Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another important part managing your psychology, of strengthening your psychology so that you will learn English, anything in fact, much faster. And there are two kinds 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 a boundary. It stops you from going ahead. a limiting belief is a belief that stops you from improving, belief that stops you from getting better. And I’d 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 few of my Japanese students. They would tell me “AJ, I can’t speak English because I have English 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 emotional hurt. 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 have created some very beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. For example, they say “I am not at English.” Well, that’s a belief. It may be true, it may 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 just a belief. For English very easy, because I’m a native speaker, just your native language for you is very easy. Tomoe can speak fluently because she’s Japanese, so I might say “Japanese is difficult,” she would say “No, Japanese is super easy.” These just beliefs that come from our experiences. The problem is these limiting beliefs limit us. in fact do limit us. They stop us from
getting better. They cause a lot of problems for as students, as learners. I have them, too. As try to learn Japanese, for example, I have a lot these limiting beliefs I realize. I think “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” Japanese complicated, just look at the writing system. It’s so from English. And these beliefs hurt my motivation. They lower energy, and 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, a small American child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And the reason is, number one reason is, they don’t have the limiting beliefs. They can sing songs and play games enjoy the language, and they’ll learn it so quickly, easily, they’ll say “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s the same with English with you. learned in a very painful, difficult way in the past. And so you developed, you created these in your head. English is difficult. English is boring. English painful. I’m not good at English. I’ll never speak English. These are just beliefs.
So how do you these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. You know they’re negative, know they’re not helping you. But we have to out, how can we get rid of the limiting beliefs? That’s the first step, have to weaken them. You have to make them weaker and weaker and weaker. You have cut them down. Well beliefs get stronger from references. And reference is just an experience a memory. Sometimes it’s just something you imagine, actually. But it’s specific experience or a specific imagination, a specific moment, 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 it come from?

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

Let’s talk now about empowering beliefs, the positive side. So empower, the verb, to empower means to make stronger. It means to give power 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 them. You must decide which beliefs will make you stronger. example, here’s an empowering belief. You can replace your old belief, add this one instead. You can say “My brain is natural language learning machine.” Because that’s what all of the scientific research shows, brain naturally learns languages. It is designed to learn language. It should be easy. It should effortless. It should feel good. You learned your native language way. It wasn’t difficult was it? English was easy for me to learn, I did it in a totally natural way. And the more naturally I tried to learn Japanese, example, or Spanish, the easier it feels. So this is new belief and you should write it down, think about it. Write down this idea, belief “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Think about every day. Decide to choose that belief. Here’s another you might decide to choose “English can be fun effortless.”

English can be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering belief and it’s true. You can think of a lot of examples this. Some of these mini-stories you’re listening to, right? They’re fun. They’re stupid, sometimes. They’re crazy, sometimes. they’re not serious. English 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 give you some examples and you can find more. Go find people who English 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 now. I want you to find these people and look at beliefs. I’ll tell you some of his beliefs because he’s friend, I’ve talked to him a number of times, Steve believes, for example, that language learning is easy and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a native speaker, he speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, he speaks Japanese, he speaks Russian. are all, supposedly, difficult languages. For him they’re not difficult. They’re easy and effortless. That’s a very belief he has.

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

You can do this in 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 if you do this. So do these incantations every just before you do a lesson. Get your body strong, peak emotional state, and then say these incantations. can be fun and effortless. English can be fun and effortless. Now your body, your mind, beliefs, they’re all together, very strong. Then you’re ready to learn.

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