Shadowing Practice: How to Not Waste Your Life (Stop Getting Distracted) - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Hey friends, welcome back to the channel.
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So we often think that the opposite of distraction is focus, but this isn't actually true.
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The opposite of distraction is traction.
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And what's really cool about these two words is that they both end in the same six letters, which means that distraction is any action that pulls you away from your goals,
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and traction is any action that pulls you towards your goals.
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Now this is something I came across when I first read the incredible book Indistractable by Nir Eyal.
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I've taken a lot of advice from that book myself personally, and I And I recently had a wonderful conversation with Nir all about how to become indistractable.
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So we constantly lie to ourselves.
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And what that means is that we look back on our lives and we are full of regret.
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We said we should have done that thing.
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We should have started the business.
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We should have written the book.
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We should have started the podcast.
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We should have started YouTubing, whatever the case might be.
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But we didn't do it.
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We got distracted.
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So being indistractable is about doing what you say you're going to do.
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Nir is in his 40s now, and he's in an amazing shape with six-pack abs.
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He's got a great family he thinks very intentionally about what he wants in his life, but it actually took near five years to write the book because ironically, he kept on getting distracted.
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So partly he wrote the book to find out for himself how he could become indistractable, both when doing day-to-day tasks and also on big long-term projects.
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And in this video, we're gonna be breaking down the four key elements of the indistractability model, which is all about doing more traction and less distraction, perhaps unsurprisingly.
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Principle number one, the 10 minute rule.
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So a lot of us think that the reason why we're
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so distracted is because of our phones and emails and work and kids and all of those things around us.
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But according to Nir's research, this is actually a myth, because external triggers only account for around 10% of our distractions.
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Instead, 90% of our distraction is caused by internal triggers.
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What are internal triggers?
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Internal triggers are uncomfortable emotional states that we seek to escape.
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Boredom, loneliness, fatigue, uncertainty, anxiety.
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These are these uncomfortable sensations that we look to escape many times with distraction.
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So the research shows that we are more motivated to avoid pain than we are to seek pleasure.
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This is something called prospect theory, and it explains why you care more about not losing $100 than you do about winning $100.
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Rationally, it's the same thing.
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You either win $100 or you don't lose $100.
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But there's something about losing stuff, experiencing that pain that makes us feel very motivated to avoid that.
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So like what Nir said, internal triggers are uncomfortable emotional states that we are trying to avoid.
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And so if we want to become indistractable, we need to get way better at taking control of our internal triggers.
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And there are loads of techniques that Neo talks about in his book about this, but one of the key ones is the 10-minute rule.
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The 10-minute rule says that you can give in to any distraction, whatever that distraction might be, whether you're on a diet and you're trying to resist that chocolate cake, whether you're trying to quit smoking,
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whether you're trying to not check your phone every five minutes
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when you're trying to be with your family or do a work project.
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You can give in to that distraction, but not right now, in 10 minutes.
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And if 10 minutes is too long, make it the five minute rule.
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It doesn't really matter.
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So next time you feel distracted, try procrastinating from that distraction for just 10 minutes.
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Now, in those 10 minutes, you can do a couple of things.
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You can firstly choose to get back to whatever you were doing before you got distracted.
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Or alternatively, you can use that time to surf the urge.
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And this is where we acknowledge that emotions come in waves.
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And you sort of explore why that feeling came about in the first place.
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And a key action point here is to create what Nier calls a distraction notebook.
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So most people have no sense of why they got distracted.
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They all of a sudden find the cigarettes in their hand.
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They all of a sudden find the phone, you know, they're scrolling on TikTok or whatever without realizing what was the preceding internal trigger.
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So a distraction notebook is a way for you to start bringing awareness to what is
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that preceding emotion that you are trying to escape.
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He recommends actually doing this on pen and paper
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or keeping it written down somewhere rather than just doing it in your head, but you can do it in your head if you want.
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Basically, it's a good way to keep track of those internal triggers that cause you to become distracted.
