Beliefs

BELIEFS

Hello, welcome 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 will learn English, or in fact, much faster. And there are two kinds 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 from improving, a belief that stops you from getting better. I’d say most English students have limiting beliefs and English students have very strong limiting beliefs. I call these beliefs English and I got that name from a few of my Japanese students. would tell me “AJ, I can’t speak English well because I have trauma.”
What is English trauma? What is that, are they talking about? Well, trauma means some kind injury, some kind of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep emotional hurt. So they mean is that they had some very negative, painful experiences with English the past. In other words, when they were in school in English classes, as adults going to other English schools, they had 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. It be true, it may not be true. But it’s opinion, it’s a belief that they have.
Another belief, a common belief, English is difficult. Or, English is complicated. Well, that’s just belief. For me English very easy, because I’m a native speaker, just like your native language you is very easy. Tomoe can speak Japanese fluently because she’s Japanese, I might say “Japanese is difficult,” and she would say “No, Japanese is easy.” These are just beliefs that come from our experiences. The 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. 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 motivation. They lower my energy, and in fact they’re wrong.
They’re not true. does not have to be difficult, it does not have be compli- cated. A small child, even a small child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And the reason is, the one reason is, they don’t have the limiting beliefs. They can sing songs and play games and the language, and they’ll learn it so quickly, so easily, they’ll say “Japanese easy.” Well, it’s the same with English with you. You learned 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 good at English. I’ll never speak excellent English. These are beliefs.
So how do you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. You know they’re negative, you they’re not helping you. But we have to figure out, how can we rid of the limiting beliefs? That’s the first step, you have to weaken them. have to make them weaker and weaker and weaker. You have to them down. Well beliefs get stronger from references. And reference is just an or a memory. Sometimes it’s just something you imagine, actually. But it’s a experience or a specific imagination, a specific moment, that the belief stronger or weaker. So, for example, you this idea “English is painful and boring.” And when think of this belief, where does it come from?

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

You to question the experiences. Take the power away from experiences. And an easy way to do that is to ask questions about them. For example, let me this question. Your past English schools, were they excellent? they just fantastic English schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive teachers? Did you have a great time every day? Well, I know for of you the answer is no. So that’s interesting, if your schools were not excellent, maybe the school was the problem. Maybe it’s not you. your English is not great because you did not go to great schools. And did schools that you went to, or the books you used, did they use proven methods? they use research-based methods? Did they know a lot about the research English learning, English teaching? Did they only use the methods? Or did they just use the textbook that everybody uses?
Well, I know from my experience as a teacher, most just use the same textbooks. They don’t know why. Maybe the boss tells them “We must use book.” But they’re not choosing the very, very best methods. They’re not the very, very best books. And so maybe the reason you believe is difficult is because you used difficult methods in the past, or your teachers did. Maybe you 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. Maybe it was these past experiences. Maybe 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? For example, did you take one chapter in book and learn it for a long time so that you totally mastered it, so that knew it completely, 100% and never forgot it? Probably not, most schools have seen and the ones I have taught in, it’s quite the opposite. teachers go very, very, very quickly. You learn one chapter in your book, boom, after 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 a total of maybe two years of Spanish, but I forgot it all. Because we never learned deeply. just tried to make us learn as many words possible, a lot of words, a lot of words, a of grammar, very, very fast. And then, of course, I forgot everything. about you? Did you learn deeply in your schools? If not, maybe that one of the problems. Maybe English feels difficult because you never learned deeply. Maybe English is not problem.
Finally, did you learn with a grammar translation method? you study a lot of grammar rules? Did you a lot of tests? Did you feel good about that? Again, the method was the problem. Maybe the school is the problem, English. So think about these questions and think about them every day. about them a lot, especially this week as you listen to Number 4. I want you to think about these questions again and again and again. And be honest about it. And start to destroy these limiting beliefs. rid of them. They’re wrong. English is not difficult. 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 to empower, the verb, to 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 that makes you feel powerful, that gives power. That’s the kind of beliefs you want and you need to choose them. You must decide beliefs will make you stronger. For example, here’s an empowering belief. can replace your old limiting belief, add this one instead. You can say “My brain is a natural learning machine.” Because that’s what all of the scientific research shows, our brain naturally learns languages. It designed to learn language. It should be easy. It should effortless. It should feel good. You learned your native that way. It wasn’t difficult was it? English was easy for me to learn, I did it in a totally natural way. And more naturally I tried to learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, the easier feels. So this is a new belief and you should write it down, think about it. Write down idea, this belief “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” about it every day. Decide to choose that belief. Here’s belief you might decide to choose “English can be and effortless.”

English can be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering belief it’s also true. You can think of a lot of examples for this. Some these 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 you want to remember it every day.

And to make these stronger, you need experiences. Remember, you need references, you need that prove the belief. So I’m going to give you some and you can find more. Go find people who speak English very well. Or maybe even that learned another language very well. I’ll give you one my favorite examples, Steve Kaufman of The Linguist speaks, I believe, twelve languages now. I 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 learning is easy effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a native English speaker, he speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, he speaks Japanese, speaks 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 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 textbooks. He’s reading interesting things that he enjoys. He’s to interesting things that he enjoys. So, for him, language learning is interesting. What’s really interesting for is that these are the same beliefs that all of my best have. They all have these same ideas. The best students, the who learn the fastest, the ones who have the best test scores, the ones the best speaking, they all believe these things. They all believe that is fun, interesting and effortless. They all believe that language learning is natural. They all that they should focus on the meaning, not on grammar and the little pieces of the language. So you want to be like these successful people, you to think like them. You need to have the same as them.
So here’s what I want you to do. Here’s your homework. is the last thing, the last part of this lesson. What I want to do is write down two, three, four empowering beliefs, beliefs that you power about English. Maybe “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Maybe “English be fun and effortless.” Maybe “I love 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 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 incantation a magical sentence. It’s a sentence, you say the something will happen. That’s where it comes from. But us an incantation is just a belief you are going repeat 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 to say that out loud day while you’re walking along and you’re doing your posture. And you’re and you’re smiling. Well, you’re going to add one more thing. As you walk, you’re getting ready for the lesson, you’re going to repeat this loud. You’re going to say “English can be fun and effortless.” You’re going say it with some emotion. Say it with feeling so you’re smiling, you’re breathing deep, you’re moving body, you have good posture and now you’re also these strong beliefs. English can be fun and effortless. You repeat again. English can be fun and effortless. And then you 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 at you and think you’re crazy. Why not? It’s better feeling powerless, right? It’s better than being bored. I promise you will so much faster if you do this. So do incantations every day just before you do a lesson. Get your strong, peak emotional state, and then say these incantations. English can fun and effortless. English can be fun and effortless. Now body, your mind, your beliefs, they’re all together, very strong. Then you’re ready learn.

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