Beliefs

BELIEFS

Hello, welcome the fourth lesson. This one is called “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 of beliefs to general categories of beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s talk about limiting first. Now limiting means, limit is something that stops you. It’s like a boundary. It you from going ahead. So a limiting belief is a belief that stops you improving, a belief that stops you from getting better. I’d say most English students have limiting beliefs and English students have very strong limiting beliefs. I call these English trauma and I got that name from a of my Japanese students. They would tell me “AJ, can’t speak English well because I have English trauma.”
What is English trauma? What that, what are they talking about? Well, trauma means some kind of injury, some of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep emotional hurt. So what they mean is that had some very negative, painful experiences with English in past. In other words, when they were in school in classes, even as adults going to other English schools, they had very negative experiences. And all these negative have created some very 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 true. But it’s an opinion, it’s a belief that have.
Another belief, a very common belief, English is difficult. Or, is complicated. Well, that’s just a belief. For me 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 say “Japanese is difficult,” she would say “No, Japanese is super easy.” These are just that come from our experiences. The problem is these limiting limit 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 lot of these limiting beliefs realize. I think “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, look at the writing system. It’s so different from English. these beliefs hurt my motivation. They lower my energy, in fact they’re wrong.
They’re not true. Japanese not have to be difficult, it does not have be compli- cated. A 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 can 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 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. English is difficult. English is boring. is painful. I’m not good at English. I’ll never speak excellent English. These are just beliefs.
how do you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have beliefs. You know they’re negative, you know they’re not helping you. But we have to figure out, can we get rid of the limiting beliefs? That’s first step, you have to weaken them. You have make them weaker and weaker and weaker. You have to cut them down. beliefs get stronger from references. And reference is just an experience or memory. Sometimes it’s just something you imagine, actually. But it’s a specific experience or a imagination, a specific moment, that makes the belief stronger or weaker. So, for example, you this idea “English is painful and boring.” And when you of this belief, where does it come from?

Well, you think all these past 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 your English papers. you start adding more and more and more memories, more these negative experiences, these negative references. And if you enough, you will develop a 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. the power away from the experiences. And an easy way to do that is just ask questions about them. For example, let me ask this question. Your past schools, were they excellent? Were they just fantastic English with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? Did you a great time every day? Well, I know for most you the answer is no. So that’s interesting, so if your schools were excellent, maybe the school was the problem. Maybe it’s not you. your English is not great because you did not to great schools. And did those schools that you went to, the books you used, did they use proven methods? they use research-based methods? Did they know a lot about 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 textbooks. They don’t know why. Maybe the boss tells “We must use this book.” But they’re not choosing very, very best methods. They’re not choosing the very, best books. And so maybe the reason you believe English is difficult is because you used methods in the past, or your teachers did. Maybe think English is boring because in the past you used boring methods. You to boring schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe English isn’t the problem. Maybe it was past experiences. Maybe it was the way you did it or where did it. Ask yourself these questions. Think about them in detail. your limiting beliefs. Challenge your limiting beliefs. Another question, school did you learn deeply? For example, did you take chapter in your book and learn 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 go very, very, very quickly. You one chapter in your book, boom, after one week to the next one, and the next one. Each chapter has so many words, so much new grammar.
For example, my experience with in high school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve had a total maybe two years of Spanish, but I forgot it all. Because never learned deeply. They just tried to make us learn as words as possible, a lot of words, a lot of words, a lot grammar, very, very fast. And then, of course, I forgot everything. about you? Did you learn deeply in your schools? If not, maybe that was of the problems. Maybe English feels difficult because you never learned deeply. Maybe English is the problem.
Finally, did you learn with a grammar translation method? Did you study a lot of rules? Did you take a lot of tests? Did you feel good about that? Again, maybe the method the problem. Maybe the school is the problem, not English. So think about these questions think about them every day. Think about them a lot, this week as you listen to Lesson Number 4. I want to think about these questions again and again and again. And really be honest about it. And start to these limiting beliefs. Get rid of them. They’re wrong. is not difficult. English is not painful. English is not boring. It’s only a belief. It’s only past experience. You can change that now and in future. So let’s do that.

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

English can be fun and effortless. That’s empowering belief and it’s also true. You can think a lot of examples for this. Some of these mini-stories you’re to, right? They’re fun. They’re stupid, sometimes. They’re crazy, sometimes. they’re not serious. English can be fun and effortless. That’s empowering belief you want to choose and you want to remember every 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 and you can more. Go find people who speak English very well. Or maybe even that have another language very well. I’ll give you one of my favorite examples, Steve Kaufman The Linguist speaks, I believe, twelve languages now. I you to find these people and look at their beliefs. I’ll tell you some of his beliefs because he’s friend, I’ve talked to him a number of times, Steve believes, for example, that language learning 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. are all, supposedly, difficult languages. For him they’re not difficult. They’re easy and effortless. That’s a strong belief he has.

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

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

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