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And then obviously you can put steps in place to avoid that thing distracting you again in the future.
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Hopefully.
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Now in the rest of this video, we're going to talk about three other things, but if you're the sort of person who gets distracted, you're also probably the sort of person who's not going to watch the rest of this video.
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So I'm telling you now, if you just take one thing away from this video, it is to recognize that practically all of the time, 90% of the time, when you're getting distracted,
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it's because there is some kind of emotional state that you are trying to avoid.
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And just having that knowledge, that appreciation that you are a little bitch, no, not that.
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And just having that knowledge, and just having that knowledge can help you actually figure out, like what's the source of that emotion?
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Why is that emotion happening?
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What's the narrative you're telling yourself about the emotion?
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Feelings are not facts, as various people on the internet famously say, which is kind of true, feelings are not facts.
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The feeling is caused by some kind of internal sensation, and then you're telling yourself some sort of narrative or some sort of story, which is then precipitating that specific feeling,
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And that negative emotion is the thing that you're trying to avoid when you get distracted.
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So if you just remember that, feel free to click off this video, scroll TikTok instead.
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But if that's the thing that you take away from this video, this video will have been totally worth it.
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But okay, if you're still with me, then we know that internal triggers are not 100% of the problem.
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There is another 10%.
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And if we wanna solve the other 10% of distraction, then we've got to think about two other causes of distraction.
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That is firstly, planning problems, and secondly, external triggers.
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Oh, and by the way, if you are enjoying this video, then you might like to check out Brilliant, who are very kindly sponsoring this video.
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And I've even had people in my audience in
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And really, Brilliant helps you build critical thinking skills through problem solving, rather than through memorizing things, which is traditionally how we're taught to do stuff in school.
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So thank you so much Brilliant for sponsoring this video.
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Principle number two, the willpower myth.
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OK, so aside from all of these internal triggers, there are lots of other external triggers that also pull us away from traction, like phones and computers and TV shows and work emails and meetings and the whole shebang.
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And I've made a bunch of videos specifically on how to deal with some of these external triggers, like phone addiction and stuff.
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But one of the really interesting things that Nir
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and I talked about was willpower and whether
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or not willpower is really something that runs out towards the end of the day like some people think it does.
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So there is this popular notion that willpower is a limited resource.
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And this came out of some research done several years ago now around this concept called ego depletion.
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Ego depletion says that we run out of willpower, just like we would run out of battery charge on our phone or gas in our gas tank, that it's a depletable resource.
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And this got a lot of press because it's kind of a concept people want to believe.
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This original study on ego depletion was published in 1998 by a psychologist called Roy Baumeister.
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And a lot of people subscribe to this idea of willpower being a limited resource because it's a comforting thought.
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It allows us to say that, oh man, I'm just so tired by the end of the day.
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My willpower has run out.
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I get so drained at work by my boss or by life or by circumstances or by the weather or by whatever.
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My willpower has run out.
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And so I have to watch Netflix in the evening.
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It's not my fault that I'm not actually making progress on my goals
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and instead I'm just scrolling TikTok and Instagram and all that kind of stuff.
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It's not my fault, it's that my willpower has run out.
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But it turns out actually that the results from this original 1998 study have been totally debunked.
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Turns out that this idea of ego depletion, that we run out of willpower like gas in a gas tank, turns out not to be true.
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Except in one group of people.
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There's actually one group of people who really do run out of willpower.
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They really do spend it up.
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And those people, and only those people, and this work was done by Carol Dweck, I'm sure you know her work, her wonderful book called Mindset.
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And she found that the only group of people who run out of willpower
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are people who believe that willpower is a depletable resource.
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So if you think that you run out of willpower by the end of the day, then your body and mind will behave in that way.
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If you just choose to believe that willpower is not a depletable resource, and actually you can always muster up willpower and discipline whenever you feel like it, then it's not really going to become a problem.
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The word addiction comes from the Latin addictio, which means slave.
