Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are 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 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 boundary. It stops you from going ahead. So a limiting belief a belief that stops you from improving, a belief that stops 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 few of my Japanese students. would tell me “AJ, I can’t speak English well because I English trauma.”
What is English trauma? What is that, what are they talking about? Well, trauma means kind of injury, some kind of hurt. Emotional hurt, emotional hurt. So what they mean is that they some very negative, painful experiences with English in the past. other words, when they were in school in English classes, even as adults 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, say “I am not good at English.” Well, that’s a belief. may be true, it may not be true. But it’s an opinion, it’s a that they have.
Another belief, a very common belief, English difficult. Or, English is complicated. Well, that’s just a belief. For English 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 super easy.” These are beliefs that come from our experiences. The problem is limiting beliefs limit us. They in fact do limit us. stop us from
getting better. They cause a of problems for us as students, as learners. I have them, too. As I to learn Japanese, for example, I have a lot of these limiting beliefs I realize. think “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look at the writing system. It’s different from English. And these beliefs hurt my motivation. They lower my energy, and fact they’re wrong.
They’re not true. Japanese does not to be difficult, it does not have to be compli- cated. A small child, a small American child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And the is, the number one reason is, they don’t have the limiting beliefs. 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 same with English with you. You learned in a painful, difficult way in 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 at English. I’ll speak excellent English. These are just beliefs.
So how do eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. You know they’re negative, you they’re not helping 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 to make them weaker and weaker and weaker. You have cut them down. Well beliefs get stronger from references. And reference just an experience or a memory. Sometimes it’s just something you imagine, actually. it’s a specific experience or a specific imagination, a specific moment, makes the belief stronger or 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 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 the test or all red marks on your English papers. And you start more and more and more memories, more of these experiences, these negative references. And if you get enough, will develop a very, strong, deep, powerful belief “English is difficult. English painful. I’m not good at English.” So to weaken these, you just have to question references.

You have to question the experiences. Take the power away the experiences. And an easy way to do that is just ask questions about them. For example, let me ask this question. past English schools, were they excellent? Were they just English schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? Did have a great time every day? Well, I know most of you the answer is no. So that’s interesting, so if schools were not excellent, maybe the school was the problem. Maybe it’s not you. Maybe English is not great because you did not go to great schools. And did those that you went to, or the books you used, did they use proven methods? they use research-based methods? Did they know a lot the research about English learning, English teaching? Did they only use the best methods? Or did just use the textbook that everybody else uses?
Well, I know from my experience as a teacher, most just use the same textbooks. They don’t know why. Maybe boss tells them “We must use this book.” But they’re not choosing very, very best methods. They’re not choosing the very, very books. And so maybe the reason you believe English is is because you used difficult 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. had boring teachers. Maybe English isn’t the problem. Maybe it was these experiences. Maybe it was the way you did it or where you did it. Ask yourself these questions. about them in detail. Weaken your limiting beliefs. Challenge limiting beliefs. Another question, in school did you learn deeply? example, did you take one chapter in your 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 I have seen and the ones I have taught in, it’s quite the opposite. The go very, very, very quickly. You learn one chapter in book, boom, after one week on to the next one, and the next one. Each has 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 maybe two years of Spanish, but I forgot it all. Because we learned deeply. They just tried to make us learn many words as possible, a lot of words, a of words, a lot of grammar, very, very fast. 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 learned deeply. English is not the problem.
Finally, did you learn with a grammar translation method? Did study a lot of grammar rules? Did you take a lot of tests? Did feel good about that? Again, maybe the method was 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 you think about these questions again and again and again. And really be 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 a past experience. You can change that now and in future. So let’s do that.

Let’s talk now about empowering beliefs, the positive side. So empower, the verb, to empower means to make stronger. It means to give power to another person. Or this case, it means the beliefs give you power. An empowering belief is a belief that makes feel powerful, that gives you power. That’s the kind beliefs you want and you need to choose them. You decide which beliefs will make you stronger. For example, here’s an belief. You can replace your old limiting belief, add one instead. You can say “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Because that’s what all the scientific research shows, our brain naturally learns languages. It is designed to learn language. should be easy. It should be effortless. It should feel good. 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 to learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, the easier feels. So this is a new belief and you should it down, think about it. Write down this idea, this “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 and effortless.”

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

And make these beliefs stronger, you need experiences. Remember, you need references, you 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. maybe even that have learned another language very well. I’ll give you one my favorite examples, Steve Kaufman of The Linguist speaks, I believe, languages now. I want you to find these people and look at their beliefs. I’ll tell you some his beliefs because he’s a friend, I’ve talked to a number of times, and Steve believes, for example, that language 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 very belief he has.

Another belief he has is that you must learn language naturally and you must on meaning. So in other words, he doesn’t focus the grammar. He’s not focusing on boring textbooks. He’s interesting things that he enjoys. He’s listening to interesting that he enjoys. So, for him, language learning is interesting. What’s really 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 ones who learn the fastest, ones who have the best test scores, the ones with the best speaking, they believe these things. They all believe that English is fun, and effortless. They all believe that language learning is natural. all believe that they should focus on the meaning, not on the grammar and little pieces of the language. So if you want 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 to do. Here’s homework. This is the last thing, the last part this lesson. What I want you to do is write two, three, four empowering beliefs, beliefs that give you power about English. Maybe “My brain a natural language learning machine.” Maybe “English can be fun effortless.” Maybe “I love English.” I don’t know, write down, two, three, four empowering beliefs English. And every day you’re going to do an incantation. That’s a good word, that’s a new word, incantation.
incantation is a phrase or sentence that you say again again. It has almost a magic idea, it comes from magic. 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 what you’re going to do. For example “English can fun and effortless.” You’re going to say that out every day while you’re walking along and you’re doing posture. And you’re breathing and you’re smiling. Well, you’re to add one more thing. As you walk, as you’re getting ready for the lesson, you’re going to repeat out loud. You’re going to say “English can be fun and effortless.” You’re going to say it some emotion. Say it with feeling 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 can fun and effortless. You repeat it again. English can be fun and effortless. And you say it again. English can be fun and effortless.

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

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