From a 400-point TOEIC failure with an academic inferiority complex to working hard in English as an expat

・Introduction

Hello. Isn't English (language learning)
incredibly, truly difficult?

I am now working in a job where I am stationed in the U.S. and conducting business negotiations in English, but it has taken me nearly 20 years to get here.
And I am still continuing it even now. I still face endless struggles.

Is there anything else where you can't see the ceiling even after 20 years? I don't think so. (Forced)

It has been over three years since I came here as an expat, and I have finally, finally started to think that I might be able to manage English reasonably well.

Buuuuut!!!!

I think anyone who is studying a language understands this feeling of "maybe I've gotten better?", but it is a trap you fall into dozens of times.

Oh! I can actually do this♪
↓
Wow, there was someone better than me. I'm totally useless..
↓
No, even so, I can understand this much!
↓
I can't understand anything when a different person is talking.. Depression.
↓
But I went to English conversation class and I've started to be able to speak a little bit!
↓
Depression

I think language learners who keep running through this infinite (illusory) loop are truly amazing. I respect them.

In this article, I would like to dig up my old memories and introduce what kind of traps I fell into and how I escaped them before I became an expat and started working hard.
I would be very happy if this could be of any help to those who are struggling with language learning. For reference, I will also leave a link to a past article I wrote about the English study methods I still use today.

・Self-introduction

・Over 3 years stationed in the U.S. countryside
・Early 30s, no children
・English proficiency: TOEIC 900
・University: Close to F-rank
・Studied abroad during university
・Working hard in sales against Americans

・University days when I started English

I was in a public high school and was near the top of my class. However, perhaps due to that arrogance, I slacked off during high school and my English dropped to lower-middle.
Also, because I slacked off on all my studies, I went to a university that had fallen behind.

After enrolling, I spent some time idling away with part-time jobs and playing around.
I was buried in part-time jobs to earn money to go out and travel with friends.
I continued a typically degenerate university life where my days and nights were reversed and I tended to fail my credits.

I didn't do anything clever like club activities or internships.

I still remember being fueled by the fear in my second year of university that I wouldn't be hired anywhere if I stayed like this.

A period where I worried about what my existence was, what I wanted to do, and how I wanted to live continued.

So, I first started studying for the TOEIC. The reason was that English was the only subject I could say I was good at until about junior high school. That's all.
My first TOEIC score was 400.

In junior high school, I thought I was better than those around me, but I was completely hopeless.

It was about three or four months after that, I think. I studied for the TOEIC intermittently at the university library.

That's when a problem came to light. The consequences of slacking off for over a year came back to haunt me.

I wasn't used to sitting still. I lacked concentration. I couldn't say no when friends invited me out. I was constantly chasing credits and part-time jobs.

I didn't have the environment or the discipline to study.

Here is what I felt.

People who can't do things are starting from a deficit.

It's heartless and cruel, but I felt at the time that this was reality.

Looking back now, I think it's really important to re-evaluate your own position.

I tried to pump myself up by pulling out memories of being a bit better at studying than those around me in junior high, thinking I could do it. But I couldn't do it at all and felt depressed.

I had many friends who went to better universities than me and could handle English with ease.
I remember having unnecessary delusions that they would laugh at someone like me.A complete academic inferiority complex.

Now I can think that it's foolish to be servile by comparing myself to others, but back then I was a teenager. It was a time when I absolutely lacked self-confidence.

Junior high and high school pack people of the same age and similar backgrounds into the same box, don't they?
I had no choice but to compare my own worth with the people in that same box.
I can see now that I probably carried that same mindset into university.

It was like that anxiety was always by my side.
The feeling of a dark future approaching moment by moment is, I think, a normal sensation for a teenager.

But even in that darkness, I wanted to wear
something I could be proud of, something that would give me confidence, something that would shine.
That is where the TOEIC began for me.

・TOEIC and strength training became the foundation of my life

I was a second-year university student who lacked overwhelming confidence and would fall into depression by comparing myself to others on my own.

The TOEIC I started was truly, truly something that changed my life.

Starting from a deficit, unable to concentrate and full of desires to play, I somehow managed to continue studying for about three months until I exceeded 500 points.

In terms of score, it's not a satisfying level that I could put on my resume at all.
I couldn't really understand much, nor had I ever spoken English. I was far from the level of being able to write sentences.

But I read my vocabulary book over and over in my own way, forgetting and remembering it repeatedly.
I thought I could understand what I couldn't before, and then I couldn't hear it at all again.

I didn't feel like I was improving at all. My score had only gone up by 100 points.

Even so,
even if it was slow or inefficient, I remember being truly happy that I studied hard and my score went up. I think this is a sense of accomplishment that you can't get from other qualifications or language tests.
This is a sense of achievement that I don't think you can experience with other qualifications or language proficiency tests.

It felt like I had been upgraded a little from my nothing-special self.
It was harder and less fun than leveling up in Pokémon. It was full of suffering, but I felt like I had grasped the joy of overcoming my past self for the first time.

At the time, I might have still felt inferior when comparing myself to others.
But I think that was when I became truly conscious of a new way to make myself happy: growing by comparing myself to my past self.

Wait? But isn't this feeling déjà vu?

Middle school, no, maybe high school. I wasn't good at sports at all and things weren't going well in my club activities. But I loved exercising.
Why was that? Long-distance running! Long-distance running is a battle against your own time.
The more you run, the more your time improves. It's very tough and painful, but the feeling of overcoming yourself is similar.

With that mindset, in addition to studying for the TOEIC, I started another habit: strength training.
I began a routine of studying at the university library and then doing strength training at the university gym that same day.
Strength training is one of the few things where you can say that the results you get are directly proportional to the effort you put in, leading to joy.
(*To those who might ask, "Why not marathon running!", please understand that I used long-distance running as an analogy because I wanted to get popular by building muscle, haha)

Anyway, whether the reason was shallow or not, it was when I was 19 or 20 that I realized the joy of continuing to work hard at something and nurturing myself.

If you ask me if I was able to keep working hard throughout my 20s and 30s, that's not how life works.
If it were, I could have delivered a much cooler success story to you all.

I'm a human (no, a monkey) who is human-like, giving in to various temptations and setbacks.
That is me, Fuji.

Even so, I can assert that thanks to realizing that "joy of nurturing myself," I am now able to work in the US, which was my dream.

TOEIC and strength training became the foundation that shaped me.

In the study abroad chapter I plan to write next time, I will explain that a higher TOEIC score does not equal being able to speak English.

I want to write about how I fell into that trap, which is so obvious it's not even worth a punchline.

—Postscript—

Such an honest opinion!! Thank you!!! I will write about the reasons why I ended up studying abroad next time.
*Updated on July 5th.

I'll also post other articles I've written about language learning. Please feel free to stop by.
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