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 will learn English, or anything 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 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 strong limiting beliefs. I call these beliefs English trauma and I got name from a few of my Japanese students. They tell me “AJ, I can’t speak English well because I have trauma.”
What is English trauma? What is that, what are they about? Well, trauma means some kind of injury, some kind of hurt. Emotional hurt, emotional hurt. So what they mean is that they some very negative, painful experiences with English in the past. In other words, they were in school in English classes, even as adults going to other English schools, they had negative experiences. And all these negative experiences have created some very negative beliefs, some limiting beliefs. For example, they 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 belief that they have.
Another belief, a very common belief, is difficult. Or, English is complicated. Well, that’s just belief. For me English very easy, because I’m a native speaker, just like native 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 is easy.” These are just beliefs that come from our experiences. The problem is these limiting beliefs limit us. in fact do limit us. They stop us from
better. They cause a lot of problems for us students, as learners. I have them, too. As I try to learn Japanese, for example, I have lot of these limiting beliefs I realize. I think “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” Japanese complicated, just look at the writing system. It’s so different from English. And these beliefs hurt motivation. They lower my energy, and in fact they’re wrong.
They’re not true. Japanese does not to be difficult, it does not have to be compli- cated. A small child, a small American child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, easily. And the reason is, the number one reason is, they don’t have the limiting beliefs. They sing songs and play games and enjoy the language, and they’ll learn it so quickly, so easily, they’ll “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s the same with English you. You learned in a very painful, difficult way in the past. so you developed, you created these beliefs in your head. English is difficult. English boring. English is painful. I’m not good at English. I’ll never excellent English. These are just beliefs.
So how do eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. You they’re negative, you know they’re not helping you. But have to figure out, how can we get rid of limiting beliefs? That’s the first step, you have to weaken them. have to make them weaker and weaker and weaker. You have to cut them down. Well beliefs stronger from references. And reference is just an experience or a memory. it’s just something you imagine, actually. But it’s a 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 this belief, where does come from?

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

You have to question the experiences. Take the power away from the experiences. an easy way to do that is just to ask questions about them. For example, let ask this question. Your past English schools, were they excellent? Were they fantastic English schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? Did you have a time every day? Well, I know for most of you the answer 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 not great you did not go to great schools. And did those that you went to, or the books you used, did they proven methods? Did they use research-based methods? Did they know a lot about the research about English learning, teaching? Did they only use the best methods? Or did they just use the textbook everybody else uses?
Well, I know from my as a teacher, most schools just use the same textbooks. They don’t why. Maybe the boss tells them “We must 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 is is because you used difficult methods in the past, or teachers did. Maybe you think English is boring because in past you used boring methods. You went to boring schools. You had teachers. Maybe English isn’t the problem. Maybe it was these past experiences. Maybe it was the you did it or where you did it. Ask 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 learn it for a long time so that you totally mastered it, so that knew it completely, 100% and never forgot it? Probably not, most schools I have and the ones I have taught in, it’s quite the opposite. The go very, very, very quickly. You learn one chapter your book, boom, after one week on to the next one, the next one. Each chapter has so many new words, so new grammar.
For example, my experience with Spanish in high school and university, took Spanish, I’ve had a total of maybe 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 of words, a lot of grammar, very, very fast. then, of course, I forgot everything. How about you? Did you deeply in your schools? If not, maybe that was one of the problems. Maybe English feels because you never learned deeply. Maybe English is not the problem.
Finally, did you learn a grammar translation method? Did you study a lot of rules? Did you take a lot of tests? Did you good about that? Again, maybe the method was the problem. Maybe the is the problem, not English. So think about these questions and think about them day. Think about them a lot, especially this week 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 start destroy these limiting beliefs. Get rid of them. They’re wrong. English is not difficult. is not painful. English is not boring. It’s only a belief. It’s only a experience. You can change that now and in the future. let’s do that.

Let’s talk now about empowering beliefs, the side. So to empower, the verb, to empower 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 a belief makes you feel powerful, that gives you power. That’s the kind of beliefs you and you need to choose them. You must decide which beliefs make you stronger. For example, here’s an empowering belief. You 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 learn language. It should be easy. It should be effortless. It should feel good. learned your native language that way. It wasn’t difficult was it? English was easy me to learn, because I did it in a natural way. And the more naturally I tried to Japanese, for example, or Spanish, the easier it feels. this 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 every day. Decide to choose that belief. Here’s another belief might decide to choose “English can be fun and effortless.”

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

And to make these beliefs stronger, you need experiences. Remember, need references, you need examples that prove the belief. So I’m to give you some examples and you can find more. Go people who speak English very well. Or maybe even that have learned another language very well. I’ll you one of my favorite examples, Steve Kaufman of The Linguist speaks, I believe, languages now. I want you to find these people and look at their beliefs. I’ll tell some of 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 and effortless. That’s belief. He’s a native English 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 effortless. That’s a very strong belief he has.

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

You can do in your room and its fine. You can do it outside 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 you do this. So do these incantations every day just before you do a lesson. Get body strong, peak emotional state, and then say these incantations. 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.”