Beliefs

BELIEFS

Hello, to 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 anything in fact, much faster. there are two kinds of beliefs to general categories beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s talk about limiting first. Now limiting means, limit is something that stops you. It’s a boundary. It stops you from going ahead. So a limiting belief is a that stops you from improving, a belief that stops you getting better. And I’d say most English students have beliefs and many English students have very strong limiting beliefs. I these beliefs English trauma and I got that name from few of my Japanese students. They would tell me “AJ, can’t speak English well because I have English trauma.”
What is English trauma? What is that, are they talking about? Well, trauma means some kind injury, some kind of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep emotional hurt. So what they is that they 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 experiences. And all these negative experiences have created some very negative beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. example, they say “I am not good at English.” Well, that’s a belief. It may be true, it may 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 a belief. me English very easy, because I’m a native speaker, like your native language for you is very easy. can speak Japanese fluently because she’s Japanese, so I might “Japanese is difficult,” and she would say “No, Japanese is super easy.” These are just beliefs that come our experiences. The problem is these limiting beliefs limit us. in fact do limit us. They stop us from
getting better. They cause lot of problems 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 so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look at the system. It’s so different from English. And these beliefs hurt motivation. They lower my energy, and in fact they’re wrong.
They’re not true. Japanese does not have 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 reason is, they don’t have the limiting beliefs. They can 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 you. You learned in a very painful, difficult way in the past. And so developed, you created these beliefs in your head. English is difficult. English is boring. English painful. I’m not good at English. I’ll never speak excellent English. are just beliefs.
So 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 out, how can we get rid of the limiting beliefs? That’s the step, you have to weaken them. You have to make 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 experience a specific imagination, a specific moment, that makes the belief stronger or weaker. So, for example, have this idea “English is painful and boring.” And when you of this belief, where does it come from?

Well, you think of these past experiences. You think of the time in middle school your teacher corrected your mistake and you felt terrible. And you think of maybe the bad grades got on the test or all the red marks on your papers. And you 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 question the experiences. Take the power away from the experiences. And an easy way to that is just to ask questions about them. For example, me ask this question. Your past English schools, were they excellent? they just fantastic English schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, English teachers? Did you have a great time every day? Well, know for most of you the answer is no. So that’s interesting, so if your were not excellent, maybe the school was the problem. it’s not you. Maybe your English is not great because did not go to great schools. And did those schools you went to, or the books you used, did they use proven methods? Did use research-based methods? Did they know a lot about the research about English learning, English teaching? Did they use the best methods? Or did they just use the textbook that else uses?
Well, I know from my experience a teacher, most schools just use the same textbooks. don’t know why. Maybe the boss tells them “We must use this book.” But they’re not choosing very, very best methods. They’re not choosing the very, very best books. And so maybe the you believe English is difficult is because you used difficult methods the past, or your teachers did. Maybe you think English is boring because in the you used boring methods. You went to boring schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe English isn’t problem. Maybe it was these past experiences. Maybe it was the way you did it or you did it. Ask yourself these questions. Think about in detail. Weaken your limiting beliefs. Challenge your limiting beliefs. Another question, in did you learn deeply? For example, did you take one chapter your book and learn it for a long time that you totally mastered it, so that you knew it completely, 100% and never forgot it? Probably not, 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 on to the next one, and the next one. Each chapter so many new words, so much new grammar.
For example, my experience with Spanish in high school university, I took Spanish, I’ve had a total of maybe two years of Spanish, but I it all. Because we never learned deeply. They just to make us learn as many words as possible, lot of words, a lot of words, a lot grammar, very, very fast. And then, of course, I forgot everything. How you? Did you learn deeply in your schools? If not, maybe that was one of 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 a lot of grammar rules? Did you take a lot of tests? Did you feel good that? Again, maybe the method was the problem. Maybe the school the problem, not English. So think about these questions think about them every day. Think about them a lot, especially week as you listen to Lesson Number 4. I want you to think about questions again and again and again. And really be honest about it. And to destroy these limiting beliefs. Get rid of them. They’re wrong. English is not difficult. is not painful. English is not boring. It’s only belief. It’s only a past experience. You can change that and in the 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 to another person. in this case, it means the beliefs give you power. An empowering belief is a belief makes you feel powerful, that gives you power. That’s the kind of beliefs you want and you need choose them. You must decide which beliefs will make you stronger. For example, here’s empowering belief. You can replace your old limiting belief, add this one instead. You say “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Because that’s what all of the research shows, our brain naturally learns languages. It is designed to learn language. should be easy. It should be effortless. It should feel good. You learned native language that way. It wasn’t difficult was it? was easy for me to learn, because I did it in a totally natural way. And the naturally I tried to learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, the easier it feels. this is a new belief and you should write it down, think about it. Write this idea, this belief “My brain is a natural learning machine.” Think about it every day. Decide to choose that belief. Here’s another belief you might to choose “English can be fun and effortless.”

English can be fun and effortless. That’s an belief and it’s also true. You can think of 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. But they’re not serious. English can be and effortless. That’s an empowering belief you want to choose and you want to it every day.

And to make these beliefs stronger, you need experiences. Remember, you references, you need examples that 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 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. want you to 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 of times, and 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 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 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 really interesting for me that these are the same beliefs that all of best students have. They all have these same ideas. The best students, the ones who learn fastest, the ones who have the best test scores, ones with the best speaking, they all believe these things. all believe that 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 grammar and the little pieces of the language. So you want to be like these successful people, you to think like them. You need to have the same beliefs as them.
here’s what I want you to do. Here’s your homework. This the last thing, the last part of this lesson. What I want you to do write down two, three, four empowering beliefs, beliefs that give power about English. Maybe “My brain is a natural language machine.” Maybe “English can be fun and effortless.” Maybe “I English.” I 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 a phrase or sentence that you say again and again. It has a magic idea, it comes from magic. An incantation is 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 again and 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 doing posture. And you’re breathing and you’re smiling. Well, you’re going to add one more thing. As walk, as you’re getting ready for the lesson, you’re going to repeat this out loud. You’re going to “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 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 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 promise you will learn much faster if you do this. So do these incantations every day just before do a lesson. Get your body strong, peak emotional state, and say these incantations. English can be fun and effortless. English be 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 of main story for “Beliefs.”