Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

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

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

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

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

English can be fun effortless. That’s an 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 not serious. English can fun and effortless. That’s an empowering belief you want to and you want to remember it every day.

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

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

You can do this in room and its fine. You can do it outside and everyone look at you and think you’re crazy. Why not? It’s than feeling powerless, right? It’s better than being bored. promise you will learn so much faster if you do this. So do these incantations every day before 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 your body, mind, your beliefs, they’re all together, very strong. Then you’re ready to learn.

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