Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another important part of managing your psychology, strengthening your psychology so that you will learn English, anything in 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 that stops you. It’s like a boundary. It stops from going ahead. So a limiting belief is a belief stops you from improving, a belief that stops you from getting better. And I’d say most English have limiting beliefs and many English students have very strong beliefs. I call these beliefs English trauma and I got that name from a few my Japanese students. They would tell me “AJ, I can’t English well because I have English trauma.”
What English trauma? What is that, what are they talking about? Well, means some kind of injury, some kind of hurt. hurt, deep 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 schools, they had very negative experiences. And all these negative experiences have created some very negative beliefs, very limiting beliefs. For example, they say “I am not good English.” Well, that’s a belief. It may be true, may not be true. But it’s an opinion, it’s a that they have.
Another belief, a very common belief, English is difficult. Or, English complicated. Well, that’s just a belief. For me English very easy, because I’m a speaker, just like your native language for you is very easy. Tomoe can speak Japanese because she’s Japanese, so I might say “Japanese is difficult,” and she would say “No, Japanese is super easy.” are just beliefs that come from our experiences. The problem is these limiting beliefs limit us. They in do limit us. They stop us from
getting better. They cause a lot of problems for us students, as learners. I have them, too. As I to learn Japanese, for example, I have a lot of limiting beliefs I realize. I think “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” is complicated, just look at the writing system. It’s 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 a small American child, could learn very effortlessly, very easily. And the reason is, the one reason is, they don’t have the limiting beliefs. They sing songs and play games and enjoy the language, they’ll learn it so quickly, so easily, they’ll say “Japanese easy.” Well, it’s the same with English with you. You in a very painful, difficult way in the past. And so you developed, you created beliefs in your head. English is difficult. English is boring. English is painful. I’m not at English. I’ll never speak excellent English. These are beliefs.
So how do you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you these beliefs. You know they’re negative, you know they’re not helping you. But we have figure out, how can we get rid of the limiting beliefs? That’s the first step, you to weaken them. You have to make them weaker weaker and weaker. You have to cut them down. Well beliefs get from references. And reference is just an experience or memory. Sometimes it’s just something you imagine, actually. But it’s a specific experience or a specific imagination, a moment, that makes the belief stronger or weaker. So, example, you have this idea “English is painful and boring.” And when you of this belief, where does it come from?

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

You have to question the experiences. the power away from the experiences. And an easy way to that is just to ask questions about them. For example, let me ask this question. Your English schools, were they excellent? Were they just fantastic schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? Did you 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 English is not great because you did not go to great schools. And did those schools you went to, or the books you used, did use proven methods? Did they use research-based methods? Did know a lot about the research about English learning, English teaching? Did they only the best methods? Or did they just use the textbook that else uses?
Well, I know from my experience as a teacher, most schools just use same textbooks. They don’t know why. Maybe the boss tells them “We must use this book.” they’re not choosing the very, very best methods. They’re not the very, very best books. And so maybe the reason you believe English is difficult is because you difficult methods in the 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 the problem. Maybe it was these past experiences. Maybe was the way you did it or where you it. Ask yourself these questions. Think about them in detail. Weaken your beliefs. Challenge your limiting beliefs. Another question, in school did you learn deeply? For example, you take one chapter in your book and learn it a long time so that you totally mastered it, so that you knew it completely, 100% never forgot it? Probably not, most schools I have seen and ones I have taught in, it’s quite the opposite. The go very, very, very quickly. You learn one chapter in your book, boom, after one on to the next one, and the next one. Each chapter so many new words, so much new grammar.
For example, my with Spanish in high school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve a total of maybe two years of Spanish, but forgot it all. Because we never learned deeply. They just to make us learn as many words as possible, lot of words, a lot of words, a lot of grammar, very, fast. And then, of course, I forgot everything. How about you? Did you learn deeply your schools? If not, maybe that was one of problems. Maybe English feels difficult because you never learned deeply. English is not the problem.
Finally, did you with a grammar translation method? Did you study a lot grammar rules? Did you take a lot of tests? Did you feel about that? Again, maybe the method was the problem. Maybe the school is problem, not English. So think about these questions and think them every day. Think about them a lot, especially this as you listen to Lesson Number 4. I want you to think about these 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 not difficult. is not painful. English is not boring. It’s only belief. It’s only a past 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 to empower, verb, to empower means to make stronger. It means to give power to another person. Or this case, it means the beliefs give you power. empowering belief is a belief that makes you feel powerful, gives you power. That’s the kind of beliefs you and you need to choose them. You must decide which beliefs will make you stronger. For example, here’s empowering belief. You can replace your old limiting belief, this one instead. You can say “My brain is a natural learning machine.” Because that’s what all of the scientific research shows, our naturally learns languages. It is designed to learn language. It be easy. It should be effortless. It should feel good. You learned your native language way. It wasn’t difficult was it? English was easy for to learn, because I did it in a totally natural way. the more naturally I tried to learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, the easier it feels. this is a new belief and you should write down, think about it. Write down this idea, this belief “My brain is natural language learning machine.” Think about it every day. to choose that belief. Here’s another belief you might decide to choose “English can be and effortless.”

English can be fun and effortless. That’s empowering belief and it’s also true. You can think of a lot of examples for this. 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 and 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, you need references, you examples that prove the belief. So I’m going to give some examples and you can find more. Go find people who speak English very well. Or even that have learned another language very well. I’ll give you of 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 he’s a friend, I’ve talked to him a number times, and Steve believes, for example, that language learning easy and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a native speaker, he speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, he speaks Japanese, speaks Russian. These are all, supposedly, difficult languages. For him they’re difficult. They’re easy and effortless. That’s a very strong belief has.

Another belief he has is that you must learn language and you must focus on meaning. So in other words, doesn’t focus on the grammar. He’s not focusing on textbooks. He’s reading interesting things that he enjoys. He’s to interesting things that he enjoys. So, for him, language learning interesting. What’s really interesting for me is that these the same beliefs that all of my best students have. all have these same ideas. The best students, the ones who learn fastest, the ones who have the best test scores, the ones with the best speaking, all believe these things. They all believe that English fun, interesting and effortless. They all believe that language learning natural. They all believe that they should focus on the meaning, not on the grammar and the little of the language. So if you want to be 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. is the last thing, the last part of this lesson. What want you to do is write down two, three, empowering 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 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 again. It has almost a magic idea, it comes from magic. incantation is a magical sentence. It’s a sentence, you say the something will happen. That’s where it comes from. But for us an incantation is just a belief are going to repeat again and again and again 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 day while you’re walking along and you’re doing your posture. 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 and effortless.” You’re going to say it with some emotion. Say with feeling so you’re smiling, you’re breathing deep, you’re moving your body, you have good posture now you’re also saying these strong beliefs. English can be and effortless. You repeat it again. English can be fun and effortless. then you 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 everyone look 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 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.”