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 will English, or anything in fact, much faster. And there two kinds of beliefs to general categories of beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s talk limiting 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 stops you from improving, a belief that stops you from getting better. And I’d say most English students limiting beliefs and many English students have very strong limiting beliefs. call these beliefs English trauma and I got that name from a few of Japanese students. They would tell me “AJ, I can’t speak English because I have English trauma.”
What is English trauma? What is that, what they talking about? Well, trauma means some kind of injury, some kind of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep emotional hurt. what they mean is that they had some very negative, painful experiences with English in the past. In 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 experiences have some very negative beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. For example, say “I am not good at English.” Well, that’s belief. It may be true, it may not be true. it’s an opinion, it’s a belief that they have.
belief, a very common belief, English is difficult. Or, English is complicated. Well, that’s just a belief. For English very easy, because I’m a native speaker, just your native language for you is very easy. Tomoe speak Japanese fluently because she’s Japanese, so I might say “Japanese difficult,” and she would say “No, Japanese is super easy.” These are just beliefs that come our experiences. The problem is these limiting beliefs limit us. in fact do limit us. They stop us from
getting better. They cause a lot problems for us as students, as learners. I have them, too. As I try to learn Japanese, for example, have a lot of these limiting beliefs I realize. I think “Oh, is so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look at the writing system. It’s so 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, does not have to be compli- cated. A small child, even small American 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 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. learned in a very painful, difficult way in the past. And so developed, you created these beliefs in your head. English difficult. English is boring. English is painful. I’m not good English. I’ll never speak excellent English. These are just beliefs.
So how do you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you these 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 to weaken them. have to make them weaker and weaker and weaker. You have to cut down. Well beliefs get stronger from references. And reference just an experience or a memory. Sometimes it’s just something you imagine, actually. But it’s a specific or a specific imagination, a specific moment, that makes the belief stronger weaker. So, for example, you have this idea “English is painful and boring.” And when you think 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 you of maybe the bad grades you got on the test or all the red on your English papers. And you start adding more and more more memories, more of these negative experiences, these negative references. if you get enough, you will develop a very, strong, deep, powerful belief “English is difficult. is painful. I’m not good at English.” So to weaken these, just have to question the references.

You have to the experiences. Take the power away from the experiences. And easy way to do that is just to ask questions about them. For example, let ask this question. Your past English schools, were they excellent? Were they fantastic English schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? you have a great time 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 went to, or the books 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 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. Maybe the boss tells them “We must this book.” But 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 difficult is because used difficult methods in the past, or your teachers did. Maybe you think English is boring because in past you used boring methods. You went to boring schools. You had teachers. Maybe English isn’t the problem. Maybe it was these past experiences. Maybe it was the way did it or where you did it. Ask yourself these questions. Think about them in detail. your limiting beliefs. Challenge your limiting beliefs. Another question, school did you learn deeply? For example, did you take one in your book and learn it for a long time that you totally mastered it, so that you knew it completely, 100% and never forgot it? Probably not, schools I have seen and the ones I have in, it’s quite the opposite. The teachers go very, very, very quickly. You learn one chapter in book, boom, after one week on to the next one, and the one. Each chapter has so 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 us learn many words as possible, a lot of words, a of words, a lot of grammar, very, very fast. then, of course, I forgot everything. How about you? Did you learn deeply in your schools? If not, that was one of the problems. Maybe English feels difficult because you never learned deeply. Maybe English is the problem.
Finally, did you learn with a grammar translation method? you study a lot of grammar rules? Did you take a lot of tests? Did feel good about that? Again, maybe the method was the problem. Maybe the is the problem, not English. So think about these questions and about them every day. Think about them a lot, especially week as you listen to Lesson Number 4. I you to think about these questions again and again and again. And really honest about it. And start to destroy these limiting beliefs. rid of them. They’re wrong. English is not difficult. English is not painful. English is 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 talk now about empowering beliefs, the side. So to empower, the verb, to 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 you feel powerful, that gives you power. That’s the kind of you want and you need to choose them. You must which beliefs will make you stronger. For example, here’s empowering 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. It is designed to 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? English was easy for to learn, because I did it in a totally natural way. And the more naturally tried to learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, the it feels. So this is a new belief and you should write it down, about it. Write down this idea, this belief “My brain a natural language learning machine.” Think about it every day. to choose that belief. Here’s another belief 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. can think of a lot of examples for this. of 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 it every day.

And to make these beliefs stronger, you experiences. Remember, you need references, you need examples that prove the belief. So I’m going to give some examples and you can find more. Go find people who speak very well. Or maybe even that have learned another language very well. I’ll give you one of my examples, Steve Kaufman of The Linguist speaks, I believe, twelve languages now. want you to find these people and look at their beliefs. I’ll tell you some of beliefs because he’s a friend, I’ve talked to him a number of times, Steve believes, for example, that language learning is easy and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a native 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 you must learn language and you must focus on meaning. So in other words, he doesn’t focus on grammar. He’s not focusing on boring textbooks. He’s reading things that he enjoys. He’s listening to interesting things that enjoys. So, for him, language learning is interesting. What’s 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 ones who learn the fastest, ones who have the best test scores, the ones with 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 believe that should focus on the meaning, not on the grammar and the little pieces the language. So if you want to be like these successful people, you need to think them. You need to have the same beliefs as them.
So here’s what want you to do. Here’s your homework. This is the thing, the last part of this lesson. What I you to do is write down two, three, four empowering beliefs, beliefs that give power about English. Maybe “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Maybe “English can fun and effortless.” Maybe “I love English.” I don’t know, write down, two, three, empowering beliefs about English. And every day you’re going to do an incantation. That’s good word, that’s a new word, incantation.
An incantation a phrase or sentence that you say again and again. It has almost a magic idea, comes from magic. An incantation is a magical sentence. It’s a sentence, you say the sentence something happen. That’s where it comes from. But for us an is just a belief you are going to repeat again and and again every day.So here’s what you’re going to 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. you’re breathing and you’re smiling. Well, you’re going to add one more thing. you walk, as you’re getting ready for the lesson, you’re going to repeat this out loud. You’re going to “English can be 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 body, you have good posture and now you’re also saying these strong beliefs. English can fun and effortless. You repeat it again. English can fun and effortless. And then you say it again. English can fun and effortless.

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

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