Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another important part of your psychology, of strengthening your psychology so that you learn English, or anything in fact, much faster. And are two kinds of beliefs to general categories of beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s talk about beliefs first. Now limiting means, limit is something that stops you. It’s like a boundary. It you from going ahead. So a limiting belief is a belief that stops you from improving, belief that stops you from getting better. And I’d say most English students have limiting and many English students have very strong limiting beliefs. I these beliefs English trauma and I got that name 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, what are talking about? Well, trauma 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 very negative beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. For example, they say “I not good at English.” Well, that’s a belief. It may true, it 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 is complicated. Well, that’s a belief. For me English very easy, because I’m a native speaker, just like native language for you is very easy. Tomoe can speak Japanese fluently because she’s Japanese, so I might “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 do 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 so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look at the writing system. It’s so different from English. And these hurt my motivation. They lower my energy, and in 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 number one reason is, they don’t the limiting beliefs. They can 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 English with 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 painful. I’m not good at English. I’ll never speak English. These are just beliefs.
So how do you these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. You know they’re negative, you know they’re helping you. But we have to figure out, how we get rid of the limiting beliefs? That’s the first step, you have to them. You have to make them weaker and weaker and weaker. 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 makes the belief or weaker. So, for example, you have this idea “English is painful and boring.” And when you think of belief, where does it come from?

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

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

English can be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering belief and it’s also true. 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 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 you 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 one my favorite examples, Steve Kaufman of The Linguist speaks, believe, twelve languages now. I want you to find people and look at their beliefs. I’ll tell you some his beliefs because he’s a friend, I’ve talked to a 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 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 has is that you must learn language naturally and must focus on meaning. So in other words, he doesn’t on the grammar. He’s not focusing on boring textbooks. He’s reading things that he enjoys. He’s listening to interesting things 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 students have. They have these same ideas. The best students, the ones who learn the fastest, the who have the best test scores, the ones with the speaking, they all believe 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 on the meaning, not on the grammar and the pieces of the language. So if you want to be these successful people, you need to think like them. You need 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 want you 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, 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 sentence that you say again and again. It has almost a idea, it comes from magic. An incantation is a magical sentence. It’s sentence, you say the sentence something will happen. That’s it comes from. But for us an incantation is a belief you are going to repeat again and again and every day.So here’s what you’re going to do. For “English can be fun and effortless.” You’re going to say that out every day while you’re walking along and you’re doing your posture. And you’re breathing you’re smiling. Well, you’re going to add one more thing. As you walk, as you’re getting for the lesson, you’re going to repeat this out loud. You’re 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 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 repeat it again. can be fun and effortless. And then you say again. English can be fun and effortless.

You can this in your room and its fine. You can do it outside and everyone look at you and think you’re crazy. Why not? It’s better than feeling powerless, right? It’s than being bored. I promise you will learn so much faster if do this. So do these incantations every day just before you 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 together, very strong. Then you’re ready to learn.

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