Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another part of managing your psychology, of strengthening your psychology so you will learn English, or anything in fact, much faster. And there two kinds of beliefs to general categories of beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s talk about beliefs first. Now limiting means, limit is something that stops you. It’s like a boundary. It stops you going ahead. So a limiting belief is a belief that you from improving, a belief that stops you from better. And I’d say most English students have limiting beliefs and many students have very strong limiting beliefs. I call these beliefs English trauma and got that name from a few of my Japanese students. They would tell me “AJ, I can’t English well because I 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 hurt. So what they mean is that they had some very negative, painful experiences with in the past. In other words, when they were in school in English classes, even adults going to other English schools, they had very negative experiences. And all these experiences have created some very negative beliefs, some very beliefs. For example, they say “I am not good at English.” Well, that’s a belief. It may 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 a belief. For me English very easy, because I’m a native speaker, just like your language for you is very easy. Tomoe can speak Japanese fluently because she’s Japanese, so I might “Japanese is difficult,” and she would say “No, Japanese super easy.” These are just beliefs that come from our experiences. The problem is these limiting beliefs us. They in fact do limit us. They stop from
getting better. They cause a lot of for us as students, as learners. I have them, too. I try to learn Japanese, for example, I have a 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 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 to be compli- cated. small child, even a small American child, could learn very effortlessly, very easily. And the reason is, the number one is, they don’t have the limiting beliefs. They can sing songs and play games and enjoy the language, they’ll learn 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. so you developed, you created these beliefs in your head. is difficult. English is boring. English is painful. I’m not good at English. I’ll never speak excellent English. are just beliefs.
So how do you eliminate beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. You know they’re negative, know they’re not helping you. But we have to out, how can we get rid of the limiting beliefs? That’s the first step, you have to weaken them. have to make them weaker and weaker and weaker. You to cut them down. Well beliefs get stronger from references. And reference is just an experience a 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 stronger weaker. So, for example, you have this idea “English is and boring.” And when you think of this belief, does it come from?

Well, you think of all these past experiences. You of the time in middle school where your teacher your mistake and you felt terrible. And you think maybe the bad grades you got on the test or all the red marks on English papers. And you start adding more and more and more memories, more of negative experiences, these negative references. And if you get enough, you develop a very, strong, deep, powerful belief “English is difficult. English is painful. I’m good at English.” So to weaken these, you just have to the references.

You have to question the experiences. Take the power away from experiences. And an easy way to do that is just to ask questions about them. For example, me ask this question. Your past English schools, were they excellent? Were they just fantastic English schools fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? Did you have great time every day? Well, I know for most of you the answer is no. that’s interesting, so if 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 go great 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 know a lot about the research about English learning, teaching? Did they only use the best methods? Or did 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 believe English is difficult is because you difficult methods in the past, or your teachers did. Maybe you English is boring because in the past you used boring methods. went to boring schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe English isn’t the problem. Maybe it these past experiences. Maybe it was the way you did it or you did it. Ask yourself these questions. Think about them in detail. Weaken your limiting beliefs. Challenge your beliefs. Another question, in school did you learn deeply? example, did you take one chapter in your book learn it for a long time so that you totally it, so that you knew it completely, 100% and never forgot it? Probably not, most schools I seen and the ones I 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 many new words, so much new grammar.
For example, my experience with Spanish in high and university, I took Spanish, I’ve had a total of maybe two years of Spanish, I forgot it all. Because we never learned deeply. They just tried to make us learn as words as possible, a lot of words, a lot of words, a of grammar, very, very fast. And then, of course, I forgot everything. How you? Did you learn deeply in your schools? If not, maybe was one of the problems. Maybe English feels difficult because never learned deeply. Maybe English is not the problem.
Finally, did you learn with a grammar method? Did you study a lot of grammar rules? Did you a lot of tests? Did you feel good about that? Again, maybe the method was the problem. the school is the problem, not English. So think these questions and think about them every day. Think about them a lot, especially this as you listen to Lesson Number 4. I want you to think these questions again and again and again. And really honest about it. And start to destroy these limiting beliefs. Get rid them. They’re wrong. English is not difficult. English is painful. English is not boring. It’s only a belief. It’s only past experience. You can change that now and in the future. So let’s that.

Let’s talk now about empowering beliefs, the positive side. to empower, the verb, to empower means to make stronger. It means to give to another person. Or in this case, it means the beliefs you power. An empowering belief is a belief that makes you feel powerful, that you power. That’s the kind of beliefs you want and you need to choose them. You must decide beliefs 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 brain is a natural language learning machine.” that’s what all of the scientific research shows, our brain naturally learns languages. is designed 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 easy me to learn, because I did it in a natural way. And the more naturally I tried to learn Japanese, example, or Spanish, the easier it feels. So this is a 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 every day. Decide to choose that belief. Here’s another you might decide to choose “English can be fun effortless.”

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

And to make these beliefs stronger, you experiences. Remember, you need references, you need examples that prove belief. So I’m going to give you some examples and you can find more. Go find who speak English very well. Or maybe even that learned another language very well. I’ll give you one my favorite examples, Steve Kaufman of The Linguist speaks, I believe, twelve languages now. I want you find these people and look at their beliefs. I’ll tell some of his beliefs because he’s a friend, I’ve talked to him a number times, and Steve believes, for example, that language learning is easy and effortless. That’s belief. He’s a native English speaker, he speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, he speaks Japanese, he Russian. These 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 naturally and you must focus on meaning. So in other words, he doesn’t on the grammar. He’s not focusing on boring textbooks. He’s reading things that he enjoys. He’s listening to interesting things that enjoys. So, for him, language learning is interesting. What’s interesting for me is that these are the same beliefs that all my best students have. They all have these same ideas. The best students, the who learn the fastest, the ones who have the best test scores, the with the best speaking, they all believe these things. all believe that English is fun, interesting and effortless. They all believe that language learning is natural. They believe that they should focus on the meaning, not on the and the little pieces of the language. So if want to be like these successful people, you need to think them. You need to have the same beliefs as them.
So here’s what I want you do. Here’s your homework. This is the last thing, the last part of 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 a language learning machine.” Maybe “English can 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 to do an incantation. That’s a good word, that’s a new word, incantation.
An 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, you say the sentence something happen. That’s where it comes from. But for us an incantation is just a belief you are to repeat again and again and again every day.So here’s what you’re going do. For example “English can be fun and effortless.” You’re to say that out loud 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 one more thing. As you walk, as you’re getting ready for the lesson, you’re to repeat this out loud. You’re going to say “English can be and 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 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 do this in your and its fine. You can do it outside and everyone look at you and think you’re crazy. Why not? It’s than feeling powerless, right? It’s better than being bored. I you 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, then say these incantations. English can be fun and effortless. English can fun and effortless. Now your body, your mind, your beliefs, they’re all together, strong. Then you’re ready to learn.

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