Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another important part managing your psychology, of strengthening your psychology so that will learn English, or anything in fact, much faster. And are two kinds of beliefs to general categories of beliefs. and empowering.
Let’s talk about limiting beliefs first. Now limiting means, limit is that stops you. It’s like a boundary. It stops from going ahead. So a limiting belief is a belief that you from improving, a belief that stops you from getting better. And I’d say most English students have 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, I can’t English well because I have English trauma.”
What English trauma? What is that, what are they talking about? Well, trauma means some kind injury, some kind of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep emotional hurt. So what mean is that they had some very negative, painful experiences English in the past. In other words, when they in school in English classes, even as adults going to other schools, they had very negative experiences. And all these experiences have created some 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 they have.
Another belief, a very common belief, English is difficult. Or, is complicated. Well, that’s just a belief. For me English very easy, I’m a native speaker, just like your native language you is very easy. Tomoe can speak Japanese fluently 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 is these limiting beliefs limit us. They in fact limit us. They stop us from
getting better. They a lot of problems for us as students, as learners. I have them, too. I try to learn Japanese, for example, I have lot of these limiting beliefs I realize. I think “Oh, Japanese is difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look at the writing system. It’s so different from English. And beliefs hurt my motivation. They lower my energy, and in they’re wrong.
They’re not true. Japanese does not have be difficult, it does not have to be compli- cated. A small child, even a small American child, could Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And the reason is, the number one 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, easily, they’ll say “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s the same with with 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. English is boring. English painful. I’m not good at English. I’ll never speak English. These are just beliefs.
So how do you these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. You know they’re negative, know they’re not helping you. But we have to figure out, can we get rid of the limiting beliefs? That’s the first step, you have to 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 you imagine, actually. But it’s a specific experience or a imagination, a specific moment, that makes the belief stronger or weaker. So, for example, have this idea “English is painful and boring.” And when you think this belief, where does it come from?

Well, you of all these past experiences. You think of the in middle school where your teacher corrected your mistake and you felt terrible. you think of maybe the bad grades you got on the test all the red marks on your English papers. And start adding more and more and more memories, more of these negative experiences, these 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, you have to question the references.

You have to question experiences. Take the power away from the experiences. And an easy way to that is just to ask questions about them. For example, let ask this question. Your past English schools, were they excellent? Were they just fantastic English with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? Did you have a great time day? Well, I know for most of you the answer is no. So that’s interesting, so if your were not excellent, maybe the school was the problem. it’s not you. Maybe your English is not great because did not go to great schools. And did those schools that you to, or the books you used, did they use proven methods? they use research-based methods? Did they know a lot about the research about 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 experience a teacher, most schools just use the same textbooks. They don’t know why. Maybe the boss tells “We must use this book.” But they’re not choosing the very, very methods. They’re not choosing the very, very best books. And so maybe the reason you English is difficult is because you used difficult methods the past, or your teachers did. Maybe you think English is because in the past you used boring methods. You went boring schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe English isn’t the problem. Maybe it was these past experiences. Maybe was the way you did it or where you did it. Ask these questions. Think about them in detail. Weaken your limiting beliefs. Challenge your beliefs. Another question, in school did you learn deeply? For example, did you take one chapter in book and learn it for a long time so you totally mastered it, so that you knew it completely, 100% never forgot it? Probably not, most schools I have and the ones I have taught in, it’s quite the opposite. The go very, very, very quickly. You learn one chapter in your book, boom, one week on to the next one, and the next one. chapter has so many new words, so much new grammar.
For example, my experience with Spanish in school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve had a of maybe two years of Spanish, but I forgot it all. Because we never deeply. They just tried to make us learn as many words as possible, a lot of words, a of words, a lot of grammar, very, very fast. And then, course, I forgot everything. How about you? Did you learn in your schools? If not, maybe that was one the problems. Maybe English feels difficult because you never learned deeply. Maybe is not the problem.
Finally, did you learn a grammar translation method? Did you study a lot grammar rules? Did you take a lot of tests? Did you good about that? Again, maybe the method was the problem. Maybe school is the problem, not English. So think about these questions and think about them day. Think about them a lot, especially this week as you listen Lesson Number 4. I want you to think about these questions again and again and again. And really honest about it. And start to destroy these limiting beliefs. Get rid them. They’re wrong. English is not difficult. English is not painful. English is not boring. It’s a 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 person. Or in this case, it means the beliefs give you power. empowering belief is a belief that makes you feel powerful, that you power. That’s the kind of beliefs you want you need to choose them. You must decide which beliefs will make 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 learns languages. It is to learn language. It should be easy. It should be effortless. It should feel good. You your native language that way. It wasn’t difficult was it? English was for me to learn, because I did it in a totally natural way. And the naturally I tried to learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, the it feels. So this is a new belief and you write it down, think about it. Write down this idea, belief “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Think about it day. Decide to choose that belief. Here’s another belief might decide to choose “English can be fun and effortless.”

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

And to make beliefs stronger, you need experiences. Remember, you need references, you examples that prove the belief. So I’m going to you some examples and you can find more. Go find who speak English very well. Or maybe even that have learned another language well. I’ll give you one of my favorite examples, Steve of The Linguist speaks, I believe, twelve languages now. I you to find these people and look at their beliefs. I’ll tell you some of his because he’s a friend, I’ve talked to him a number of times, and Steve believes, for example, language learning is easy and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a native English speaker, he Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, he speaks Japanese, he speaks 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 learn language naturally and you must focus on meaning. So other words, he doesn’t focus on the grammar. He’s not focusing on boring textbooks. He’s reading interesting things he enjoys. He’s listening to interesting things that he enjoys. So, for him, language 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 ideas. The best students, the ones who learn the fastest, the who have the best test scores, the ones with the speaking, they all believe these things. They all believe that English is fun, interesting effortless. They all believe that language learning is natural. They all believe they should focus on the meaning, not on the grammar the little pieces of the language. So if you want to be these successful people, you need to think like them. You to have the same beliefs as them.
So here’s what I want you to do. Here’s your homework. is the last thing, the last part of this lesson. What I want you to do is down two, three, four empowering beliefs, beliefs that give you power about English. Maybe “My brain is a language 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 day you’re to do an incantation. That’s a good word, that’s a new word, incantation.
incantation is a phrase or sentence that you say 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 you are going to repeat again and again and again every day.So here’s you’re going to do. For example “English can be fun effortless.” You’re going to say that out loud every while you’re walking along and you’re doing your posture. you’re breathing and you’re smiling. Well, you’re going to one more thing. As you walk, as you’re getting for the lesson, you’re going to repeat this out loud. You’re going to say “English be fun and 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. English can be fun and effortless. repeat it again. English can be fun and effortless. then you say it again. English can be fun and effortless.

You can this in your room and its fine. You can do it outside and make everyone look at you think you’re crazy. Why not? It’s better than feeling powerless, right? It’s than being bored. I promise you will learn so much if you do this. So do these incantations every day just before you do lesson. Get your body strong, peak emotional state, and 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. you’re ready to learn.

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