pen to paper is hard to beat for
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many has that better connected feel than typing and allows you to be more personal and I'd always go for a planner something like this one one page per day
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but if possible find one without a date so you have that flexibility the negative of paper books well in 2024 I think the option of a digital Journal is far more valuable particularly for
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Creative people since you can search for what you wrote and just refind your ideas so a digital notebook app like good notes on an iPad is a great next
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step or middle ground option to keep the pen and paper feel but combine it with that downloadable searchable function so you might want to do this download or
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personally create a PDF template page to write on and you'll have a great setup in fact I use this first for my yearly reflection and goal setting exercise you
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can in fact also download that 45 page prompted workbook that I made for myself in the description for a few bucks if you'd like to try out and set better
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goals so the third option is specialist journaling apps they are a natural next option and the advantage is that the UI of these apps has been designed to make
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it super easy to guide you through an intuitive process and the bonus is they'll be really well researched the negative you are locked into the app and personally I prefer to create my own
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setup in notion that is tailored to me and then it links with the rest of my resources more than that on the moment but here are my three favorite dedicated journaling apps for something like an
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iPad day one it's a great app for exploring your ideas and daily journaling and it offers a surprising amount of functionality within the basic free account there's Zen Journal if you
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want to keep things super simple and remove the complexity this is the simplest digital Journal I found and I love this app for its kind of minimal approach to interaction it's telling
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that there are no setup guides and it just keeps it amazingly clear and clean and uses hashtags to link things and stoic if you want to go further down the route of a more supported and guided
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approach setting goals and habits then this is a beautiful and surprisingly pleasing app inspired by the stoic we'll talk about that later so number four in
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this list and my Top go-to Choice is using a prompted notion template and I use it for three fantastic advantages
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that it offers number one it can adapt and hone to my needs so it grows with me and I can adapt and add new prompted writing templates as I find them the
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second thing is friction is massively removed so it's always with me on my phone I can jump straight to it on the app and I can even do things like speech
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to text using the phone which is a game Cher and I've recently which I'm really proud of in my template is I've added an AI summary property to make sure that it
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summarizes each entry that I've put in and the third advantage of a notion system it's a database so you can view it in different ways like a calendar view to build a consistent chain of
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entries really useful for staying consistent and most excitingly I can tag entries custom organize them and create direct links back to the rest of my work
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in life in my wider notion system great if you're a Creator like me and this is my latest journaling template so it's pretty simple really there's a
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journaling database that shows you views of your journal entries this month all entries this week There's a week view and you can see a kind of chain of a
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calendar and so on and so forth and then a today view essentially if I click over here here is a list of all of the templates that I've created the brilliant thing about this is that you
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can create new templates set anything as a default and then what you do is you would click into here and edit the
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template and I've created this form which will simply prompt you to write things and what's really nice is if I
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want to start a new entry I can just use this button and Notions buttons allow you to set up custom things like you
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know open the new page added in Center Peak so for example I can then click the button to start a new entry it'll bring
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up the template page options and I can just select the one I want to do okay let's say today I wanted to do a weekly reflection I click that and it fills out
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the entire system which is really great and and I can just start to work within the questions and the prompts that I've set myself pretty cool I also love this
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AI summary tool I can get it to summarize what's in the document at the moment it's just summarizing as a template right and it shows me everything I've done on the current day
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and you can just filter views by that which is really cool so this is anything that was started today one of my favorite little tricks on this system is
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that for example let's say that I actually wanted to date this from a a previous day I can jump into it and just
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manually set the date move it back a day and you'll see it's disappeared and then in the week it will have jumped back to the correct day so that's it I've created myself a guide within here and
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this is if you wanted to use the template it will give you a breakdown of how to do things uh useful related videos that might help you use it that's my journaling template I'm really proud
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of it so check it out make sure you are subscribed to the channel and check out my other notion content too after this if you want to learn more about how it can be used more widely to organize your
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life a little better cool you found the tools but without the right methods and strategies of how to actually approach the writing you could easily find yourself staring at a blank page
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wondering how this is going to be possibly useful at all right but this is what truly changed the game when I discovered it the ancient art of
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creating prompted Reflections and believe it or not this list of journaling templates linked right here goes right back to ancient Rome hear me
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out prompted daily journaling can be traced right back to the stoic philosopher called Marcus Aurelius before you asked that's not Russell Crow
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he was affectionately known and often referred to as the philosopher Emperor he's a famous stoic philosopher and was also known as the last good emperor of
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Rome now if you want to learn from the source many of his journal entries were recovered and curated into a single book called meditations but if we simplify
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his approach to creating prompts that guided him through his Reflections there are a few popular topics and areas that we should be focusing on gratitude for
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example reflecting on the value added to your life by the people around you setting intentions and goals each morning this helps us focus our time and
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energy effectively for increased productivity and creativity thinking through irrational thoughts rationally to help control negative feelings and thoughts it could help you reduce
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passivity unhappiness and Chaos from your life and cultivate more intentional living and Daily Reflections on Behavior actions and events one of the best ways
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to to make improvements to our Effectiveness and happiness is to iteratively change through reflecting on our behavior and thinking of new ways to improve that's perhaps one that many of
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us recognize so to truly get yourself inspired let me show you a few of my favorite prompted template elements in my notion setup so uh let's take a look
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at that of course success and gratitude we talked about that as a subject this is an example of mine you can see I've got what is an accomplishment I'm very proud of why am I proud of it what can I
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do to do more things things like that what is one of my most cherish memories and why think of an item or possession you want to upgrade is your current item functioning well enough there's loads of
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examples in here you can just add to it remember in notion that's the joy of it so I would again just go in here click the button next to it click edit and
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then I could change this as I wanted to and it would turn back up my next favorite something I picked up working in the theater is 5 minute Creator
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statements now I think this could work for anyone who needs a reflective practice on what they do how they do it so here in my Creator statements I've
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got things like I'm great at I want to I am fascinated by I believe and you just set yourself a timer say give yourself 2 minutes and just smash through it things
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like I'm inspired by I want people to experience my work too I am looking for a lot of them are quite open and they're things you can answer multiple times in
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multiple ways and I find this a brilliant way to beat the blank page and really understand what I'm up to and let's just have a little look at that AI SU in action again there you go let's
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see this time because I've programmed this here in edit property to do a very specific thing it's actually talking about the stuff I talk about rather than
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the empty bullet points cool right and there's my 5 minute creative statements let me show you one more and I think this one is really interesting there's a ton of stuff in this list you can do
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things like write an unsent letter and you just need to say that thing but not send it to the person I've got a template for reviewing books or films or
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music that I checked out this is about my character but some of these are inspired by Tim Ferris look at this one here the fear setting entry now this one
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as it says in the AI summary is a fear setting entry that provides a three-step exercise to Define and overcome your fears so it kind of breaks it down I've
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given a little explanation and I can say what I'm afraid of Define it prevent it repair it and the benefits and costs if you want to learn more about that check
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out Tim Ferris his blog I link it in the template and I'll link it in the description below so you should now have a set tools approaches and ideas to help you harness the amazing benefits to be
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gained from a regular journaling practice but however much we know those benefits without building the right habits and making the actual time and space to do this stuff you might always
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struggle to keep doing it so watch one of these videos next where I share the strategies and tools that can genuinely help you focus your time in the right
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place and do more of what you love click on my face to subscribe to better creating if you haven't yet hit that Bell notification so you can see the new video and of course drop me a like if
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you're still here because why not I'll see you on the next one bye
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About This Lesson

