Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another important part of managing your psychology, strengthening your psychology so that you will learn English, or anything fact, much faster. And there are two kinds of beliefs general categories of beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s talk limiting beliefs first. Now limiting means, limit is something that 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 you from getting better. And I’d say most English have limiting beliefs and many English students have very strong beliefs. I 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 well I have English trauma.”
What is English trauma? What is that, what are they about? Well, trauma means some kind of injury, some kind of hurt. hurt, deep emotional hurt. So what they mean is they had some very negative, painful experiences with English the past. In other words, when they were in school in English classes, even adults going to other English schools, they had very experiences. And all these negative experiences have created some very beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. For example, they say “I am not at English.” Well, that’s a belief. It may be true, 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 a belief. me English very easy, because I’m a native speaker, just your native language for you is very easy. Tomoe can Japanese fluently because she’s Japanese, so I might say “Japanese is difficult,” and would say “No, Japanese is super easy.” These are beliefs that come from our experiences. The problem is these beliefs limit us. They in fact do limit us. They stop us from
getting better. cause a lot of problems for us as students, as learners. have them, too. As I try to learn Japanese, example, I have a lot of these limiting beliefs I realize. think “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, look at the writing system. It’s so different from English. And these beliefs hurt motivation. They lower my energy, and in fact they’re wrong.
They’re true. Japanese does not have to be difficult, it does have to be compli- cated. A small child, even a small child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And 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 the same with English with you. You in a very painful, difficult way in the past. so you developed, you created these beliefs in your head. English difficult. English is boring. English is painful. I’m not good at English. I’ll speak excellent English. These are just beliefs.
So how you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. You they’re negative, you know they’re not helping you. But we have figure out, how can we get rid of the limiting beliefs? That’s first step, you have to weaken them. You have to them weaker and weaker and weaker. You have to cut them down. Well beliefs get from references. And reference is just an experience or a memory. Sometimes it’s just something imagine, actually. But it’s a specific experience or a imagination, a specific moment, that makes the belief stronger weaker. So, for example, you 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 experiences. You think of the time in middle school where your teacher corrected your mistake you felt terrible. And you think of maybe the bad you got on the test or all the red marks on English papers. And you start adding more and more more memories, more of these negative experiences, these negative references. And you get enough, you will develop a very, strong, deep, powerful belief “English difficult. English is painful. I’m not good at English.” So to these, you just have to question the references.

You to question the experiences. Take the power away from the experiences. an easy way to do that is just to 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? Did you have great time every day? Well, I know for most you the answer is no. So that’s interesting, so 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 to, or the books you used, did they use methods? Did they use research-based methods? Did they know a lot about the research English learning, English teaching? Did they only use the methods? Or did they just use the textbook that everybody else uses?
Well, know from my experience as a teacher, most schools use the same textbooks. They don’t know why. Maybe the tells them “We must use this book.” But they’re choosing the very, very best methods. They’re not choosing very, very best books. And so maybe the reason you English is difficult is because you used difficult methods in the past, or your teachers did. Maybe think English is boring because in the past you boring methods. You went to boring schools. You had teachers. Maybe English isn’t the problem. Maybe it was past experiences. Maybe it was the way you did 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 you learn deeply? For example, did you take one chapter in your and learn it for a long time so that totally mastered it, so that you knew it completely, 100% and never forgot it? not, most schools I have seen and the ones I taught in, it’s quite the opposite. The teachers go very, very, quickly. You learn one chapter in your book, boom, after week on to the 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 it all. Because we never deeply. They just tried to make us learn as many words as possible, a of words, a 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 because you never learned deeply. Maybe English is not 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 you feel about that? Again, maybe the method was the problem. Maybe the school is the problem, English. So think about these questions and think about them day. Think about them a lot, especially this week as you listen to Lesson Number 4. want you to think about these questions again and again and again. And be honest about 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 change that now and in the future. So let’s that.

Let’s talk now about empowering beliefs, the positive side. So empower, the verb, to empower means to make stronger. means to give power to another person. Or in this case, it means the beliefs give power. An empowering belief is a belief that makes feel powerful, that gives you power. That’s the kind of beliefs you want you need to choose them. You must decide which will make you stronger. For 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 designed learn language. It should be easy. It should be effortless. It should good. You learned your native language that way. It wasn’t was it? English was easy for me to learn, because did it in a totally natural way. And the naturally I tried to learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, the it feels. So this is a new belief and you should write down, think about it. Write down this idea, this “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Think about every day. Decide to choose that belief. Here’s another belief you might decide to choose “English be fun and effortless.”

English can be fun and effortless. That’s an belief and it’s also true. You can think of a of examples for this. Some of these mini-stories you’re to, right? They’re fun. They’re stupid, sometimes. They’re crazy, sometimes. But they’re not serious. can be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering belief want to choose and you want to remember it day.

And to make these beliefs stronger, you need experiences. Remember, you need references, you need examples prove the belief. So I’m going to give you some examples you can find more. Go find people who speak very well. Or maybe even that have learned another very well. I’ll give you one of my favorite examples, Steve Kaufman of Linguist speaks, I believe, twelve languages now. I want 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 him a number of times, and Steve believes, example, that language learning is easy and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s native English speaker, he speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, he speaks Japanese, he speaks Russian. are all, supposedly, difficult languages. For him they’re not difficult. They’re easy and effortless. That’s a very belief he has.

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

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

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