Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another important part of managing psychology, of strengthening your psychology so that you will learn English, or anything fact, much faster. And there are two kinds of beliefs general categories of beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s talk about limiting beliefs first. Now limiting means, is something that stops you. It’s like a boundary. It you from going ahead. So a limiting belief is belief that stops you from improving, a belief that stops from getting better. And I’d say most English students have limiting beliefs and many English students have very limiting beliefs. I call these beliefs English trauma and I got that name from a of my Japanese students. They would tell me “AJ, I can’t speak English well because I have trauma.”
What is English trauma? What is that, what are talking about? Well, trauma means some kind of injury, kind of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep emotional hurt. So what mean is that they had some very negative, painful with English in the past. In other words, when were in school in English classes, even as adults going other English schools, they had very negative experiences. And all these negative experiences have created very negative beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. For example, they “I am not good at English.” Well, that’s a belief. It be true, it may not be true. But it’s an opinion, it’s a belief that they have.
belief, a very common belief, English is difficult. Or, English complicated. Well, that’s just a belief. For me English easy, because I’m a native speaker, just like your language for you is very easy. Tomoe can speak Japanese fluently because she’s Japanese, so I might “Japanese is difficult,” and she would say “No, Japanese is super easy.” These just beliefs that come from our experiences. The problem is limiting beliefs limit us. They in fact do limit us. They stop from
getting better. They cause a lot of problems for us as students, as learners. I them, too. As I try to learn Japanese, for example, have a lot of these limiting beliefs I realize. I think “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” Japanese complicated, just look at the writing system. It’s so different English. And these beliefs hurt my motivation. They lower my energy, in fact they’re wrong.
They’re not true. Japanese does not have to be difficult, it does not to be compli- cated. A small child, even a small American child, learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And the reason is, the number reason is, they don’t have the limiting beliefs. They can sing songs and play games and the language, and they’ll learn it so quickly, so easily, they’ll say “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s the same English with you. You learned in a very painful, way in the past. And so you developed, you created these beliefs your head. English is difficult. English is boring. English is painful. I’m not good at English. I’ll speak excellent English. These are just beliefs.
So do you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. know they’re negative, you know they’re not helping you. we have to figure out, how can we get of the 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 down. Well beliefs get stronger from references. And reference is just an or a memory. Sometimes it’s just something you imagine, actually. it’s a specific experience or a specific imagination, a moment, that makes the belief stronger or weaker. So, for example, have this idea “English is painful and boring.” And when you think of this belief, does it come from?

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

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

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

English can be fun and effortless. That’s empowering belief and it’s also true. You can think a lot of examples for this. Some of these mini-stories you’re to, right? They’re fun. They’re stupid, sometimes. They’re crazy, sometimes. But they’re serious. English can be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering belief you want to choose and want to remember it every day.

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

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

You can do this in your room and fine. You can do it outside and make everyone look you and think you’re crazy. Why not? It’s better than powerless, right? It’s better than being bored. I promise you will so much faster if you do this. So do these incantations day just before you do a lesson. Get your strong, peak emotional state, and then say these incantations. English 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.”