In this lesson, learners will explore the transformative practice of journaling and its benefits for personal and professional growth. By engaging with the content, you will gain insights into effective journaling techniques, which can help increase your English language proficiency. Journaling not only aids in organizing thoughts but also enhances your communication skills, allowing you to express yourself more clearly. In addition, you will discover how to incorporate a daily journaling habit into your routine, providing you with practical tools and prompts to improve your writing and speaking abilities. This lesson also highlights the role of reflection in learning, making it relevant for those interested in the shadowing method as a technique to improve English pronunciation.

Key Vocabulary & Phrases

  • Reflect on experience: The act of thinking back on what has happened to learn from it.
  • Journal: A personal record of thoughts, experiences, and insights.
  • Daily journaling practice: Writing in a journal every day to build consistency and self-awareness.
  • Performance increase: A boost in effectiveness in tasks or skills, typically measured in the workplace or academics.
  • Well-being: A state of comfort, health, or happiness.
  • Communication skills: The abilities used in sharing and exchanging information effectively.
  • Prompted templates: Pre-designed outlines or questions that guide your writing in a journal.
  • Friction: Anything that makes it difficult to start a task, such as a complex setup for journaling.

Practice Tips

As you practice shadowing the provided content, focus on the speaker's tone and pace. The video's conversational style facilitates a relaxed learning environment. To enhance your shadowspeak ability and improve your English pronunciation, try the following techniques:

  • Listen and Repeat: Play sections of the video multiple times, pausing after key phrases to mimic the speaker’s cadence and inflection.
  • Record Yourself: Use a shadowspeak or shadowing app to capture your attempts. Playing it back can help you identify areas for improvement in your pronunciation.
  • Practice Consistency: Just like daily journaling, practice speaking each day. Set aside time to focus solely on speaking English, using materials like this video.
  • Engage with Prompts: Use journaling prompts related to your day-to-day experiences to build context for your speaking practice and incorporate new vocabulary.
  • Feedback Loop: Share your recordings with a friend or a language partner who can give constructive feedback, helping you refine your skills further.

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.

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