Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

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

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

You have to question the experiences. the power away from the experiences. And an easy way to do that just to ask questions about them. For example, let me ask question. Your past English schools, were they excellent? Were they just fantastic English schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, English teachers? Did you have a great time every day? Well, I know for most you the answer is no. So that’s interesting, so if your 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. did those schools that you went to, or the books you used, they use proven methods? Did they use research-based methods? they know a lot about the research about English learning, English teaching? Did they only the best methods? Or did they just use the textbook that everybody else uses?
Well, I from my experience as a teacher, most schools just use the same textbooks. 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 not choosing the very, very books. And so maybe the reason you believe English is difficult is because you used difficult methods in past, or your teachers did. Maybe you think English is boring because in the you used boring methods. You went to boring schools. had boring teachers. Maybe English isn’t the problem. Maybe was these past experiences. Maybe it was the way you it or where you did 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 you take chapter in your book and learn it for a 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 ones 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. Each chapter has so new words, so much new grammar.
For example, my experience with Spanish 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 to make us learn as many words as possible, a lot of words, lot of words, a lot of grammar, very, very fast. And then, of course, I forgot everything. about you? Did you learn deeply in your schools? not, maybe that was one of the problems. Maybe English feels difficult because you learned deeply. Maybe English is not the problem.
Finally, did you learn with a translation method? Did you study a lot of grammar rules? Did 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. 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 and again and again. And really be honest about it. And 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. You can change that now 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 make stronger. It means to give power to another person. in this case, it means the beliefs give you power. An empowering belief is belief that makes you feel powerful, that gives you power. That’s kind of beliefs you want and you need to them. You must decide which beliefs will make you stronger. example, here’s an empowering belief. You can replace your limiting belief, add this one instead. You can say “My is a natural language learning machine.” Because that’s what of the scientific research shows, our brain naturally learns languages. It is 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 for me to learn, because I did it in a totally way. And the more naturally I tried to learn Japanese, example, or Spanish, the easier it feels. So this a new belief and you should write it down, think about it. Write this idea, this belief “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Think about it day. Decide to choose that belief. Here’s another belief you might decide to “English can be fun and effortless.”

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

And to make beliefs stronger, you need experiences. Remember, you need references, you examples that prove the belief. So I’m going to give some examples and you can find more. Go find people who English very well. Or maybe even that have learned language very well. I’ll give you one of my favorite examples, Kaufman of The Linguist speaks, I believe, twelve languages now. I you to find these 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 and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a native English speaker, he speaks Cantonese, 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 you must learn 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 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 learn the fastest, the ones who have the best scores, the ones with the best speaking, they all believe these things. They all believe English is fun, interesting and effortless. They all believe that language learning is natural. all believe that they should focus on the meaning, not the grammar and the little pieces of the language. if you want to be like these successful people, you need to think like them. need to have the same beliefs as them.
here’s what I want you to do. Here’s your homework. This is the last thing, the last part of lesson. What I want you to do is write two, three, four empowering beliefs, beliefs that give you power English. Maybe “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Maybe “English can be and effortless.” Maybe “I love English.” I don’t know, down, two, three, four empowering beliefs about English. And every day you’re to do an incantation. That’s a good word, that’s a new word, incantation.
incantation is a phrase or sentence that you say again again. It has almost a magic idea, it comes magic. An incantation is a magical sentence. It’s a sentence, say the sentence something will happen. That’s where it comes from. for us an incantation 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 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. you walk, as you’re getting ready for the lesson, you’re going to this 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 moving your body, you good posture and now you’re also saying these strong beliefs. can be fun and effortless. You repeat it again. English be fun and effortless. And then you say it again. can be fun and effortless.

You can do this in your room and fine. You can do it outside and make everyone 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 if you 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 be fun and effortless. your body, your mind, your beliefs, they’re all together, strong. Then you’re ready to learn.

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