Beliefs

BELIEFS

Hello, welcome to the 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 learn English, anything in fact, much faster. And there are two kinds of beliefs general categories of beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s 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 stops you improving, a belief that stops you from getting better. I’d say most English students have limiting beliefs and English students have very strong limiting beliefs. I call beliefs English trauma and I got that name from a few of Japanese students. They would tell me “AJ, I can’t speak English well because have English trauma.”
What is English trauma? What is that, what are they about? Well, trauma means some kind of injury, some kind hurt. Emotional hurt, deep emotional hurt. So what they mean is that they had some very negative, painful with English in the past. In other words, when they in school in English classes, even as adults going other English schools, they had very negative experiences. And all these negative have created some very negative beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. For example, they say “I not good at 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 just a belief. me English very easy, because I’m a native speaker, just like your language for you is very easy. Tomoe can speak Japanese fluently she’s Japanese, so I might say “Japanese is difficult,” and she would say “No, Japanese super easy.” These are just beliefs that come from experiences. The problem is these limiting beliefs limit us. They in do limit us. They stop us from
getting better. cause a lot of problems for us as students, as learners. I them, too. As I try to learn Japanese, for example, I have a lot of limiting beliefs I realize. I think “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look at writing system. It’s so different from English. And these hurt my motivation. They lower my energy, and in fact they’re wrong.
They’re true. Japanese does not have to be difficult, it does have to be compli- cated. A small child, even a small American child, learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And the reason is, the 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 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. English is boring. is painful. I’m not good at English. I’ll never speak excellent English. These are beliefs.
So how do you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. You know they’re negative, know they’re not helping you. But we have to figure out, how can we get rid of the beliefs? That’s the first step, you have to weaken them. You have make them weaker and weaker and weaker. You have to cut them down. beliefs get stronger from references. And reference is just an experience 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, example, you have this idea “English is painful and boring.” And you think of this belief, where does it come from?

Well, think of all these past experiences. You think of the time 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 and more and more memories, more of these negative experiences, these negative references. if you get enough, you will develop a very, strong, deep, belief “English is difficult. English is painful. I’m not 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 way to do that is just to ask questions them. For example, let me ask this question. Your 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 is no. So that’s interesting, so if your schools were not excellent, maybe the 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, 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 use the textbook everybody else uses?
Well, I know from 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.” But they’re choosing the very, very best methods. They’re not choosing the very, very best books. And so maybe reason you believe English is difficult is because you used difficult methods in past, or your teachers did. Maybe you think English is boring because in the you used boring methods. You went to boring schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe isn’t the problem. Maybe it was these past experiences. Maybe it was the way did it or where you did it. Ask yourself these questions. Think them in detail. Weaken your limiting beliefs. Challenge your limiting beliefs. Another question, school did you learn deeply? For example, did you take one chapter in your book and it for a long time so that you totally mastered it, 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 opposite. The teachers go very, very, very quickly. You learn one in your book, boom, after one week on to the next one, and the next one. Each chapter so many new words, so much new grammar.
For example, experience with Spanish in high school and university, I Spanish, I’ve had a total of maybe two years of Spanish, I forgot it all. Because we never learned deeply. They tried to make us learn as many words as possible, a lot 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 one of problems. Maybe 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? Did you a lot of tests? Did you feel good about that? Again, maybe method was the problem. Maybe the school is the problem, not English. So think about these questions and about them every day. Think about them a lot, 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. is not difficult. English is not painful. English is boring. It’s only a belief. It’s only a past experience. You can change that and in the future. So let’s do that.

Let’s talk about empowering beliefs, the positive side. So to empower, the verb, to means to make stronger. It means to give power to another person. in this case, it means the beliefs give you power. 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 replace your old limiting belief, add this one instead. You can say “My is a natural language learning machine.” Because that’s what all the scientific research shows, our brain naturally learns languages. It is designed to learn language. It be easy. It should be effortless. It should feel good. You learned your native language that way. wasn’t difficult 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, the easier it feels. So is a new belief and you should write it down, think about it. Write down idea, this belief “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Think about it day. Decide to choose that belief. Here’s another belief you might decide to choose “English can fun and effortless.”

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

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

You can do in 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 do these every day just before you do a lesson. Get your strong, peak emotional state, and then say these incantations. English can be fun effortless. English can be fun and effortless. Now your body, mind, your beliefs, they’re all together, very strong. Then you’re to learn.

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