Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are important part of managing your psychology, of strengthening your psychology that you will learn English, or anything in fact, much faster. And there are two kinds beliefs to general categories of beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s talk about limiting 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 you improving, a belief that stops you from getting better. And I’d most English students have limiting beliefs and many English students have very limiting beliefs. I call these beliefs English trauma and got that name from a few of my Japanese students. would tell me “AJ, I can’t speak English well because I have English trauma.”
is English trauma? What is that, what are they about? Well, trauma means some kind of injury, some of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep emotional hurt. So what mean is that they had some very negative, painful experiences with in the past. In other words, when they were school in English classes, even as adults going to English schools, they had very negative experiences. And all these negative experiences created some very negative beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. For example, they say “I am not at English.” Well, that’s a belief. It may be true, it not be true. But it’s an opinion, it’s a belief that have.
Another belief, a very common belief, English is difficult. Or, is complicated. Well, that’s just a belief. For me very easy, because I’m a native speaker, just like your native for you is very easy. Tomoe can speak Japanese fluently she’s Japanese, so I might say “Japanese is difficult,” and would say “No, Japanese is super easy.” These are just beliefs that from our experiences. The problem is these limiting beliefs limit us. They fact do limit us. They stop us from
getting better. They a lot of problems for us as students, as learners. have them, too. As I try to learn Japanese, for example, have a lot of these limiting beliefs I realize. I “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look at the writing system. It’s so different English. And these beliefs hurt my motivation. They lower my energy, and fact they’re wrong.
They’re not true. Japanese does not to be difficult, it does not have to be compli- cated. A small child, even a American child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. the 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 so quickly, so easily, they’ll say “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s same with English with you. 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 at English. I’ll never speak excellent English. These are beliefs.
So how do you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. know they’re negative, you know they’re not helping you. But have to figure out, how can we get rid of the limiting beliefs? That’s the first step, have to weaken them. You have to make them weaker and and weaker. You have to cut them down. Well beliefs get stronger references. And reference is just an experience or a memory. it’s just something you imagine, actually. But it’s a specific experience a specific imagination, a specific moment, that makes the belief stronger or weaker. So, for example, you this idea “English is painful and boring.” And when you think of this belief, where does it from?

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

You have to question the experiences. the power away from the experiences. And an easy 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 just fantastic English with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? Did you a great time every day? Well, I know for most you the answer is no. So that’s interesting, so if your schools 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 those schools that you went to, or the books you used, they use proven methods? Did they use research-based methods? Did they know lot about the research about English learning, English teaching? Did they only the best methods? Or did they just use the textbook that else uses?
Well, I know from my experience as a teacher, most schools just use the textbooks. They don’t know why. Maybe 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. And maybe the reason you believe English is difficult is because used difficult methods in the past, or your teachers did. Maybe you think English boring because in the past you used boring methods. went to boring schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe isn’t the problem. Maybe it was these past experiences. Maybe it was the way you did it or you did it. Ask yourself these questions. Think about them detail. Weaken your limiting beliefs. Challenge your limiting beliefs. Another question, school did you learn deeply? For example, did you take chapter in your book and learn it for a long so that you totally mastered it, so that you knew completely, 100% and never forgot it? Probably not, most schools I seen and the ones I have taught in, it’s quite opposite. The teachers go very, very, very quickly. You one chapter in your book, boom, after one week to the next one, and the next one. Each chapter so many new words, so much new grammar.
For example, my experience with in high school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve had total of maybe two years of Spanish, but I forgot all. Because we never learned deeply. They just tried to make learn as many words as possible, a lot of words, a of words, a lot of grammar, very, very fast. And then, 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. Maybe is not the problem.
Finally, did you learn a grammar translation method? Did you study a lot grammar rules? Did you take a lot of tests? Did you feel about that? Again, maybe the method was the problem. Maybe the is the problem, not English. So think about these and think about them every day. Think about them a lot, this week as you listen to Lesson Number 4. I want you to think about these questions and again and again. And really be honest about it. start to destroy these limiting beliefs. Get rid of them. They’re wrong. English is not difficult. English is not painful. English not boring. It’s only a belief. It’s only a past experience. 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 empower means make stronger. It means to give power to another person. Or this case, it means the beliefs give you power. An empowering belief is a belief makes you feel powerful, that gives you power. That’s the kind beliefs you want and you need to choose them. You must decide which beliefs make you stronger. For example, here’s an empowering belief. You can your old limiting belief, add this one instead. You can say “My brain a natural language learning machine.” Because that’s what all of 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. learned your native language that way. It wasn’t difficult was it? English was easy for me learn, because I did it in a totally natural way. And more naturally I tried to learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, the easier it feels. So this a new belief and you should write it down, think about it. down this idea, this belief “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Think about it every day. to choose that belief. Here’s another belief you might decide choose “English can be fun 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 this. Some of these mini-stories you’re listening 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, you need examples that prove the belief. I’m going to give you some examples and you can find more. Go people who speak English very well. Or maybe even that have learned another language well. I’ll give you one of my favorite examples, Kaufman of The Linguist speaks, I believe, twelve languages now. I want you to find these people and look 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 English speaker, he speaks Cantonese, speaks Mandarin, he speaks Japanese, he speaks Russian. These are all, supposedly, difficult languages. For him they’re difficult. They’re easy and effortless. That’s a very strong he has.

Another belief he has is that you must learn language naturally you must focus on meaning. So in other words, 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 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 students, the ones who learn the fastest, the ones have the best test scores, the ones with the best speaking, they all believe these things. They believe that English is fun, interesting and effortless. They all believe 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 like these successful people, you need to think like them. You need to have same beliefs as them.
So here’s what I you to do. Here’s your homework. This is the last thing, last part of this lesson. What I want you do is write down two, three, four empowering beliefs, that give you power about English. Maybe “My brain is a language learning machine.” Maybe “English can be fun and effortless.” Maybe “I love English.” I don’t know, down, two, three, four 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 is a or sentence that you say again and again. It has almost a magic idea, it from magic. An incantation is a magical sentence. It’s a sentence, you the sentence something will happen. That’s where it comes from. But for us incantation is just a belief you are going to again and 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 along and you’re doing your posture. And you’re breathing and you’re smiling. Well, you’re going to one more thing. As you walk, as you’re getting ready for the lesson, you’re going repeat this out loud. You’re going to say “English can 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 strong beliefs. English can be fun and effortless. You 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 than being bored. I you will learn so much faster if you do this. So do these every day just before you do a lesson. Get your body strong, peak emotional state, then say these incantations. English can be fun and effortless. English can be and effortless. Now your body, your mind, your beliefs, they’re all together, strong. Then you’re ready to learn.

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