Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another important of managing your psychology, of strengthening your psychology so that you learn English, or anything in fact, much faster. And there are two kinds of to general categories of beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s talk limiting beliefs first. Now limiting means, limit is something stops you. It’s like a boundary. It stops you from going ahead. a limiting belief is a belief that stops you from improving, belief that stops you from getting better. And I’d say most students have limiting beliefs and many English students have very strong beliefs. I call these beliefs English trauma and I that name from a few of my Japanese students. would tell me “AJ, I can’t speak English well I have English trauma.”
What is English trauma? is that, what are they talking about? Well, trauma means some kind of injury, some of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep emotional hurt. So what they mean is that they 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. And all these negative have created some very negative beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. For example, say “I am not good at English.” Well, that’s belief. It may be true, it may not be true. it’s an opinion, it’s a belief that they have.
Another belief, a very common belief, is difficult. Or, English is complicated. Well, that’s just a belief. For me English very easy, because I’m native speaker, just like your native language for you is very easy. Tomoe speak Japanese fluently because she’s Japanese, so I might “Japanese is difficult,” and she would say “No, Japanese is super easy.” are just beliefs that come from our experiences. The problem is these limiting beliefs limit us. They in do limit us. They stop us from
getting better. They cause lot of problems for us as students, as learners. I have them, too. As 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, look at the 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 not true. Japanese does have to be difficult, it does not have to be compli- cated. A small child, even a American child, could learn Japanese very 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 the language, and they’ll learn it so quickly, so easily, they’ll say “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s same with English with you. You learned in a very painful, difficult way in past. And so you developed, you created these beliefs in your head. is difficult. English is boring. English is painful. I’m not good English. I’ll never speak excellent English. These are just beliefs.
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, can we get rid of the limiting beliefs? That’s first step, you have to weaken them. You have to make them weaker weaker and weaker. You have to cut them down. Well beliefs stronger from references. And reference is just an experience or a memory. Sometimes it’s just you imagine, actually. But 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 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 test or all the red marks on your English papers. you start adding more and more and more memories, of these negative experiences, these negative references. And if get enough, you will develop a very, strong, deep, powerful belief “English difficult. English is painful. I’m not good at English.” So weaken these, you just have to question the references.

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

Let’s talk now about empowering 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 you power. An empowering belief is 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 which beliefs will make stronger. For example, here’s an empowering 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 of the research shows, our brain naturally learns languages. It is designed to learn language. It should easy. It should be effortless. It should feel good. You your native language that way. It wasn’t difficult was it? English was easy for me to learn, I did it in a totally natural way. And the more naturally I tried learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, the easier it feels. So this 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 every day. Decide 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 it’s also true. You can think of a lot of for this. Some of these mini-stories you’re listening 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 choose and you to remember it every day.

And to make these beliefs stronger, need experiences. Remember, you need references, you need examples that the 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 have learned another language very well. I’ll give you one of my favorite examples, Steve of The Linguist speaks, I believe, twelve languages now. I want you to these people and look at their beliefs. I’ll tell you some his beliefs because he’s a friend, I’ve talked to him a number of times, 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 speaks Russian. These are all, supposedly, difficult languages. him they’re not 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 in other words, doesn’t focus on the grammar. He’s not focusing on boring textbooks. He’s reading interesting that he enjoys. He’s listening to interesting things that enjoys. So, for him, language learning is interesting. What’s really interesting for is that these are the same beliefs that all of best students have. They all have these same ideas. best students, the ones who learn the fastest, the ones who have the best scores, the ones with the best speaking, they all believe these things. They believe that English is fun, interesting and effortless. They all believe language learning is natural. They all believe that they should focus on the meaning, not on the grammar the little pieces 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 want you do. Here’s your homework. This is the last thing, the last part this lesson. What I want you to do is down two, three, four empowering beliefs, beliefs that give you power about English. “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 beliefs about English. And every day you’re going to do an incantation. That’s a word, that’s a new word, incantation.
An incantation is a phrase or that you say again and again. It has almost a magic idea, it comes from magic. An is a 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 a belief you are going repeat again and again and again every day.So here’s you’re going to do. For example “English can be and effortless.” You’re going to say that out loud day while you’re walking along and you’re doing your posture. And you’re breathing 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. Say with feeling so you’re smiling, you’re breathing deep, you’re moving body, you have good posture and now you’re also saying these strong beliefs. can be fun and effortless. You repeat it again. English can be fun and effortless. And then you it again. English can be fun and effortless.

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

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