Beliefs

BELIEFS

Hello, welcome to the fourth lesson. This 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 there are two kinds of to general categories of beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s about limiting beliefs first. Now limiting means, limit is something stops you. It’s like a boundary. It stops you from going ahead. So a limiting belief is a that stops you from improving, a belief that stops you from getting better. And I’d say most students have limiting beliefs and many English students have very strong limiting beliefs. I these beliefs English trauma and I got that name a few of my Japanese students. They would tell “AJ, I can’t speak English well because I have trauma.”
What is English trauma? What is that, what they talking about? Well, trauma means some 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 words, when they were in school in English classes, as adults going 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 a belief. may be true, it may not be true. But it’s an opinion, it’s a belief that they have.
belief, a very common belief, English is difficult. Or, English is complicated. Well, that’s a belief. For me English very easy, because I’m a speaker, just like your native language for you is easy. Tomoe can speak Japanese fluently because she’s Japanese, I might say “Japanese is difficult,” and she would “No, Japanese is super easy.” These are just beliefs that come from our experiences. problem is these limiting beliefs limit us. They in do limit us. They stop us from
getting better. They 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 the system. It’s so different from English. And these beliefs hurt my motivation. They lower my energy, in fact they’re wrong.
They’re not true. Japanese does not have to be difficult, it not have to be compli- cated. A small child, even small American child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And the is, the number one reason is, they don’t have the limiting beliefs. They can sing songs play games and enjoy the language, and they’ll learn it 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 the past. And 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 beliefs. You know they’re negative, you know they’re not you. But we have to figure out, how can get rid of the limiting beliefs? That’s the first step, have to weaken them. You have to make them and weaker and weaker. You have to cut them down. Well beliefs get from references. And reference is just an experience or a memory. it’s just something you imagine, actually. But it’s a specific experience a specific imagination, a specific moment, that makes the belief stronger or weaker. So, for example, you this idea “English is painful and boring.” And when think of this belief, where does it come from?

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

You have to question experiences. Take the power away from the experiences. And an easy way to do that just to ask questions about them. For example, let me ask this question. Your past English schools, were excellent? Were they just fantastic English schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? you have a great time every day? Well, I know for most you the answer is no. So that’s interesting, so if your schools not excellent, maybe the school was the problem. Maybe it’s not you. Maybe your English not great because you did not go to great schools. And did schools that you went to, or the books you used, did they use methods? Did they use research-based methods? Did they know a lot the research about English learning, English teaching? Did they use the best methods? Or did they just use textbook that everybody else uses?
Well, I know 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, best methods. They’re not choosing the very, very best books. And so maybe the reason you believe English difficult is because you used difficult methods in the past, or your teachers did. Maybe think English is boring because in the past you 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 way you did it or where you did it. Ask yourself these questions. about them in detail. Weaken your limiting beliefs. Challenge limiting beliefs. Another question, in school did you learn deeply? For example, did you take one chapter in your and learn it for a long time so that you mastered it, so that you knew it completely, 100% and never forgot it? not, most schools I have seen and the ones I have taught in, it’s quite opposite. The teachers go very, very, very quickly. You one chapter in your book, boom, after one week to the next one, and the next one. Each chapter has so new words, so much new grammar.
For example, my experience Spanish in high school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve had a total maybe two years of Spanish, but I forgot it all. Because we never deeply. They just tried to make us learn as many words possible, a lot of words, a lot of words, lot of grammar, very, very fast. And then, of course, I everything. How about you? Did you learn deeply in your schools? If not, that was one of the problems. Maybe English feels difficult because you learned deeply. Maybe English is not the problem.
Finally, you learn with a grammar translation method? Did you a lot of grammar rules? Did you take a lot of tests? Did feel good about that? Again, maybe the method was the problem. Maybe the school the problem, not English. So think about these questions think about them every day. Think about them a lot, this week as you listen to Lesson Number 4. I you to think about these questions again and again and again. And be honest about it. And start to destroy these limiting beliefs. Get of them. They’re wrong. English is not difficult. English is 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 now about empowering beliefs, the positive side. So to empower, the verb, to means to make stronger. It means to give power another person. Or in this case, it means the beliefs give you power. An empowering 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 make you stronger. For example, here’s an empowering belief. can replace your old limiting belief, add this one instead. You can say “My brain is a language learning machine.” Because that’s what all of the 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? was easy for me to learn, because I did it a totally natural way. And the more naturally I tried learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, the easier it feels. So this is a 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 “English can be fun and effortless.”

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

Another belief he has is that you must language naturally and you must focus on meaning. So in other words, he doesn’t on the grammar. He’s not focusing on boring textbooks. He’s reading interesting things that he enjoys. He’s listening interesting things that he enjoys. So, for him, language is interesting. What’s really interesting for me is that these are the same beliefs all of my best students have. They all have these same ideas. The best students, the ones who the fastest, the ones who have the best test scores, the ones with best speaking, they all believe these things. They all believe that English fun, interesting and effortless. They all believe that language learning is natural. They all believe they should focus on the meaning, not on the grammar and the little pieces of 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 I want you to do. Here’s your homework. This is the last thing, the last of this lesson. What I want you to do write down two, three, four empowering beliefs, beliefs that you power about English. Maybe “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Maybe “English can be fun effortless.” Maybe “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 again and again. It has almost a magic idea, comes from magic. An incantation is a magical sentence. It’s a sentence, you say sentence something will happen. That’s where it comes from. for us an incantation is just a belief you are going to repeat again and again and every day.So here’s what you’re going to do. For example “English can be fun and effortless.” You’re going say that out loud every day while you’re walking along you’re doing 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 lesson, you’re going to repeat this out loud. You’re going to “English can be fun and effortless.” You’re going to say it with emotion. Say it with feeling so you’re smiling, you’re deep, you’re moving your body, you have good posture and you’re also saying these strong beliefs. English can be fun and effortless. You repeat it again. can be fun and effortless. And then you say it again. can be fun and effortless.

You can 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 better feeling powerless, right? It’s better than being bored. I promise you will learn much faster if you do this. So do these incantations every just before you do a lesson. Get your body strong, peak emotional state, and say these incantations. English can be fun and effortless. can be fun and effortless. Now your body, your mind, your beliefs, they’re together, very strong. Then you’re ready to learn.

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