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So when you say to yourself, I am a slave, I am addicted, I have no more willpower, I'm spent, you're making it true.
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And so we have to be very, very careful about these labels and make sure
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that we only adopt the labels that serve us rather than the ones that hurt us.
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By the way, if you are enjoying this video, then you might like to check out my completely free seven day Focus Crash Course.
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It's completely free and it's a series of seven emails that I'll send you each day that each have some evidence-based principles, strategies, and tools that you can use to improve your focus as well.
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And the reason we've put that together is because whenever I pull the audience and ask, what are you guys struggling with, focus and consistency seems to be the highest thing on that list basically all the time.
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And so we thought, you know what, let's just turn this into a bit of an email course
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because there is so much to share and so many strategies that are really helpful when it comes to focus.
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So if you're interested, it's completely free.
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You can sign up, you can unsubscribe whenever you want.
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Head over to focuscrashcourse.com or hit the link in the video description.
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All right, principle number three is attraction timeboxing.
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Everything is a distraction unless you plan your time.
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So unlike a to-do list, which is just a register of things you want to have done, when you time box, and I didn't make up this technique.
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It's been around for a long time.
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It's called setting an implementation intention.
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It's the most widely studied technique that far too few people use.
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It's basically saying, here's what I'm going to do and when I'm going to do it.
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So the issue with to-do lists is that
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when you write a to-do list and then you tick things off one by one, then you can't plan, firstly, how much time it will take you to complete the task, and secondly, how much attention you actually need for the task.
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But the idea of traction time boxing is
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that it lets you track both of these inputs
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because traction time boxing is basically a fancy way of describing putting stuff in your calendar and like actually doing it.
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I discovered this when I was at university and I realized that I sucked at managing my time.
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And then I started using a calendar and actually just time boxing things
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and actually trying to plan my week at the start of the week and figuring out, okay, when do I need to allocate time for my essays?
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When am I gonna work on my side hustle business?
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That's gonna go in the calendar.
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And that just helped me really become way more effective with how I use my time.
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And it wasn't that I was sort of planning every single moment of the day
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because I also had a very social life at uni
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and hung out with friends playing board games until four in the morning way too often.
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But it let me sort of juggle all these different things.
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And it still just amazes me how few people actually use a calendar.
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When people get into the professional workplace, everyone has to use a calendar because it's how meetings are organized and stuff.
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But using a calendar for your personal life as well, and also using a calendar for any side hustle-y type goals that you wanna work towards, whether that's starting a YouTube channel or a business,
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or even just, I don't know, watching the top 50 movies on IMDb, actually just putting those into your calendar timeboxing it really helps you make the most out of your time.
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And so when you budget those things, your time and attention, the new metric isn't did I finish?
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The new metric is did I do what I said I
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was going to do for as long as I said I would without distraction?
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Whether that's being with my family, whether that's playing video games, whether that's working on a big project.
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Did I do what I said I was going to do for as long as I said I would without distraction?
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Because that is the only way to have a feedback loop.
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Now over time you get better at estimating how much time and attention these different things in your calendar need, and that way you can keep on improving at it over time.
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But the most important takeaway is that everything in your calendar should ideally be traction, so actions that pull you towards your goals rather than distraction.
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Now, sometimes people don't like this.
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Sometimes people will say that, well, if you time block everything, then that's like toxic productivity, and where's the spontaneity, and where's the fun?
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And I'm like, no, that's not how it works.
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You can absolutely time box your evenings, for example, to be fully present with your partner.
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You can time box a whole Wednesday evening for a solo relaxation evening, which is what I do on Wednesday evenings.
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I don't care what your goals are.
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The thing that I care about that I would love to happen is that you use your time, which is the single most valuable non-renewable resource that we have.
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You use that time towards things that you actually care about doing.
