Beliefs

BELIEFS

Hello, welcome to fourth lesson. This one is called “Beliefs.” Let’s get started.

Beliefs another important part of managing your psychology, of strengthening your psychology so you will learn English, or anything in fact, much faster. And there are two kinds of beliefs to general of beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s talk about limiting beliefs first. Now limiting means, limit something that stops you. It’s like a boundary. It stops you going ahead. So a limiting belief is a belief stops you from improving, a belief that stops you from getting better. And I’d say most English students limiting beliefs and many English students have very strong beliefs. I call these beliefs English trauma and I that name from a few of my Japanese students. They would tell “AJ, I can’t speak English well because I have English trauma.”
What is English trauma? is that, what are they talking about? Well, trauma means some kind of injury, some kind of hurt. hurt, deep emotional hurt. So what they mean is that they had very negative, painful experiences with English in the past. In words, when they were in school in English classes, even as adults going to English schools, they had very negative experiences. And all these negative have created some very negative beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. example, they say “I am not good at English.” Well, that’s belief. It may be true, it may not be true. it’s an opinion, it’s a belief that they have.
Another belief, a very belief, English is difficult. Or, English is complicated. Well, that’s just a belief. For English very easy, because I’m a native speaker, just like your native language for you is easy. Tomoe can speak Japanese fluently because she’s Japanese, I might say “Japanese is difficult,” and she would “No, Japanese is super easy.” These are just beliefs come from our experiences. The problem is these limiting beliefs limit us. They in fact limit us. They stop us from
getting better. cause a lot of problems for us as students, as learners. I have them, too. I try to learn Japanese, for example, I have a of these limiting beliefs I realize. I think “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look the writing system. It’s so different from English. And these beliefs hurt my motivation. They my energy, and in fact they’re wrong.
They’re true. Japanese does not have to be difficult, it does not have be compli- cated. A small child, even a small American child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. the reason is, the number one reason is, they don’t have the limiting beliefs. They sing songs and play games and enjoy the language, they’ll learn it so quickly, so easily, they’ll say “Japanese easy.” Well, it’s the same with English with you. You learned in a very painful, way in the past. And so you developed, you created these beliefs in your head. is difficult. English is boring. English is painful. I’m good at English. I’ll never speak excellent English. These just beliefs.
So how do you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. know they’re negative, you know they’re not helping you. But we to figure out, how can we get rid of limiting beliefs? That’s the first step, you have to weaken them. You have to make weaker and weaker and weaker. You have to cut them down. Well get stronger from references. And reference is just an experience or a memory. it’s just something you imagine, actually. But it’s a specific experience or specific imagination, a specific moment, that makes the belief stronger weaker. So, for example, you have this idea “English is painful and boring.” when you think of this belief, where does it from?

Well, you think of all these past experiences. You think the time in middle school where your teacher corrected your mistake and you felt terrible. And you of maybe the bad grades you got on the test or all red marks on your English papers. And you start adding more and and more memories, more of these negative experiences, these negative references. And you get enough, you will develop a very, strong, deep, powerful belief “English is difficult. is painful. I’m not good at English.” So to weaken these, you have to question the references.

You have to question the experiences. Take the power from the experiences. And an easy way to do that is just ask questions about them. For example, let me ask this question. Your past English schools, were excellent? Were they just fantastic English schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, English teachers? Did you have a great time every day? Well, know for most of you the answer is no. So that’s interesting, so your schools were not excellent, maybe the school was problem. Maybe it’s not you. Maybe your English is not great you did not go to great schools. And did those that you went to, or the books you used, did use proven methods? Did they use research-based methods? Did they know lot about the research about English learning, English teaching? Did they only use the best methods? did they just use the textbook that everybody else uses?
Well, I know my experience as a teacher, most schools just use same textbooks. They don’t know why. Maybe the boss tells them “We must use this book.” they’re not choosing the very, very best methods. They’re not choosing the very, best books. And so maybe the reason you believe English is difficult is because you used methods in the past, or your teachers did. Maybe think English is boring because in the past you used methods. You went to boring schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe English isn’t the problem. Maybe it was past experiences. Maybe it was the way you did it or you did it. Ask yourself these questions. Think about them in detail. your limiting beliefs. Challenge your limiting beliefs. Another question, in school did you learn deeply? For example, you take one chapter in your book and learn it for a long time so that totally mastered it, so that you knew it completely, 100% and forgot it? Probably not, most schools I have seen and the ones I taught in, it’s quite the opposite. The teachers go very, very, very quickly. learn one chapter in your book, boom, after one week to the next one, and the next one. Each chapter has so many new words, so new grammar.
For example, my experience with Spanish in school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve had a total of maybe years of Spanish, but I forgot it all. Because we learned deeply. They just tried to make us learn as many words possible, a lot of words, a lot of words, a lot of grammar, very, fast. And then, of course, I forgot everything. How about you? Did you deeply in your schools? If not, maybe that was of the problems. Maybe English feels difficult because you never learned deeply. Maybe English not the problem.
Finally, did you learn with grammar translation method? Did you study a lot of grammar rules? Did you take a lot of tests? you feel good about that? Again, maybe the method was the problem. Maybe the school is the problem, English. So think about these questions and think about them every day. Think about them a lot, this week as you listen to Lesson Number 4. I want you to think about these questions and again and again. And really be honest about it. And start to destroy these limiting beliefs. rid of them. They’re wrong. English is not difficult. English is not painful. English is boring. It’s only a belief. It’s only a past experience. You change that now and in the future. So let’s do that.

