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 strengthening your psychology so that you 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 limiting belief is belief that stops you from improving, a belief that you from getting better. And I’d say most English students have beliefs and many English students have very strong limiting beliefs. I call these beliefs English and I got that name from a few of Japanese students. They would tell me “AJ, I can’t speak English because I have English trauma.”
What is English trauma? What 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 had some very negative, painful with English in the past. In other words, when they in school in English classes, even as adults going other English schools, they had very negative experiences. And these negative experiences have created some very negative beliefs, some very beliefs. For example, they say “I am not good at English.” Well, that’s a belief. It be true, it may not be true. But it’s an opinion, it’s a belief that have.
Another belief, a very common belief, English is difficult. Or, English is complicated. Well, that’s just belief. For me English very easy, because I’m a speaker, just like your native language for you is very easy. Tomoe can Japanese fluently because she’s Japanese, so I might say “Japanese difficult,” and she would say “No, Japanese is super easy.” are just beliefs that come from our experiences. The problem is limiting beliefs limit us. They in fact do limit us. They us 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 of these limiting beliefs I realize. I think “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look the writing system. It’s so different from English. And these beliefs hurt my motivation. lower my energy, and in fact they’re wrong.
They’re not true. does not 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 the is, the number one reason is, they don’t have the limiting beliefs. They can sing songs play games and enjoy the language, and they’ll learn so quickly, so easily, they’ll say “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s the same with with you. You learned in a very painful, difficult way in the past. so you developed, you created these beliefs in your head. is difficult. English is boring. English is painful. I’m not good English. I’ll never speak excellent English. These are just beliefs.
So how do you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, have these 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 them weaker and and weaker. You have to cut them down. Well beliefs get from references. And reference is just an experience or a memory. it’s just something you imagine, actually. But it’s a specific or a specific imagination, a specific moment, that makes the belief stronger weaker. So, for example, you have this idea “English is painful and boring.” when you think 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 or all the red marks on your English papers. And you start adding more and more and memories, more of these negative experiences, these negative references. And if get enough, you will develop a very, strong, deep, powerful belief “English is difficult. 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 power away from the experiences. And an easy way to do that is to ask questions about them. For example, let me this question. Your past English schools, were they excellent? Were just fantastic English schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive teachers? Did you have a great time every day? Well, I know most of you the answer is no. So that’s interesting, if your schools were not excellent, maybe the school the problem. Maybe it’s not you. Maybe your English is not great because did not go to great schools. And did those that you went to, or the books you used, they use proven methods? Did they use research-based methods? Did they know lot about the research about English learning, English teaching? Did they only use the methods? Or did they just use the textbook that else uses?
Well, I know from my experience as a teacher, schools just use the same textbooks. They don’t know why. the boss tells them “We must use this book.” they’re not choosing the very, very best methods. They’re not the very, very best books. And so maybe the reason you believe English is difficult is because you difficult methods in the past, or your teachers did. Maybe you think English is 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 or where you did it. Ask yourself these questions. Think about in detail. Weaken 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 totally mastered it, so that you knew it completely, 100% and never forgot it? Probably not, most schools I seen and the ones I have taught in, it’s quite opposite. The teachers go very, very, very quickly. You learn chapter in your book, boom, after one week on the next one, and the next one. Each chapter has so many words, so much new grammar.
For example, my experience Spanish in high school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve had a total of two years of Spanish, but I forgot it all. Because we never deeply. They just tried to make us learn as words as possible, a lot of words, a lot of words, lot of grammar, very, very fast. And then, of course, forgot everything. How about you? Did you learn deeply your schools? If not, maybe that was one of problems. Maybe English feels difficult because you never learned 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 about that? Again, maybe the method was the problem. the school is 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 these questions again 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. English is not painful. is not boring. It’s only a belief. It’s only a past experience. You can change that now in the future. So let’s do that.

Let’s talk about empowering beliefs, the positive side. So to empower, the verb, to empower means to make stronger. means to give power to another person. Or in this case, it means the beliefs you power. An empowering belief is a belief that makes you feel powerful, that you power. That’s the kind of beliefs you want you need to choose them. You must decide which beliefs will make you stronger. For example, here’s an belief. You can replace your old limiting belief, add this one instead. You can “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 language. It should be easy. It should be effortless. It should good. You learned your native language that way. It wasn’t was it? English was easy for me to learn, because I it in a totally natural way. And the more naturally I tried to learn Japanese, for example, Spanish, the easier it feels. So this is a new belief and you should it down, think about it. Write down this idea, belief “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Think 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 a lot of examples for this. Some these mini-stories you’re listening to, right? They’re fun. They’re stupid, sometimes. They’re crazy, sometimes. But they’re serious. English can be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering belief want to choose and you want to remember it every day.

And to these beliefs stronger, you need experiences. Remember, you need references, need examples that prove the belief. So I’m going to you some examples and you can find more. Go find people who speak English very well. maybe even that have learned another language very well. I’ll give you one of my examples, Steve Kaufman of The Linguist speaks, I believe, languages now. I want you to find these people 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, and Steve believes, for example, that language learning easy and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a native English speaker, he speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, he Japanese, he speaks Russian. These are all, supposedly, difficult languages. For him they’re not difficult. They’re 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 on the grammar. He’s not on boring textbooks. He’s reading 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 of my best students have. They all have these ideas. The best students, the ones who learn the fastest, ones who 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 is natural. They all that they should focus on the meaning, not on the grammar the little pieces of the language. So if you want to be like successful people, you need to think like them. You to have the same beliefs as them.
So here’s what I you to do. Here’s your homework. This is the last thing, the part of this lesson. What I want you to do is down two, three, four empowering beliefs, beliefs that give you power about English. Maybe “My brain a natural language learning machine.” Maybe “English can be and effortless.” Maybe “I love English.” I don’t know, write down, two, three, four beliefs about English. And every day you’re going to do an incantation. That’s a good word, that’s new word, incantation.
An incantation is a phrase or sentence that say again and again. It has almost a magic idea, it comes from magic. An is a magical sentence. It’s a sentence, you say sentence something will happen. That’s where it comes 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 going say that out loud every day while you’re walking and you’re doing your 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 out loud. You’re going to say “English can be fun and effortless.” You’re going to it with some emotion. Say it with feeling so you’re smiling, you’re breathing deep, you’re your body, you have good posture and now you’re saying these strong beliefs. English can 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 your and its fine. You can do it outside and make look at you and think you’re crazy. Why not? It’s better feeling powerless, right? It’s better than being bored. I promise you will so much faster if you do this. So do these every day just before you do a lesson. Get your strong, peak emotional state, and then say these incantations. English can 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 the story for “Beliefs.”