Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another important 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 beliefs to general of beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s talk about beliefs first. Now limiting means, limit is something that stops you. It’s like a boundary. It you from going ahead. So a limiting belief is a belief that stops from improving, a belief that stops you from getting better. I’d say most English students have limiting beliefs and many English students have very limiting beliefs. I call these beliefs English trauma and I got that name from a few my Japanese students. They would tell me “AJ, I can’t English well because I have English trauma.”
What is English trauma? is that, what are they talking about? Well, trauma means kind of injury, some kind of hurt. Emotional hurt, emotional hurt. So what they 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 negative experiences created some very negative beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. For example, say “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 that they have.
Another belief, a very common belief, English difficult. Or, English is complicated. Well, that’s just a belief. For me very easy, because I’m a native speaker, just like your native language for you is very easy. can speak Japanese fluently because she’s Japanese, so I say “Japanese is difficult,” and she would say “No, is super easy.” These are just beliefs that come from our experiences. The problem is these beliefs limit us. They in fact do limit us. They us from
getting better. They cause a lot of for us as students, as learners. I have them, too. I try to learn Japanese, for example, I have a lot of these limiting beliefs I realize. think “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look at writing system. It’s so different from English. And these beliefs my motivation. They lower my energy, and in fact they’re wrong.
They’re not true. Japanese not have to be difficult, it does not have to compli- cated. A small child, even a small American child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And reason is, the number one reason is, they don’t have limiting beliefs. They can sing songs and play games and enjoy language, and they’ll learn it so quickly, so easily, they’ll “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s the same with English with you. You in a very 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 excellent English. These are beliefs.
So how do you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, have these beliefs. You know they’re negative, you know they’re not helping you. But we have to figure out, can we get rid of the limiting beliefs? That’s the step, you have to weaken them. You have to make them weaker and weaker and weaker. have to cut 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 makes the stronger or weaker. So, for example, you have this “English is painful and boring.” And when you think of belief, where does it come from?

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

You have to question the experiences. Take the power from the experiences. And an easy way to do is just to ask questions about them. For example, me ask this question. Your past English schools, were excellent? Were they just fantastic English schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive teachers? Did you have a great time every day? Well, I know for most of you the answer 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 those schools that you went to, or the books you used, did they use proven methods? they use research-based methods? Did they know a lot the research about English learning, English teaching? Did they only the best methods? Or did they just use the textbook that everybody else uses?
Well, I from my experience as a teacher, most schools just the same textbooks. They don’t know why. Maybe the boss tells them “We use this book.” But they’re not choosing the very, very best methods. They’re not choosing the very, best books. And so maybe the reason you believe English is is because you used difficult methods in the past, your teachers did. Maybe you think English is boring because the past you used boring methods. You went to boring schools. had boring teachers. Maybe English isn’t the problem. Maybe it these past experiences. Maybe it was the way you did it where you did it. Ask yourself these questions. Think about them in detail. Weaken your beliefs. Challenge your limiting beliefs. Another question, in school did you learn deeply? 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? 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, after week on to the next one, and the next one. chapter has so many new words, so much new grammar.
For example, experience with Spanish in high school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve had a total of two years of Spanish, but I forgot it all. we never learned deeply. They just tried to make learn as many words as possible, a lot of words, a lot of words, a lot of grammar, 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 not the problem.
Finally, did you learn with grammar translation method? Did you study a lot of rules? Did you take a lot of tests? Did feel good about that? Again, maybe the method was problem. Maybe the school is the problem, not English. So think about these questions think about them every day. Think about them a lot, especially week as you listen to Lesson Number 4. I you to think about these questions again and again again. And really be honest about it. And start to destroy limiting beliefs. Get rid of them. They’re wrong. English is not difficult. English not painful. English is not 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 now about beliefs, the positive side. So to empower, the verb, to empower means to make stronger. It to give power to another person. Or in this case, means the beliefs give you power. An empowering belief a belief that makes you feel powerful, that gives power. That’s the kind of beliefs you want and need to choose them. You must decide which beliefs will make you stronger. For example, here’s empowering belief. You can replace your old limiting belief, add this one instead. You can “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Because that’s what all of scientific research shows, our brain naturally learns languages. It is designed to learn language. It should be easy. 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 it in a totally natural way. And the more naturally tried to learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, the it feels. So this is a new belief and should write it down, think about it. Write down this idea, this belief “My is a natural language learning machine.” Think about it every day. to choose that belief. Here’s another belief you might decide choose “English can be fun and effortless.”

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

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

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

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

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