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 your psychology so that you will learn English, or in fact, much faster. And there are two kinds of beliefs to general categories of beliefs. Limiting empowering.
Let’s talk about limiting beliefs first. Now limiting means, limit is something stops you. It’s like a boundary. It stops you from ahead. So a limiting belief is a belief that stops from improving, a belief that stops you from getting better. And I’d say most students have limiting beliefs and many English students have very strong beliefs. I call these beliefs English trauma and I that name from a few of my Japanese students. They would tell “AJ, I can’t speak English well because I have English trauma.”
What English trauma? What is that, what are they talking 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 English in the past. In other words, when they were in school in English classes, as adults going to other English schools, they had negative experiences. And all these negative experiences have created some 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 may not be true. it’s an opinion, it’s a belief that they have.
Another belief, a very common belief, English difficult. Or, English is complicated. Well, that’s just a belief. me English very easy, because I’m a native speaker, just like your native language for you very easy. Tomoe can speak Japanese fluently because she’s Japanese, so I might “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 problems for us as students, as learners. I have them, too. As I try to Japanese, for example, I have a lot of these limiting beliefs I realize. I think “Oh, Japanese is difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look at the writing system. It’s so different from English. 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 child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And the reason is, the number one reason is, don’t have the limiting beliefs. They can sing songs and 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 with you. learned in a very painful, difficult way in the past. And so you developed, created these beliefs in your head. English is difficult. English is boring. English is painful. I’m good at English. I’ll never speak excellent English. These are just beliefs.
So how do you these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. You know they’re negative, you they’re not helping you. But we have to figure out, how can we get of the limiting beliefs? That’s the 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 memory. Sometimes it’s just something you imagine, actually. But it’s a specific or a specific imagination, a specific moment, that makes the belief or weaker. So, for example, you have this idea “English is and boring.” And when you think of this belief, where does come from?

Well, you think of all these past experiences. You think of the time in middle where your teacher corrected your mistake and you felt terrible. you think of maybe the bad grades you got on the test all the red marks on your English papers. And you start adding more and more and memories, more of these negative experiences, these negative references. if you get enough, you will develop 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 experiences. Take 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? they just fantastic English schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? Did have a great time every day? Well, I know for most of you the answer no. So that’s interesting, so if your schools were not excellent, maybe the school was problem. Maybe it’s not you. Maybe your English is not great because you did not go to schools. And did those schools that you went to, or the you used, did 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 that everybody else uses?
Well, I know from experience as a teacher, most schools just use the same textbooks. They don’t know why. Maybe boss tells them “We must use this book.” But they’re not choosing the very, very best methods. They’re not the very, very best books. And so maybe the reason you believe English is difficult is you used difficult methods in the past, or your teachers did. Maybe you think English is because in the past you used boring methods. You went boring schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe English isn’t the problem. Maybe it was these past experiences. Maybe was the way you did it or where you did it. yourself these questions. Think about them in detail. Weaken limiting beliefs. Challenge your limiting beliefs. Another question, in did you learn deeply? For example, did you take one in your book and learn it for a long time so that you totally mastered it, so you knew it completely, 100% and never forgot it? Probably not, most schools I have seen the ones I have taught in, it’s quite the opposite. teachers go very, very, very quickly. You learn one chapter your book, boom, after one week on to the next one, and the one. Each chapter has so many new words, so much new grammar.
example, my experience with Spanish in 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 tried to make us learn many words as possible, a lot of words, a of words, a lot of grammar, very, very fast. then, of course, I forgot everything. How about you? you learn deeply in your schools? If not, maybe that was of the problems. Maybe English feels difficult because you learned deeply. Maybe English is not the problem.
Finally, you learn with a grammar translation method? Did you study a lot 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 and think about them every day. Think about them a lot, especially this week you listen to Lesson Number 4. I want you to think about these again and again and again. And really be honest it. And start to destroy these limiting beliefs. Get rid them. They’re wrong. English is not difficult. English is not painful. English is not boring. It’s only belief. It’s only a past experience. You can change that now in the future. So let’s do that.

Let’s talk about empowering beliefs, the positive side. So to empower, verb, to empower means to make stronger. It means to power to another person. Or in this case, it the beliefs give you power. An empowering belief is a belief that makes 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 replace your old limiting belief, this one instead. You can say “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” that’s what all of the scientific research shows, our brain learns languages. It is designed to learn language. It be easy. It should be effortless. It should feel good. You learned your language that way. It wasn’t difficult was it? English was easy me to learn, because I did it in a totally way. And the more naturally I tried to learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, easier it feels. So this is a new belief and you should write it down, about it. Write down this idea, this belief “My brain a natural language learning machine.” Think about it every day. Decide to choose that belief. Here’s belief you might decide to choose “English can be fun effortless.”

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

And to make these 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 more. Go find people who speak English very well. Or even that have learned another language very well. I’ll you one of my favorite examples, Steve Kaufman of The Linguist speaks, I believe, twelve now. I want you to find these people and at their beliefs. I’ll tell you some of his because he’s a friend, I’ve talked to him a of times, and Steve believes, for example, that language is easy and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a English speaker, he speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, he speaks Japanese, he speaks Russian. These are all, supposedly, 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 and you must focus on meaning. So in other words, he doesn’t focus on the grammar. He’s not 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 for me is these are the same beliefs that all of my best students have. They all have these same ideas. best students, the ones who learn the fastest, the ones who have the best test scores, the ones the best speaking, they all believe these things. They all believe that English is fun, interesting and effortless. all believe that language learning is natural. They all believe that they should focus on the meaning, on the grammar and the little pieces of the language. So if want to be like these successful people, you need to think like them. You need to the same beliefs as them.
So here’s what I want you do. Here’s your homework. This is the last thing, last part of this lesson. What I want you to do is down two, three, four empowering beliefs, beliefs that give you about English. Maybe “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Maybe “English 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 is a phrase or sentence that you say again and again. It has almost magic idea, it comes from magic. An incantation is a magical sentence. It’s a sentence, you say sentence something will happen. That’s where it comes from. But for us an incantation is a belief you are going to repeat again and again and 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. And you’re 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 this out loud. You’re going to say “English can be fun effortless.” You’re going to say it with some emotion. Say it feeling so you’re smiling, you’re breathing deep, you’re moving body, you have good posture and now you’re also saying these beliefs. English can be fun and effortless. You repeat it again. can 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 look at you and think you’re crazy. not? It’s better than feeling powerless, right? It’s better than being bored. I promise you will 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. can be fun and effortless. Now your body, your mind, beliefs, they’re all together, very strong. Then you’re ready learn.

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