Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs another important part of managing your psychology, of strengthening your psychology so that you will English, or anything in fact, much faster. And there are two kinds of beliefs to general categories beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s talk about limiting beliefs first. limiting means, limit is something that stops you. It’s a boundary. It stops you from going ahead. So limiting belief is a belief that stops you from improving, a that stops you from getting better. And I’d say most English students have limiting beliefs and many 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, I can’t speak well because I have English trauma.”
What is English trauma? What is that, what they talking about? Well, trauma means some kind of injury, kind of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep emotional hurt. So what they mean is they had some very negative, painful experiences with English in the past. In words, when they were in school in English classes, as adults going to other English schools, they had very negative experiences. And all these experiences have created some very negative beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. For example, they say “I am good at English.” Well, that’s a belief. It may true, it may not be true. But it’s an opinion, it’s a that they 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 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 is easy.” These are just beliefs that come from our experiences. problem is these limiting beliefs limit us. They in fact do us. They stop us from
getting better. They a lot of problems for us as students, as learners. have them, too. As I try to learn Japanese, example, I have a lot of these limiting beliefs I realize. I think “Oh, is so 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 in fact they’re wrong.
They’re true. Japanese does not have to be difficult, it not have to be compli- cated. A small child, a small American child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, easily. And the reason is, the number one reason is, they don’t have the limiting beliefs. They 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 the past. And so you developed, you created these beliefs in your head. English difficult. English is boring. English is painful. I’m not good English. I’ll never speak excellent English. These are just beliefs.
So how you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. You 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 them weaker and weaker and weaker. You have to them down. Well beliefs get stronger from references. And reference is an experience or a memory. Sometimes it’s just something you imagine, actually. it’s a specific experience or a specific imagination, a moment, that makes the belief stronger or weaker. So, for example, you this idea “English is painful and boring.” And when you think this belief, where does it come from?

Well, you think all these past experiences. You think of the time in middle where your teacher corrected your mistake and you felt terrible. And think of maybe the bad grades you got on test or all the red marks on your English papers. And you start adding more and and more memories, more of these negative experiences, these negative references. if you get enough, you will develop a very, strong, deep, belief “English is difficult. English is painful. I’m not good at English.” So to these, you just have to question the references.

You have to question the experiences. Take the away from the experiences. And an easy way to do that is just to ask questions about them. example, let me ask this question. Your past English schools, were they excellent? Were they just fantastic English with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? Did you have a 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 was the problem. Maybe it’s not you. Maybe your English is not great you did not go to great schools. And did those schools that you went to, or the books used, did they use proven methods? Did they use research-based methods? they know a lot about the research about English learning, teaching? Did they only use the best methods? Or did they just the textbook that everybody else uses?
Well, I know from my experience a teacher, most schools just use the same textbooks. They don’t know why. Maybe the boss tells “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 you believe English is difficult is because you used methods in the past, or your teachers did. Maybe you think English is because in the past you used boring methods. You went to boring schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe isn’t the problem. Maybe it was these past experiences. Maybe it was the you did it or where you did it. Ask yourself 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 book and learn it for a long time so you totally mastered it, so that you knew it completely, 100% and never forgot it? Probably not, most schools have 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 one. Each chapter has so many new words, so much grammar.
For example, my experience with Spanish in high school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve a total of maybe two years of Spanish, but I forgot it all. Because we never deeply. They just tried to make us learn as many words possible, a lot of words, a lot of words, a of grammar, very, very fast. And then, of course, I forgot everything. How about you? you learn deeply in your schools? If not, maybe was one of the problems. Maybe English feels difficult because you never deeply. Maybe English is not the problem.
Finally, you learn with a grammar translation method? Did you study a of grammar rules? Did you take a lot of tests? Did you feel good about that? Again, maybe method was the problem. Maybe the school is the problem, English. So think about these questions and think about them day. Think about them a lot, especially this week as listen to Lesson Number 4. I want you to think about these questions again and again again. And really be honest about it. And start to destroy these beliefs. Get rid of them. They’re wrong. English is not difficult. English is not painful. English is boring. It’s only a belief. It’s only a past experience. You change that now and in the future. So let’s that.

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

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

And to make these beliefs stronger, you need experiences. Remember, you need references, need examples that prove the belief. So I’m going give you some examples and you can find more. find people who speak English very well. Or maybe even that have learned another language well. I’ll give you one of my favorite examples, Kaufman of The Linguist speaks, I believe, twelve languages now. I want you to find these people and look their beliefs. I’ll tell you some of his beliefs because he’s a friend, I’ve to him a number of times, and Steve believes, for example, that learning is easy and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a native speaker, he speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, he speaks Japanese, he Russian. These are all, supposedly, difficult languages. For him they’re difficult. They’re easy and effortless. That’s a very strong belief 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 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 really interesting for me is that these are the beliefs that all of my best students have. They all have same ideas. The best students, the ones who learn the fastest, the who have the best test scores, the ones with the best speaking, all believe these things. They all believe that English fun, interesting and effortless. They all believe that language learning natural. They all believe that they should focus on meaning, not on the grammar and the little pieces of language. So if you want to be like these successful people, you to think like them. You need to have the same beliefs as them.
So here’s I want you to do. Here’s your homework. This is the last thing, last part of this lesson. What I want you to is 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 about English. And every day you’re going to do incantation. That’s a good word, that’s a new word, incantation.
incantation is a phrase or sentence that you say and again. It has almost a magic idea, it comes magic. An incantation is a magical sentence. It’s a sentence, you say the sentence will happen. That’s where it comes from. But for us an incantation is just a you are going 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 going say that out loud every day while you’re walking along and you’re doing your posture. And you’re breathing you’re smiling. Well, you’re going to add one more thing. As you walk, as you’re getting ready for 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, you have good posture now you’re also saying these strong beliefs. English can fun and effortless. You repeat it again. English can be and effortless. And then you say it again. English can be fun and effortless.

You do this in your room 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 learn so much faster if 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. can be fun and effortless. English can be fun effortless. Now your body, your mind, your beliefs, they’re all together, very strong. Then you’re ready learn.

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