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You don't use that time, ideally, just scrolling a random app based on what the engineers who get paid stupid amounts of money at Facebook
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and at TikTok and at Instagram and stuff, instead of letting them decide what you're doing with your most valuable asset on this planet,
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you decide yourself what you'd like to do with your most valuable asset on this planet, i.e. your time.
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And if that means being on TikTok and chilling out, watching Netflix, watching Disney+, whatever you want, great, fantastic.
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As long as you have made that decision, then I'm happy.
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Cool.
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Principle number four, the rule of pacts.
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Okay, so there are three types of pacts that we can use to help become more indistractable.
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Price, effort, and identity.
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So firstly, price pacts involve money.
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Now, this part of the conversation, Nir told me about his burn or burn technique when he came to working out.
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Now, Nir used to be pretty overweight, and now he's become absolutely ripped.
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And apparently, the way he did this was that he taped a $100 note to his mirror.
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And when he looked at that mirror every single day, he made a decision.
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I can either burn some calories by doing some pushups, going for a walk around the block,
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going for a swim, doing some kind of exercise every day to burn calories, or I have to burn the $100 bill.
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And to this day, Nir has never broken this price pact.
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And he actually even did the same thing when writing the book, Indistractable.
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If he didn't write the book by a certain date, then he owed someone $20,000.
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But of course, he managed to write the book, and so he never actually had to pay the money.
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OK, secondly, we have effort pacts, which is where you put a bit of friction between you and the distraction.
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So for example, Nir has set it so that his internet automatically turns off at 10 PM every single day.
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Yeah, he could always go and turn the router back on
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and unplug the Amazon Alexa switch or whatever the thing is that's turning it off.
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But that would take effort to do and he has to really think about it.
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And then he has to really think about whether he actually wants to use the internet after 10 p.m.
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This is the same reason why I've installed an app called Opal, which is very good.
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And I set it so that it blocks all social media apps after 10 p.m and before 9 a.m.
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So when it gets to nighttime and I'm sitting on the toilet, scrolling through my phone and I'm like, huh, you know what?
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I'm just habitually gonna go on Instagram Reels.
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I can't because Instagram is blocked.
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And I think, well, what if I just watch a YouTube video?
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And I can't because YouTube is blocked as well.
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And then sometimes I think, you know, I should have Instagram unblocked because I need, obviously need to post an Instagram story at 11.30 PM.
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And then I got Opal and then, you know, you can always unblock the apps, but you have to wait like 30 seconds.
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And in that 30 seconds, I'm like, do I really need to post this Instagram story at 11.30?
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Why don't I just go to sleep?
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I can wake up early.
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I can have a nice morning.
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I'll be a bit more refreshed and energized and stuff.
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And so I ended up not going on social media, anywhere near as much as I used to
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because I've now set this app to automatically block these offending apps between 10 PM
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and 9 AM and I'd recommend you do it as well.
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There's literally no reason to ever allow yourself to even click on a social media app
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when it's nighttime and your primary goal is to sleep, hopefully.
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And then thirdly, we have identity pacts.
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Now, if you give yourself an identity, you are much more likely to actually do something.
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So using that technique to our advantage, by actually having a moniker, by having an identity, this is why the book is called Indistractable.
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Indistractable is meant to sound like indestructible.
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It's who you are.
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So when you have this identity, it makes you much more likely to follow through.
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This comes from the psychology of religion, in fact, that when someone calls themselves a member of a particular faith, they're much more likely to act in accordance.
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And reinforcing this identity of being indestructible, this can be your superpower.
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Now, there's something really cool that I heard from Tony Robbins a few years ago, which is that the strongest force in human personality is the need to stay consistent with how we think of ourselves.
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So if you define yourself, or if your identity is that of someone who procrastinates, or I'm a procrastinator, then you're going to continue being a procrastinator.
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If your identity is, oh, I'm a gamer and I have to get through school on the side, then you're going to struggle to ever do your work.
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If your identity is that of a writer, you're much more likely to write.
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If your identity is that of a YouTuber, you're much more likely to create videos.
