Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another important part of managing your psychology, of your psychology so that you will learn English, or anything in fact, much faster. And are two kinds of beliefs to general categories of beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s about limiting beliefs first. Now limiting means, limit is something that stops you. It’s like boundary. It stops you from going ahead. So a limiting belief is a belief that stops you improving, a belief that stops you from getting better. I’d say most English students have limiting beliefs and many English have very strong limiting beliefs. I call these beliefs English trauma and I got name from a few of my Japanese students. They would tell me “AJ, I can’t speak well because I have English trauma.”
What is English trauma? What is that, are they talking about? Well, trauma means some kind of injury, kind of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep emotional hurt. So what they is that they had some very negative, painful experiences English in the past. In other words, when they were school in English classes, even as adults going to other schools, they had very negative experiences. And all these negative experiences have created some negative beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. For example, they say “I am good at English.” Well, that’s a belief. It may true, it may not be true. But it’s an opinion, it’s belief that they have.
Another belief, a very 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 very easy. Tomoe can Japanese fluently because she’s Japanese, so I might say “Japanese is difficult,” and she would say “No, Japanese super easy.” These are just beliefs that come from experiences. The problem is these limiting beliefs limit us. They fact do limit us. They stop us from
getting better. They cause a lot of problems us as students, as learners. I have them, too. I try to learn Japanese, for example, I have lot of these limiting beliefs I realize. I think “Oh, Japanese is difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look at the writing system. It’s different from English. And these beliefs hurt my motivation. They lower my energy, and fact they’re wrong.
They’re not true. Japanese does not have to difficult, it does not have to be compli- cated. A child, even a 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 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 same with English with you. You learned in a very painful, difficult way the past. And so you developed, you created these in your head. English is difficult. English is boring. English is painful. I’m good at English. I’ll never speak excellent English. These just beliefs.
So how do you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have beliefs. You know they’re negative, you know they’re not helping you. But have to figure out, how can we get rid of the limiting beliefs? That’s the step, you have to weaken them. You have to make them weaker and weaker and weaker. You to cut them down. Well beliefs get stronger from references. And reference is an experience or a memory. Sometimes it’s just something imagine, actually. But it’s a specific experience or a specific imagination, specific moment, that makes the belief stronger or weaker. So, for example, you have this idea “English is painful boring.” And when you think of this belief, where does come from?

Well, you think of all these past experiences. You think of the time in middle where your teacher corrected your mistake and you felt terrible. you think of maybe the bad grades you got on the or all the red marks on your English papers. And you start more and more and more memories, more of these negative experiences, these negative references. And if you enough, you will develop a very, strong, deep, powerful belief “English 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. Take the power away from the experiences. an easy way to do that is just to ask questions about them. For example, 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 most of you the answer is no. So that’s interesting, so your schools were not excellent, maybe the school was problem. Maybe it’s not you. Maybe your English is great because you did not go to great schools. did those schools that you went to, or the you 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 only use best methods? Or did they just use the textbook that everybody else uses?
Well, I know my experience as a teacher, most schools just use the same textbooks. They don’t know why. Maybe the tells them “We must use this book.” But they’re not the very, very best methods. They’re not choosing the very, very books. And so maybe the reason you believe English is difficult is you used difficult methods in the past, or your did. Maybe you think English is boring because in the you used boring methods. You went to boring schools. You had teachers. Maybe English isn’t the problem. Maybe it was past experiences. Maybe it was the way you did or where you did it. Ask yourself these questions. Think about them in detail. Weaken your limiting beliefs. your limiting beliefs. Another question, in school did you learn deeply? For example, did take one chapter in your book and learn it for a long so that you totally mastered it, so that you knew it completely, 100% 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 your book, boom, after one week on to the next one, and the next one. Each chapter so many new words, so much new grammar.
example, my experience with Spanish in high school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve had a total of two years of Spanish, but I forgot it all. Because never learned deeply. They just tried to make us as many words as possible, a lot of words, a lot words, a lot of grammar, very, very fast. And then, of course, I forgot everything. about you? Did you learn deeply in your schools? not, maybe that was one of the problems. Maybe English feels difficult because you never deeply. Maybe 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 good about that? Again, maybe the method was the problem. Maybe school is the problem, not English. So think about these questions and think about every day. Think about them a lot, especially this week you listen to Lesson Number 4. I want you to think about these again and again and again. And really be honest about it. And start to destroy limiting beliefs. Get rid of them. They’re wrong. English is not difficult. English not painful. English is not boring. It’s only a belief. It’s only a past experience. You can that now and in the future. So let’s do that.

Let’s talk now empowering beliefs, the positive side. So to empower, the verb, to means to make stronger. It means to give power to another person. Or in this case, means the beliefs give you power. An empowering belief a belief that makes you feel powerful, that gives you power. That’s kind of beliefs you want and you need to choose them. You must decide which beliefs will you stronger. For example, here’s an empowering belief. You can your old limiting belief, add this one instead. You say “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Because that’s what of the scientific research shows, our brain naturally learns languages. It designed 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 in totally natural way. And the more naturally I tried learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, the easier it feels. So this is a new belief you should write it down, think about it. Write down this idea, this “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Think about it day. Decide to choose that belief. Here’s another belief you might to choose “English can be fun and effortless.”

English be fun 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 you want to choose and want to remember it every day.

And to make beliefs stronger, you need experiences. Remember, you need references, you need examples that prove the belief. I’m going to give you some examples and you find more. Go find people who speak English very well. Or maybe even that have learned language very well. I’ll give you one of my favorite examples, Steve Kaufman The Linguist speaks, I believe, twelve languages now. I want you to find these people and at their beliefs. I’ll tell you some of his beliefs because he’s a friend, I’ve talked to a number of times, and Steve believes, for example, language learning is easy and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a English speaker, he speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, he speaks Japanese, he speaks Russian. These are all, supposedly, languages. For him they’re not difficult. They’re easy and effortless. That’s very strong belief he has.

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

You can do this in your and its fine. You can do it outside and make everyone at you and think you’re crazy. Why not? It’s than feeling powerless, right? It’s better than being bored. I you will learn so much faster if you do this. So do incantations every day just before you do a lesson. Get your body strong, peak emotional state, then say these incantations. English can be fun and effortless. English can fun and effortless. Now your body, your mind, your beliefs, they’re all together, very strong. you’re ready to learn.

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