Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another important part of managing your psychology, of strengthening your psychology that you will learn English, or anything in fact, faster. And there are two kinds of beliefs to general categories beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s talk about limiting beliefs first. Now limiting means, limit is something stops you. It’s like a boundary. It stops you going ahead. So a limiting belief is a belief that stops you from improving, a belief that you from getting better. And I’d say most English 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. They would tell “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 of injury, some of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep emotional hurt. So what they is that they had some very negative, painful experiences with English in past. In other words, when they were in school in English classes, even as adults going to English schools, they had very negative experiences. And all these negative have created some very negative beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. For example, they say “I not good at English.” Well, that’s a belief. It may be true, it may not true. But it’s an 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 speaker, just like 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 are just beliefs that come our experiences. The problem is these limiting beliefs limit us. They fact do limit us. They stop us from
better. They cause a lot of problems for us students, as learners. I have them, too. As I try learn Japanese, for example, I have a lot of limiting beliefs I realize. I think “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look at the system. It’s so 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 child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And reason is, the number one reason is, they don’t have the beliefs. They can sing songs and play games and 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. You learned 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 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 we have to 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 weaker. You have to cut them down. Well beliefs get stronger from references. reference is just an experience or a memory. Sometimes it’s just something imagine, actually. But it’s a specific experience or a specific imagination, a specific moment, that the belief stronger or weaker. So, for example, you have idea “English is painful and boring.” And when you think this belief, where does it come from?

Well, you think of all these past experiences. You of the time in middle school where your teacher corrected your and you felt terrible. And you think of maybe bad grades 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 negative experiences, these negative references. And if you get enough, you will develop a very, strong, deep, belief “English is difficult. English is painful. I’m not at English.” So to weaken these, you just have to the references.

You have to question the experiences. Take power away from the 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? Were just fantastic English schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? Did you have a great every day? Well, I know for most of you the answer no. So that’s interesting, so if your schools were not excellent, maybe the school was the problem. it’s not you. Maybe your English is not great because you did not to great schools. And did those schools that you to, or the books you used, did they use proven methods? Did use research-based methods? Did they know a lot about the research about English learning, English teaching? Did they use the best methods? Or did they just use textbook that everybody else uses?
Well, I know from my experience as a teacher, most just use the same textbooks. They don’t know why. the boss tells them “We must use this book.” But they’re not the very, very best methods. They’re not choosing the very, very best books. so maybe the reason you believe English is difficult is because you used difficult methods the past, or your teachers did. Maybe you think English boring because in the past you used boring methods. You to boring schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe English isn’t the problem. it was these past experiences. Maybe it was the way you did it where you did it. Ask yourself these questions. Think them in detail. Weaken your limiting beliefs. Challenge your beliefs. Another question, in school did you learn deeply? For example, did take one chapter in your book and learn it for a time so that you totally mastered it, so that knew it completely, 100% and never forgot it? Probably not, schools I have seen and the ones I have taught in, it’s quite the opposite. The teachers very, very, very quickly. You learn one chapter in book, boom, after one week on to the next one, and the next one. chapter has so many new words, so much new grammar.
example, my experience with Spanish in high school and university, took 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? Did you learn in your schools? If not, maybe that was one the problems. Maybe English feels difficult because you never learned deeply. English is not the problem.
Finally, did you learn a grammar translation method? Did you study a lot of grammar rules? Did you take a of tests? Did you feel good about that? Again, maybe the method was the problem. Maybe the is the problem, not English. So think about these questions and think about them every day. Think them a lot, especially this week as you listen Lesson Number 4. I want you to think about these questions and again and again. And really be honest about it. And start to these 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 change that now and in the future. So let’s do that.

Let’s now about empowering beliefs, the positive side. So to empower, verb, to empower means to make stronger. It means give power to another person. Or in this case, it means the give you power. An empowering belief is a belief that makes feel powerful, that gives you power. That’s the kind of you want and you need to choose them. You must decide which will make you stronger. For example, here’s an empowering belief. can replace your old limiting belief, add this one instead. can 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. should be effortless. It should feel good. You learned your native that way. It wasn’t difficult was it? English was easy me to learn, because I did it in a natural way. And the more naturally I tried to Japanese, for example, or Spanish, the easier it feels. this is a 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 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 serious. English can be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering 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 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 that have learned another language very well. I’ll give one of my favorite examples, Steve Kaufman of The Linguist speaks, believe, twelve languages now. I want 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 a number of times, and Steve believes, for example, that language learning easy and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a native English speaker, speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, he speaks Japanese, he speaks Russian. These all, supposedly, difficult languages. For him they’re not difficult. They’re and effortless. That’s a 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 boring 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 for me is that these are the same beliefs that all of my best students have. They have these same ideas. The best students, the ones who learn the fastest, the ones have the best test scores, the ones with the best speaking, they all these things. They all believe that English is fun, interesting and effortless. They all that language learning is natural. They all believe that they should focus on meaning, not on the grammar and the little pieces the language. So if you want to be like successful people, you need to think like them. You need to the same beliefs 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 you to do is write down two, three, four beliefs, beliefs that give you 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. And day you’re going to do an incantation. That’s a word, that’s a new word, incantation.
An incantation is a phrase or sentence that you say and again. It has almost a magic idea, it from magic. An incantation is a magical sentence. It’s sentence, you say the sentence something will happen. That’s where it comes from. But for an incantation is just a belief you are going to repeat again again and again every day.So here’s what you’re going do. For example “English can be fun and effortless.” You’re to say that out loud every 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 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. it with feeling so you’re smiling, you’re breathing deep, you’re your body, you 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 it again. English can be fun and effortless.

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

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