Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another important part of managing psychology, of strengthening your psychology so that you will learn English, anything in fact, much faster. And there are two kinds beliefs to general categories of beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s talk limiting beliefs first. Now limiting means, limit is something stops you. It’s like a boundary. It stops you from going ahead. So a limiting belief 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 many English 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 me “AJ, can’t speak English well because I have English trauma.”
What is trauma? What is that, what are they talking about? Well, means some kind of injury, some kind of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep hurt. So what they mean is that they had some very negative, painful experiences English in the past. In other words, when they were in school English classes, even as adults going to other English schools, had very negative experiences. And all these negative experiences have created some very negative beliefs, very limiting beliefs. For example, they say “I am not at English.” Well, that’s a 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 complicated. Well, that’s just a belief. For me English easy, because I’m a native speaker, just like your native for you is very easy. Tomoe can speak Japanese fluently because she’s Japanese, I might say “Japanese is difficult,” and she would “No, Japanese is super easy.” These are just beliefs that come from experiences. The problem is these limiting beliefs limit us. in fact do limit us. They stop us from
getting better. They cause a lot of problems for as students, as learners. I have them, too. As I try to Japanese, for example, I have a lot of these limiting I realize. I think “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” Japanese complicated, just look at the writing system. It’s so different English. And these beliefs hurt my motivation. They lower my energy, and in fact they’re wrong.
They’re true. Japanese does not have to be difficult, it does not have be compli- cated. A small child, even a small child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And the is, the number one reason is, they don’t have limiting beliefs. They can sing songs and play games and the language, and they’ll learn it so quickly, so easily, they’ll say “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s same with English with you. You learned in a painful, difficult way in the past. And so you developed, you created 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 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 can we get rid of limiting beliefs? That’s the first step, you have to weaken them. You have to make weaker and weaker and weaker. You have to cut them down. beliefs get stronger from references. And reference is just an or a memory. Sometimes it’s just something you imagine, actually. it’s a specific experience or a specific imagination, a specific moment, makes the belief stronger or weaker. So, for example, you this idea “English is painful and boring.” And when think of this belief, where does it come from?

Well, think of all these past experiences. You think of the in middle school where your teacher corrected your mistake and you terrible. And you think of maybe the bad grades you got the test or all the red marks on your English papers. And you start adding more more and more memories, more of these negative experiences, these negative references. And if you enough, you 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 power from the experiences. And an easy way to do that is just ask questions about them. For example, let me ask question. Your past English schools, were they excellent? Were just fantastic English schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? 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. it’s not you. Maybe your English is not great because you not go to great schools. And did those schools that you went to, or books you used, did they use proven methods? Did use research-based methods? Did they know a lot about research about English learning, English teaching? Did they only use the best methods? Or did they use the textbook that everybody else uses?
Well, I from my experience as a teacher, most schools just use the textbooks. They don’t know why. Maybe the boss tells them “We use this book.” But they’re not choosing the very, best methods. They’re not choosing the very, very best books. And so maybe reason you believe English is difficult is because you used difficult methods in the past, your teachers did. Maybe you think English is boring because in the past you used methods. You went to boring schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe isn’t the problem. Maybe it was these past experiences. Maybe it the way you did it or 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, you take one chapter in your book and learn it for a time so that you totally mastered it, so that you knew it completely, 100% and forgot it? Probably not, most schools I have seen and ones I have taught in, it’s quite the opposite. The teachers go very, very, quickly. You learn one chapter in your book, boom, after one week on to next one, and the next one. Each chapter has so many new words, so much grammar.
For example, my experience with Spanish in school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve had a of maybe two years of Spanish, but I forgot all. Because we never learned deeply. They just tried to us learn as many words as possible, a lot of words, a lot of words, a of grammar, very, very fast. And then, of course, I everything. How about you? Did you learn deeply in schools? If not, maybe that was one of the problems. Maybe feels difficult because you never learned deeply. Maybe English is the problem.
Finally, did you learn with a translation method? Did you study a lot of grammar rules? Did you take lot of tests? Did you feel good about that? Again, maybe the method was problem. Maybe the school is the problem, not English. So think these questions 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 these questions again and again and again. And really be honest it. And start to destroy these limiting beliefs. Get rid of them. They’re wrong. English is not difficult. is not painful. English is not boring. It’s only a belief. It’s a past experience. You can change 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 means to make stronger. It means to give power to another person. in this case, it means the beliefs give you power. An empowering belief is a that makes you feel powerful, that gives you power. That’s the kind of beliefs you and you need to choose them. You must decide which beliefs will make you stronger. example, here’s an empowering belief. You can replace your old limiting belief, add this one instead. You can “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Because that’s what all the scientific research shows, our brain naturally learns languages. It is designed to learn language. It should easy. It should be effortless. It should feel good. learned your native language that way. It wasn’t difficult it? English was easy for me to learn, because I it in a totally natural way. And the more naturally I tried learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, the easier it feels. So this is a belief and you should write it down, think about it. Write down idea, this belief “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Think it every day. Decide to choose that belief. Here’s another you might decide to choose “English can be fun and effortless.”

English can be fun 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 not serious. English be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering belief you want to and you want to remember it every day.

And to make beliefs stronger, you need experiences. Remember, you need references, you need examples prove the belief. So I’m going to give you some examples and you can find more. Go people who speak English very well. Or maybe even that learned another language very 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 and look at their beliefs. I’ll tell you some of his beliefs because he’s a friend, I’ve talked him a number of times, and Steve believes, for example, language learning is easy and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s native English speaker, he speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, speaks Japanese, he speaks Russian. These are all, supposedly, difficult languages. For they’re not difficult. They’re easy and effortless. That’s a strong belief he has.

Another belief he has is you must learn language naturally and you must focus on meaning. So other words, he doesn’t focus on the grammar. He’s focusing on boring 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 me is that these are the same beliefs that all of best students have. They all have these same ideas. The best students, ones who learn the fastest, the ones who have the best test scores, ones with the best speaking, they all believe these things. They all believe that English fun, interesting and effortless. They all believe that language learning is natural. all believe that they should focus on the meaning, not on the grammar and the pieces of the language. So if you want to be like these people, you need to think like them. You need to have the same beliefs them.
So here’s what I want you to do. Here’s your homework. This the last thing, the last part of this lesson. I want you to do is write down two, three, empowering beliefs, beliefs that give you power about English. Maybe “My brain is natural language learning machine.” Maybe “English can be fun effortless.” Maybe “I love English.” I don’t know, write down, two, three, four empowering about English. And every day you’re going to do an incantation. That’s a good word, that’s new word, incantation.
An incantation is a phrase sentence that you say again and again. It has a magic idea, it comes from magic. An incantation is a sentence. It’s a sentence, you say the sentence something will happen. That’s where it comes from. But us an incantation is just a belief you are going to repeat again and again again every day.So here’s what you’re going to do. For example “English can fun and effortless.” You’re going to say that out 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 more thing. As you walk, as you’re getting ready for the lesson, you’re going to repeat this loud. You’re going to say “English can be fun effortless.” You’re going to say it with some emotion. Say it with so you’re smiling, you’re breathing deep, you’re moving your body, you have good posture and now you’re also these strong beliefs. English can be fun and effortless. You it again. English can be fun and effortless. And you say it again. English can be fun and effortless.

You can this in your room and its fine. You can it outside and make everyone look at you and you’re crazy. Why not? It’s better than feeling powerless, right? It’s than being bored. I promise you will learn so faster if you do this. So do these incantations every day just before you a lesson. Get your body strong, peak emotional state, and then say 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 the end of the main story for “Beliefs.”