Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another important of managing your psychology, of strengthening your psychology so that you learn English, or anything in fact, much faster. And there are two kinds of beliefs to general of beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s talk about limiting beliefs first. Now means, limit is something that stops you. It’s like a boundary. It stops from going ahead. So a limiting belief is a that stops you from improving, a belief that stops from getting better. And I’d say most English students have limiting beliefs and many English students have very limiting beliefs. I call these beliefs English trauma and I that name from a few of my Japanese students. would tell me “AJ, I can’t speak English well I have English trauma.”
What is English trauma? is that, what are they talking about? Well, trauma some kind of injury, some kind of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep hurt. So what they mean is that they had very negative, painful experiences with English in the past. In other words, when they in school in English classes, even as adults going to other English schools, they very negative experiences. And all these negative experiences have created very negative beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. For example, they “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 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 speaker, just like your native language for you is easy. Tomoe can speak Japanese fluently because she’s Japanese, so I might “Japanese is difficult,” and she would say “No, Japanese is super easy.” These just beliefs that come from our experiences. The problem is limiting beliefs limit us. They in fact do limit us. They stop us from
getting better. They cause lot of problems for us 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 so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look at the system. It’s so different from English. And these beliefs hurt my motivation. 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. 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, and they’ll learn it quickly, so easily, they’ll say “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s the same with with you. You learned in a very painful, difficult way in the past. And so you developed, created these beliefs 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 you. But we have to figure out, how can get rid of the limiting beliefs? That’s the first step, you have weaken them. You have to make them weaker and and weaker. You have to cut them down. Well beliefs get stronger from references. And reference is just experience or a memory. Sometimes it’s just something you imagine, actually. But it’s a specific experience or a imagination, a specific moment, that makes the belief stronger or weaker. So, for example, have this idea “English is painful and boring.” And when you of this belief, where does it come from?

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

You have to question the experiences. Take the power away the experiences. And an easy way to do that is just 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 have a great time every day? Well, I know for most of the answer is no. So that’s interesting, so if schools were not excellent, maybe the school was the problem. it’s not you. Maybe your English is not great you did not go to great schools. And did those schools that you went to, or books 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 use the best methods? Or did they just use the that everybody else uses?
Well, I know from experience as a teacher, most schools just use the textbooks. They don’t know why. Maybe the boss tells “We must use this book.” But they’re not choosing very, very best methods. They’re not choosing the very, very best books. And so maybe reason you believe English is difficult is because you difficult methods in the past, or your teachers did. you think English is boring because in the past you used boring methods. You went boring schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe English isn’t the problem. 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 learn deeply? For example, did you take one chapter in your and learn it for a long time so that you mastered it, so that you knew it completely, 100% and never it? Probably not, most schools I have seen and the ones I have taught in, it’s quite opposite. The teachers go very, very, very quickly. You learn one in your book, boom, after one week on to the 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 Spanish, but I forgot it all. Because we never learned deeply. They tried to make us learn as many words as possible, a lot of words, a lot of words, lot of grammar, very, very fast. And then, of course, I forgot everything. How about you? you learn deeply in your schools? If not, maybe that was one of the problems. Maybe English difficult because you never learned deeply. Maybe English is not the problem.
Finally, did you learn with grammar translation method? Did you study a lot of grammar rules? you take a lot of tests? Did you feel about that? Again, maybe the method was the problem. Maybe school is the problem, not English. So think about these and think about them every day. Think about them a lot, especially this as you listen to Lesson Number 4. I want you to about these questions again and again and again. And really honest about 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 a belief. It’s only past experience. You can change that now and in the future. So let’s do that.

Let’s now about empowering 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 the beliefs you power. An empowering belief is a belief that makes you feel powerful, gives you power. That’s the kind of beliefs you want and 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.” that’s what all of the scientific research shows, our brain naturally learns languages. is designed to learn language. It should be easy. It should effortless. It should feel good. You learned your native language that way. It wasn’t was it? English was easy for me to learn, because I did it in a totally way. And the more naturally I tried to learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, easier it feels. So this is a new belief and you write it down, think about it. Write down this idea, this belief “My brain a natural language learning machine.” Think about it every day. Decide to that belief. Here’s another belief you might decide to choose “English can fun and effortless.”

English can be fun and effortless. That’s empowering belief and it’s also true. You can think a lot of examples for this. Some of these mini-stories you’re to, right? They’re fun. They’re stupid, sometimes. They’re crazy, sometimes. But they’re not serious. English be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering belief you want to and you want to remember it every day.

And make these beliefs stronger, you need experiences. Remember, you need references, need examples that prove the belief. So I’m going to give you some examples you can find more. Go find people who speak very well. Or maybe even that have learned another very well. I’ll give you one of my favorite examples, Steve of 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 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, he Russian. These are all, supposedly, difficult languages. For him they’re difficult. They’re easy and effortless. That’s a very strong belief he has.

Another he has is that you must learn language naturally you must focus on meaning. So in other words, he doesn’t on the grammar. He’s not focusing on boring textbooks. He’s reading interesting things that enjoys. He’s listening to interesting things that he enjoys. So, for him, language is interesting. What’s really interesting for me is that these are the same beliefs that all of my 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 ones with best speaking, they all believe these things. They all believe that English is fun, interesting effortless. They all believe that language learning is natural. They 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 successful people, you need to think like them. You to have the same beliefs as them.
So here’s I want you to do. Here’s your homework. This the last thing, the last part of this lesson. What I you to do is write down two, three, four empowering beliefs, that give you power about English. Maybe “My brain is natural language learning machine.” Maybe “English can be fun effortless.” Maybe “I love English.” I don’t know, write down, two, three, four empowering beliefs about English. And every day you’re to do an incantation. That’s a 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. An is a magical sentence. It’s a sentence, you say sentence something will happen. That’s where it comes from. for us an incantation is just a belief you are going to again and again and again every day.So here’s what you’re to 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 your posture. And you’re breathing and you’re smiling. Well, you’re going to add more thing. As you walk, as you’re getting ready the lesson, you’re going to repeat this out loud. You’re going to say “English be fun and effortless.” You’re going to say it with some emotion. Say it with so you’re smiling, you’re breathing deep, you’re moving your body, you have good posture and you’re also saying these strong beliefs. English can be fun and effortless. You it again. English can be fun and effortless. And then you say it again. English be fun and effortless.

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

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