Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

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

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

You have to question the experiences. Take the power away from the experiences. And easy way 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, English teachers? Did you have a great time every day? Well, I know most 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 is not great because you did not go to schools. And did those schools that you went to, or the you used, did they use proven methods? Did they research-based methods? Did they know a lot about the 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 from my as a teacher, most schools just use the same textbooks. don’t know why. Maybe the boss tells them “We use this book.” But they’re not choosing the very, very methods. They’re not choosing the very, very best books. And so the reason you believe English is difficult is because you used methods in the past, or your teachers did. Maybe you think is boring because in the past you used boring methods. You to boring schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe English isn’t 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 in detail. your limiting beliefs. Challenge your limiting beliefs. Another question, in school did you learn deeply? For example, did take one chapter in your book and learn it for a long so that you 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, quickly. You learn one chapter in your book, boom, one week on to the next one, and the next one. Each chapter has so many new words, much new grammar.
For example, my experience with Spanish in school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve had a total maybe two years of Spanish, but I forgot it all. Because never learned deeply. They just tried to make us learn as many words possible, a lot of words, a lot of words, a of grammar, very, very fast. And then, of course, I forgot everything. How about you? Did you learn in your schools? If not, maybe that was one of the problems. English feels difficult because you never learned deeply. Maybe English is not the problem.
Finally, did learn with a grammar translation method? Did you study a lot of grammar rules? you take a lot of tests? Did you feel good about that? Again, maybe the was the problem. Maybe the school is the problem, not English. So think about these questions and think them every day. Think about them a lot, especially 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. start to destroy these limiting beliefs. Get rid of them. They’re wrong. English is not difficult. is not painful. English is not boring. It’s only belief. It’s only a past experience. You can change that and 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 another person. Or in case, it means the beliefs give you power. An empowering 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. must decide which beliefs will make you stronger. For example, here’s an belief. You can replace your old limiting belief, add this one instead. can say “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Because that’s what all the scientific research shows, our brain naturally learns languages. It designed to 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 it in a totally natural way. And the more naturally I tried to Japanese, for example, or Spanish, the easier it feels. So this is a new and you should write it down, think about it. Write this idea, this belief “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Think about every day. Decide to choose that belief. Here’s another belief might decide to choose “English can be fun and effortless.”

English can fun and effortless. That’s an empowering belief and it’s also true. You can think of 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. can be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering belief you want to choose you want to remember it every day.

And to these beliefs stronger, you need experiences. Remember, you need references, you need examples that prove belief. So I’m going to give you some examples and can find more. Go find people who speak English very well. Or maybe even have learned another 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 you of his beliefs because he’s a friend, I’ve talked to a number of times, and Steve believes, for example, that language learning is easy effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a native English speaker, speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, he speaks Japanese, he Russian. These are all, supposedly, difficult languages. For him they’re difficult. They’re easy and effortless. That’s a very strong he has.

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

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

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