Beliefs

BELIEFS

Hello, welcome to the fourth lesson. This one is “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 in fact, much faster. And there two kinds of beliefs to general categories of beliefs. and 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 going ahead. So a belief is a belief that stops you from improving, a belief that stops from getting better. And I’d say most English students have limiting and many English students have very strong limiting beliefs. I call these beliefs trauma and I got that name from a few of my Japanese students. They would me “AJ, I 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 kind of hurt. hurt, deep emotional hurt. So what they mean is they had some very negative, painful experiences with English in past. In other words, when they were in school in English classes, even as adults going other English schools, they had very negative experiences. And all negative experiences have created some very negative beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. For example, they “I am not good at English.” Well, that’s a belief. It may be true, may not be true. But it’s an opinion, it’s a belief that they have.
Another belief, a common 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 your language for you is very easy. Tomoe can speak Japanese fluently because she’s Japanese, so I say “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 us from
getting better. They a lot of problems for us as students, as learners. I have them, too. I try to learn Japanese, for example, I have lot of these limiting beliefs I realize. I think “Oh, is so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look at writing system. It’s so different from English. And these beliefs hurt my motivation. They my energy, and in fact they’re wrong.
They’re not true. Japanese does have to be difficult, it does not have to be compli- cated. small child, even a small American child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And reason is, the number one reason is, they don’t have the limiting beliefs. can sing songs and play games and enjoy the language, and they’ll learn it so quickly, easily, they’ll say “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s the same with English with you. You learned a very painful, difficult way in the past. And so you developed, you these beliefs in your head. English is difficult. English boring. English is painful. I’m not good at English. I’ll never excellent English. These are just beliefs.
So how do you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you these beliefs. You know they’re negative, you know they’re not you. But we have to figure out, how can we get rid of the beliefs? That’s the first step, you have to weaken them. You have make them weaker and weaker and weaker. You have cut them down. Well beliefs get stronger from references. And reference is just an or a memory. Sometimes it’s just something you imagine, actually. But it’s a specific experience or a specific imagination, 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, think of all these past experiences. You think of the in middle school where your teacher corrected your mistake and felt terrible. And you think of maybe the bad grades you got on the test all the red marks on your English papers. And start adding more and more and more memories, more these 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 not good at English.” to weaken these, you just have to question the references.

You have to question experiences. Take the power away from the experiences. And an easy way do that is just to ask questions about them. For example, let me ask this question. Your English schools, were they excellent? Were they just fantastic schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? Did have a 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, 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 to, or the books you used, did they use proven methods? Did they research-based methods? Did they know a lot about the research about English learning, teaching? Did they only use the best methods? Or did they just use the textbook everybody else uses?
Well, I know from my as a teacher, most schools just use the same textbooks. don’t know why. Maybe the boss tells them “We must this book.” But they’re not choosing the very, very methods. They’re not choosing the very, very best books. And so maybe the reason you English is difficult is because you used difficult methods in the past, your teachers did. Maybe you think English is boring in the past you used boring methods. You went to schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe English isn’t the problem. it was these past experiences. Maybe it was the way you it or where you did it. Ask yourself these questions. Think about them in detail. Weaken your limiting beliefs. your limiting beliefs. Another question, in school did you deeply? For example, did you take one chapter in your book and learn it a long time so that you totally mastered it, that you knew it completely, 100% and never forgot it? not, most schools I have seen and the ones I have in, it’s quite the opposite. The teachers go very, very, very quickly. learn one chapter in your book, boom, after one week on the next one, and the next one. Each chapter so many new words, so much new grammar.
For example, my experience with Spanish high school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve had a total of maybe two years Spanish, but I forgot it all. Because we never learned deeply. They just tried to make us as many words as possible, a lot of words, lot of words, a lot of grammar, very, very fast. And then, course, I forgot everything. How about you? Did you learn in your schools? If not, maybe that was one of problems. Maybe English feels difficult because you never learned deeply. Maybe is not the problem.
Finally, did you learn with a grammar translation method? you study a lot of grammar rules? Did you take a of tests? Did you feel good about that? Again, maybe method was 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, especially this week as you listen Lesson Number 4. I want you to think about questions again and again and again. And really be honest about it. start to destroy these limiting beliefs. Get rid of them. They’re wrong. English is difficult. English is not painful. English is not boring. It’s a belief. It’s only a past experience. You can that 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 stronger. It means to give power to another person. Or in this case, means the beliefs give you 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 beliefs will make stronger. For example, here’s an empowering belief. You can replace old limiting belief, add this one instead. You can say “My brain is a natural learning machine.” Because that’s what all of the scientific research shows, our naturally learns languages. It is designed to learn language. should be easy. It should be effortless. It should feel good. You learned your native language 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 choose that belief. Here’s another belief you might decide to choose “English can be fun effortless.”

English can be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering belief and it’s also true. 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. they’re not serious. English can be fun and 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 prove the belief. So I’m going to give you some examples you can find more. Go find people who speak English very well. Or even that have 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 you to find these people and look at their beliefs. I’ll tell you some of his because he’s a friend, I’ve talked to him a number of times, 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, speaks Japanese, he speaks Russian. These are all, supposedly, difficult languages. him they’re not difficult. They’re easy and effortless. That’s a very strong belief he has.

Another he has is that you must learn language naturally and you must focus meaning. So in other words, he doesn’t focus on the grammar. He’s focusing on boring textbooks. He’s reading interesting things that enjoys. He’s listening to interesting things that he enjoys. So, for him, learning is interesting. What’s really interesting for me is that are the same 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 that is fun, interesting and effortless. They all believe that language learning is natural. They believe that they should focus on the meaning, not on grammar and the little pieces of the language. So if want to be like these successful people, you need to think like them. You to have the same beliefs as them.
So here’s what I want you to do. Here’s your homework. is the last thing, the last part of this lesson. What I want you do is write down two, three, four empowering beliefs, beliefs that give you about English. Maybe “My brain is a natural language machine.” Maybe “English can be fun and effortless.” Maybe “I love English.” don’t know, write down, two, three, four empowering beliefs about English. every day you’re going to do an incantation. That’s a word, that’s a 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 are going to repeat again and again and again every day.So here’s you’re going to do. For example “English can be fun and effortless.” You’re to say that out loud every day while you’re walking along you’re doing your posture. And you’re breathing and you’re smiling. Well, you’re going add one more thing. As you walk, as you’re getting ready for the lesson, you’re going to this out loud. You’re going to say “English can fun and effortless.” You’re going to say it with emotion. Say it with feeling so you’re smiling, you’re deep, you’re moving your body, you have good posture now you’re also saying these strong beliefs. English can be fun and effortless. You it again. English can be fun and effortless. And then you say again. English can be fun and effortless.

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

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