Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another important part of managing your psychology, of strengthening your psychology so that you will 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 beliefs first. Now means, limit is something that stops you. It’s like a boundary. It stops you from going ahead. a limiting belief is a belief that stops you from improving, belief that stops you from getting better. And I’d say most students have limiting beliefs and many English students have strong limiting beliefs. I call these beliefs English trauma I got that name from a few of my Japanese students. would tell me “AJ, I can’t speak English well because have English trauma.”
What is English trauma? What that, what are they talking about? Well, trauma means some of injury, some kind of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep emotional hurt. So they mean is that they had some very negative, painful experiences English in the past. In other words, when they in school in English classes, even as adults going to other English schools, they very negative experiences. And all these negative experiences have created some very beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. For example, they say “I not good at English.” Well, that’s a belief. It be true, it may not be true. But it’s an opinion, it’s belief that they have.
Another belief, a very belief, English is difficult. Or, English is complicated. Well, that’s just 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 because she’s Japanese, so I might say “Japanese is difficult,” and she would say “No, Japanese is super easy.” are just beliefs that come from our experiences. The problem is these beliefs limit us. They in fact do limit us. stop us from
getting better. They cause a lot of problems for us students, as learners. I have them, too. As I try learn Japanese, for example, I have a lot of limiting beliefs I realize. I think “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look the writing system. It’s so different 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 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 one reason is, they don’t have the limiting beliefs. They 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 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. You they’re negative, you 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, you have to weaken them. You to make them weaker and weaker and weaker. You to cut them down. Well beliefs get stronger from references. And reference 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, makes the belief stronger or weaker. So, for example, have this idea “English is painful and boring.” And you think of this belief, where does it come from?

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

You have to question the experiences. Take the power away from the experiences. an easy way to do that is just to ask questions about them. example, let me ask this question. Your past English schools, were they excellent? they just fantastic English schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, English teachers? Did you have a great time every day? Well, I know most of 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. Maybe your is not great because you did not go to schools. And did those schools that you went to, the books you used, did they use proven methods? Did they use research-based methods? they know a lot about the research about English learning, English teaching? Did they use the best methods? Or did they just use the textbook that else uses?
Well, I know from my experience as a teacher, schools just use the same 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 the reason you believe English is difficult is because used difficult methods in the past, or your teachers did. you think English is boring because in the past you used boring methods. You to boring schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe English isn’t problem. Maybe it was these past experiences. Maybe it was way you did it or where you did it. Ask yourself these questions. about them in detail. Weaken your limiting beliefs. Challenge your limiting beliefs. Another question, in school did learn deeply? For example, did you take one chapter in your book and it for a long time so that you totally it, so that you knew it completely, 100% and never it? Probably not, most schools I have seen and the I have taught in, it’s quite the opposite. The teachers very, very, very quickly. You learn one chapter in your book, boom, after one week on to the one, and the next one. Each chapter has so many new words, so new grammar.
For example, my experience with Spanish in high school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve a total of maybe two years of Spanish, but I forgot all. Because we never learned deeply. They just tried make us 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 you learn deeply in schools? If not, maybe that was one of the problems. Maybe English feels difficult because you never deeply. Maybe English is not the problem.
Finally, you learn with a grammar translation method? Did you study lot of grammar rules? Did you take a lot of tests? Did feel good about that? Again, maybe the method was problem. Maybe the school is the problem, not English. So think about these questions think about them every day. Think about them a lot, especially this week you listen to Lesson Number 4. I want you think about 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. is not difficult. English is not painful. English is boring. It’s only a belief. It’s only a past experience. You can change 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 power another person. Or in this case, it means the beliefs give power. An empowering belief is a belief that makes you feel powerful, that gives you power. That’s kind of beliefs you want and you need to choose them. You must decide which will make you stronger. For example, here’s an empowering belief. You can replace your old limiting belief, add one instead. You can say “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Because that’s all 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 native language that way. It wasn’t difficult was it? English easy for me to learn, because I did it in a totally natural way. the more naturally I tried to learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, the easier it feels. So this is new belief and you should write it down, think about it. Write down this idea, belief “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Think about it day. Decide to choose that belief. Here’s another belief you decide to choose “English can be fun and effortless.”

English can be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering and it’s also true. You 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 can be and effortless. That’s an empowering belief you want to choose and you want to it every day.

And to make these beliefs stronger, you need experiences. Remember, need references, you need examples that prove the belief. So I’m going to you some examples and you can find more. Go find people who speak English 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. 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 him number of times, and Steve believes, for example, that language is easy and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a native English speaker, he Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, he speaks Japanese, he speaks Russian. are all, supposedly, difficult languages. For him they’re not difficult. They’re easy 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 focus on grammar. He’s not focusing on boring textbooks. He’s reading interesting things that he enjoys. He’s listening 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 of my 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 is fun, interesting and effortless. They all believe that language is natural. They all believe that they should focus on meaning, not on the grammar and the little pieces of the language. if you want to be like these successful people, you need to think like them. You need have the same beliefs as them.
So here’s what I want to do. Here’s your homework. This is the last thing, the last of this lesson. What 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 beliefs 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 from. But for 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 be fun and effortless.” You’re going to say that out every day while you’re walking along and you’re doing posture. And you’re breathing and you’re smiling. Well, you’re going to add one more thing. As walk, as you’re getting ready for the lesson, you’re to 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 your body, you have good posture and now you’re also saying these strong beliefs. English can be and effortless. You repeat it again. English can be and effortless. And then you say it again. English can be fun effortless.

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

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