Let’s now about empowering beliefs, the positive side. So to empower, the verb, empower means to make stronger. It means to give power to another person. Or this case, it means the beliefs give you power. empowering belief is a belief that makes you feel powerful, gives you power. That’s the kind of beliefs you want and you need to choose them. You decide which beliefs will make you stronger. For example, here’s empowering belief. You can replace your old limiting belief, this one instead. You can say “My brain is a natural learning machine.” Because that’s what all of the scientific shows, our brain naturally learns languages. It is designed learn language. It should be easy. It should be effortless. It feel good. You learned your native language that way. It wasn’t was it? English was easy for me to learn, because I did it in a totally way. And the more naturally I tried to learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, easier it feels. So this is a new belief and should write it down, think about it. Write down this idea, this “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Think about it every day. Decide to that belief. Here’s another belief you might decide to “English can be fun and effortless.”

English can be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering and it’s also true. You can think of a lot of examples for this. Some of mini-stories you’re listening to, right? They’re fun. They’re stupid, sometimes. They’re crazy, sometimes. But they’re not serious. English can fun and effortless. That’s an empowering belief you want to choose and you want to remember every day.

And to make these beliefs stronger, you need experiences. Remember, need references, you need examples that prove the belief. So I’m to give you some examples and you can find more. Go people who speak English very well. Or maybe even that have learned language very well. I’ll give you one of my favorite examples, Steve Kaufman of The speaks, I believe, twelve languages now. I want you to these people and look at their beliefs. I’ll tell some of his beliefs because he’s a friend, I’ve to him a number of times, and Steve believes, example, that language learning is easy and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a English speaker, he speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, he Japanese, he speaks Russian. These are all, supposedly, difficult languages. him they’re not difficult. They’re easy and effortless. That’s very strong belief he has.

Another belief he has that you must learn language naturally and you must focus on meaning. So in other words, doesn’t focus on the grammar. He’s not focusing on textbooks. He’s reading interesting things that he enjoys. He’s listening to things that he enjoys. So, for him, language learning is interesting. What’s really interesting for me is that are the same beliefs that all of my best students have. all have these same ideas. The best students, the who learn the fastest, the ones who have the best scores, the ones with the best speaking, they all believe these things. They all that English is fun, interesting and effortless. They all that language learning is natural. They all believe that they should on the meaning, not on the grammar and the little pieces of language. So if you want to be like these people, you need to think like them. You need to have the beliefs as them.
So here’s what I want you do. Here’s your homework. This is the last thing, the last part of this lesson. I want you to do is write down two, three, four empowering beliefs, that give you power about English. Maybe “My brain is natural language learning machine.” Maybe “English can be fun and effortless.” “I love English.” I don’t know, write down, two, three, four empowering beliefs English. And every day you’re going to do an incantation. That’s a word, that’s a new word, incantation.
An incantation is a phrase or that you say again and again. It has almost a magic idea, it comes magic. An incantation is a magical sentence. It’s a sentence, you the sentence something will happen. That’s where it comes from. But us an incantation is just a belief you are to repeat again and again and again every day.So here’s what you’re going do. For example “English can be fun and effortless.” You’re going to say that out every day while you’re walking along and you’re doing your posture. you’re breathing and you’re smiling. Well, you’re going to add one more thing. you walk, as you’re getting ready for the lesson, you’re going to repeat out loud. You’re going to say “English can be and effortless.” You’re going to say it with some emotion. Say it feeling so you’re smiling, you’re breathing deep, you’re moving your body, you have good and now you’re also saying these strong beliefs. English be fun and effortless. You repeat it again. English can be fun and effortless. And you say it again. English can be fun and effortless.

You can this in your room and its fine. You can do it and make everyone look at you and think you’re crazy. not? It’s better than feeling powerless, right? It’s better than being bored. I promise you will so much faster if you do this. So do these incantations every day just you do a lesson. Get your body strong, peak emotional state, then say these incantations. English can be fun and effortless. English can be fun and effortless. Now body, your mind, your beliefs, they’re all together, very strong. Then you’re ready to learn.

Okay, is the end of the main story for “Beliefs.”