Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another part 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 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 a boundary. It stops you from going ahead. a limiting belief is a belief that stops you from improving, a that stops you from getting better. And I’d say most English students 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 are 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, even as adults to other English schools, they had very negative experiences. all these negative experiences 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 have.
Another belief, a very common belief, English difficult. Or, English is complicated. Well, that’s just a belief. For English 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 might say “Japanese is difficult,” she would say “No, Japanese is super easy.” These are just beliefs that come from our experiences. problem is these limiting beliefs limit us. They in fact limit us. They stop us from
getting better. They a lot of problems for us as students, as learners. have them, too. As I try to learn Japanese, example, I have a lot of these limiting beliefs I realize. think “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just at the writing system. It’s so different from English. these beliefs hurt my motivation. They lower my energy, in fact they’re wrong.
They’re not true. Japanese does not have to difficult, it does not have to be compli- cated. A small child, even a small American child, could Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And the reason is, the number one reason is, they don’t the limiting beliefs. They can sing songs and play games and enjoy the language, and they’ll it so quickly, so easily, they’ll say “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s the 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 at English. I’ll speak excellent English. These are just beliefs.
So do you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. You they’re negative, you know they’re not helping you. But we to figure out, how can we get rid of limiting beliefs? That’s the first step, you have to weaken them. You have to make them and weaker and weaker. You have to cut them down. Well get stronger from references. And reference is just an experience 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 idea “English is painful and boring.” And when you think of belief, where does it come from?

Well, you think of these past experiences. You think of the time in middle where your teacher corrected your mistake and you felt terrible. And you think of maybe the bad grades got on the test or all the red marks 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. English is painful. I’m good at English.” So to weaken these, you just have to the references.

You have to question the experiences. Take power away from the experiences. And an easy way to do that is just to questions about them. For example, let me ask this question. Your past schools, were they excellent? Were they just fantastic English schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? Did have a great time every day? Well, I know for most of 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 is great because you did not go to great schools. And those schools that you went to, or the books used, did they use proven methods? Did they use research-based methods? Did they know lot about the research about English learning, English teaching? Did they use 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 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 maybe the you believe English is difficult is because you used methods in the past, or your teachers did. Maybe you think English is because in the past you used boring methods. You went to boring schools. You boring teachers. Maybe English isn’t the problem. Maybe it these past experiences. Maybe it was the way you did it or where you did it. yourself these questions. Think about them in detail. Weaken your limiting beliefs. Challenge your 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, so that you knew completely, 100% and never forgot it? Probably not, most schools I have seen the ones I have taught in, it’s quite the opposite. The go very, very, very quickly. You learn one chapter in book, boom, after one 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 maybe years of Spanish, but I forgot it all. Because 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 learn deeply in your schools? not, maybe that was one of the problems. Maybe feels difficult because you never learned deeply. Maybe English is not the problem.
Finally, did you with a grammar translation method? Did you study a lot of grammar rules? you take a lot of tests? Did you feel good about that? Again, maybe the method was problem. Maybe the school is the problem, not English. think about these questions and think about them every day. Think about them a lot, this week as you listen to Lesson Number 4. I want to think about these questions again and again and again. And really be honest it. And start to destroy these limiting beliefs. Get rid of them. They’re wrong. English is difficult. English is not painful. English is not boring. It’s only belief. It’s only a past experience. You can change that now in the future. So let’s do that.

Let’s talk now about 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 beliefs give you power. An empowering belief is a that makes you feel powerful, that gives you power. That’s the kind beliefs you want and you need to choose them. You must decide which will make you stronger. For example, here’s an empowering belief. You can replace your limiting belief, add this one instead. You can say “My brain a natural language learning machine.” Because that’s what all the scientific research shows, our brain naturally learns languages. is designed to learn language. It should be easy. It be effortless. It should feel good. You learned your native 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. So this is a new and you should write it down, think about it. Write this idea, this belief “My brain is a natural language machine.” Think about it every day. Decide to choose that belief. Here’s another belief you decide to choose “English can be fun and effortless.”

English can be and effortless. That’s an empowering belief and it’s also true. can think of a lot of examples for this. Some of mini-stories you’re listening to, right? They’re fun. They’re stupid, sometimes. They’re crazy, sometimes. But they’re serious. English can be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering belief want to choose and you want to remember it day.

And to make these beliefs stronger, you need experiences. Remember, need references, you need examples that prove the belief. I’m going to give you some examples and you can find more. Go people who speak English very well. Or maybe even have learned another language very well. I’ll give you of my favorite examples, Steve Kaufman of The Linguist speaks, I believe, twelve now. I want you to find these people and look at their beliefs. I’ll you some of his beliefs because he’s a friend, I’ve talked to him number of times, and Steve believes, for example, that language is easy and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a English speaker, he speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, he speaks Japanese, he 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 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 listening interesting things that he enjoys. So, for him, language learning is interesting. What’s really interesting for me that these are the same beliefs that all of best students have. They all have these same ideas. The students, the ones who learn the fastest, the ones who have the test scores, the ones with the best speaking, they all believe things. They all believe that English is fun, interesting and effortless. They believe that language learning is natural. They all believe that they focus on the meaning, not on the grammar and little pieces of the language. So if you want be like these successful people, you need to think like them. need to have the same beliefs as them.
here’s what 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 is write down two, three, four beliefs, beliefs that give you power about English. Maybe “My is a natural language learning machine.” Maybe “English can be fun effortless.” Maybe “I love English.” I don’t know, write down, two, three, empowering 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 sentence you say again and again. It has almost a idea, it comes from magic. An incantation is a 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 you are going to repeat again and again and every day.So here’s what you’re going to do. For example “English be fun and effortless.” You’re going to say that out 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 add one thing. As you walk, as you’re getting ready for the lesson, you’re to 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 with feeling you’re smiling, you’re breathing deep, you’re moving your body, you good posture and now you’re also saying these strong beliefs. can be fun and effortless. You repeat it again. English be fun and effortless. And then you say it again. English can fun and effortless.

You can do this in your room its fine. You can do it outside and make everyone look at you think you’re crazy. Why not? It’s better than feeling powerless, right? It’s than being bored. I promise you will learn so much if 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. English can be fun and effortless. English can 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 of the main story for “Beliefs.”