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If your identity is that of a healthy person, you're going to go to the gym.
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And if your identity is that of someone who really struggles to go to the gym
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or to stay in good shape and work out and stuff, you're going to struggle with that.
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This is also something James Clear talks about in Atomic Habits.
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Identity-based behavior your change is a lot easier than focusing on the tactics.
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It's much easier when you can make your habits consistent with the identity
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that you want to have and actually like sign up yourself into actually having that identity.
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Okay, so those were the four elements of Nier's indistractability model.
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You should totally check out the book.
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It is really good.
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But if you're maybe struggling with some of these external triggers, like spending a lot of time on your phone, then you might like to check out this video here where I've made a video specifically targeting phone addiction.
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So thank you so much for watching.
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I hope you enjoyed the video and hopefully I'll see you in the next one.
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Bye-bye.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “How to Not Waste Your Life”. This video has 251 sentences and 4020 words to shadow. The speech runs for 16:49. The speaker talks fast, about 239 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 85% 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
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| distraction noun | /dɪsˈtɹæk.ʃən/ | Something that distracts. |
| willpower noun | /ˈwɪlˌpaʊɚ/ | The unwavering strength of will to carry out one's wishes. |
| distract verb | /dɪˈstɹækt/ | To divert the attention of. |
| traction noun | /ˈtɹæk.ʃən/ | The act of pulling something along a surface using motive power. |
| pact noun | /pækt/ | An agreement; a compact; a covenant. |
| scroll noun | /skɹoʊl/ | A roll of paper or parchment; a writing formed into a roll. |
| emotion noun | /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/ | A person's internal state of being and involuntary physiological response to an object or a situation, based on or tied to physical state and sensory data. |
| depletion noun | /dɪˈpliːʃən/ | The act of depleting, or the state of being depleted; exhaustion. |
| firstly adverb | /ˈfɜɹstli/ | In the first place; before anything else; first. |
| depletable adjective | Capable of being depleted. | |
| secondly adverb | /ˈsɛk.(ə)ndli/ | In the second place. |
| addiction noun | /əˈdɪkˌʃən/ | A state that is characterized by compulsive drug use or compulsive engagement in rewarding behavior, despite negative consequences. |
| uncomfortable adjective | /ʌnˈkʌm.fɚ.tə.bl̩/ | Not comfortable; causing discomfort. |
| indestructible adjective | /ɪndɪˈstɹʌktɪbəl/ | Not destructible; incapable of decomposition or of being destroyed; invincible. |
| nighttime noun | /ˈnaɪtˌtaɪm/ | The hours of darkness between sunset and sunrise; the night. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| check out verb | To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.). | |
| run out verb | To use up or consume all | |
| turn out verb | To end up; to result. | |
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. | |
| sign up verb | To add a name to the list of people who are participating in something. | |
| work out verb | /ˌwɝk ˈaʊt/ | To calculate. |
| break down verb | To stop functioning. | |
| come across verb | To change sides; to cross over to work for the opposition. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- What's the narrative you're telling yourself about the emotion?
- When am I gonna work on my side hustle business?
- I don't care what your goals are.
- Why don't I just go to sleep?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've taken · have been · I've gotten |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | letters, which means · model, which is · person who gets |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is caused · was published · was done |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 89 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, I'm, I've. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: myth /mɪθ/, thinker /ˈθɪŋ.kɚ/, thirdly /ˈθɚdli/, mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: distraction /dɪsˈtɹæk.ʃən/, traction /ˈtɹæk.ʃən/, emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/, depletion /dɪˈpliːʃən/, addiction /əˈdɪkˌʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: uncomfortable /ʌnˈkʌm.fɚ.tə.bl̩/, indestructible /ɪndɪˈstɹʌktɪbəl/, procrastinate /pɹoʊˈkɹæs.tə.neɪt/, ideally /aɪˈdi.ə.li/, habitually /həˈbɪtju.əli/
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 distraction, willpower, distract.
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.