Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

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

Well, you think of all these past experiences. You think of time in middle school where your teacher corrected your mistake and you felt terrible. And think of maybe the bad grades you got on test or all the red marks on your English papers. And you start adding more more and more memories, more of these negative experiences, these negative references. And if you get enough, you develop a very, strong, deep, powerful belief “English is difficult. English painful. I’m not good 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 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 a great time every day? Well, I know for most of you the is no. So that’s interesting, so if your schools not excellent, maybe the school was the problem. Maybe it’s you. Maybe your English is not great because you did not go great schools. And did those schools that you went to, the books you used, did they use proven methods? Did they use research-based methods? Did know a lot about the research about English learning, English teaching? Did only use the best methods? Or did they just the textbook that everybody else uses?
Well, I know from experience as a teacher, most schools just use the same textbooks. 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 the reason you believe English is difficult is because you used difficult methods in 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 problem. Maybe it was these past experiences. Maybe it was the you 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 one chapter in your book and learn it for a long time so that totally mastered it, so that you knew it completely, 100% and forgot it? Probably not, most schools I have seen and ones I have taught in, it’s quite the opposite. The teachers go very, very, very quickly. You learn chapter in your book, boom, after one week on the next one, and the next one. Each chapter so many new words, so much new grammar.
For example, my experience Spanish in high school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve had total of maybe two years of Spanish, but I forgot it all. Because we never learned deeply. They tried to make us learn as many words as possible, a of words, a lot of words, a lot of grammar, very, very fast. then, of course, I forgot everything. How about you? Did you learn deeply your schools? If not, maybe that was one of the problems. Maybe English feels difficult because you learned deeply. Maybe English is not the problem.
Finally, did you learn with a grammar translation method? you study a lot of grammar rules? Did you take a lot of tests? Did you feel about that? Again, maybe the method was the problem. Maybe the school the problem, not English. So think about these questions and think about them every day. Think about a lot, especially this week as you listen to Lesson Number 4. I want you to think 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. English is not difficult. English not painful. English is not boring. It’s only a belief. It’s a past experience. You can change that now and in the future. So let’s do that.

Let’s talk about empowering beliefs, the positive side. So to empower, the verb, empower means to make stronger. It means to give to another person. Or in this case, it means the give you power. An empowering belief is a belief makes you feel powerful, that gives you power. That’s kind 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 can replace old limiting belief, add this one instead. You can say “My brain is a natural language machine.” Because that’s what all of the scientific research shows, our brain learns languages. It is 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 difficult was it? English was easy me to learn, because I did it in a totally natural way. And more naturally I tried to learn Japanese, for example, Spanish, the easier it feels. So this is a belief and you should write it down, think about it. Write this idea, this belief “My brain is a natural learning machine.” Think about it every day. Decide to that belief. Here’s another belief you might decide to choose “English can be and effortless.”

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

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

Another belief he has is that you must learn naturally and you must focus on meaning. So in words, he doesn’t focus on the grammar. He’s not focusing boring textbooks. He’s reading interesting things that he enjoys. He’s to interesting things that he enjoys. So, for him, language learning is interesting. What’s interesting for me is that these are the same that all of my best students have. They all have same ideas. The best students, the ones who learn the fastest, the ones who the best test scores, the ones with the best speaking, they all these things. They all believe that English is fun, interesting and effortless. They all believe that language is natural. They all believe that they should focus on the meaning, not on the and the little pieces of the language. So if you to be like these successful people, you need to think like them. You need to the same beliefs 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. What want you to do is write down two, three, four empowering beliefs, beliefs that give you about English. Maybe “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Maybe “English can fun and 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 good word, that’s a new word, incantation.
An is a phrase or 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, you the sentence something will happen. That’s where it comes from. But for us an is just a belief you are going to repeat and again and again every day.So here’s what you’re to do. For example “English can be fun and effortless.” You’re to say that out loud every day while you’re walking along and you’re your posture. And you’re breathing and you’re smiling. Well, you’re going to add more thing. As you walk, as you’re getting ready for the lesson, you’re going to this out loud. You’re going to say “English can be fun effortless.” You’re going to say it with some emotion. Say it 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. English be fun and effortless. You repeat it again. English can be fun and effortless. And then 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 look at you and think you’re crazy. Why not? It’s better 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 day just before do a 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. Then you’re ready learn.

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