Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another part of managing your psychology, of strengthening your psychology so that you will learn English, anything in fact, much faster. And there are two of beliefs to general categories of beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s talk about beliefs first. Now limiting means, limit is something that stops you. It’s like a boundary. It stops you going ahead. So a limiting belief is a belief that stops you from improving, a belief stops you from getting better. And I’d say most English students have limiting beliefs many English students have very strong limiting beliefs. I call these beliefs English trauma and got that name from a few of my 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, deep emotional hurt. what they mean is that they had some very negative, painful experiences with English the past. In other words, when they were in school in classes, even as adults going to other English schools, they had very negative experiences. all these negative experiences have created some very negative beliefs, some limiting beliefs. For example, they say “I am not at English.” Well, that’s a belief. It may be true, it may not true. But it’s an opinion, it’s a belief that have.
Another belief, a very common belief, English is difficult. Or, English complicated. Well, that’s just a belief. For me English very easy, because I’m a native speaker, like your native language for you is very easy. Tomoe can speak fluently because she’s Japanese, so I might say “Japanese is difficult,” and she would “No, Japanese is super easy.” These are just beliefs that come from our experiences. The is these limiting beliefs limit us. They in fact do limit us. They stop from
getting better. They cause a lot of problems for us students, as learners. I have them, too. As I try to Japanese, for example, I have a lot of these limiting I realize. I think “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” is complicated, just look at the writing system. It’s so different from English. And these hurt my motivation. They lower my energy, and in fact they’re wrong.
They’re true. Japanese does not have to be difficult, it does not have be compli- cated. A small child, even a small child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And the is, the number one reason is, they don’t have limiting beliefs. They can sing songs and play games enjoy the language, and they’ll learn it so quickly, so easily, they’ll “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s the same with English with you. You learned in very painful, difficult way in the past. And so 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 you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. You they’re negative, you know they’re not helping you. But we to figure out, how can we get rid of limiting beliefs? That’s the first step, you have to weaken them. You have make them weaker and weaker and weaker. You have to cut them down. Well beliefs get stronger references. And reference is just an experience or a memory. it’s just something you imagine, actually. But it’s a specific experience or a specific imagination, a moment, that makes the belief stronger or weaker. So, example, you have this idea “English is painful and boring.” And you think of this belief, where does it come from?

Well, you think of all past experiences. You think of the time in middle school where your teacher corrected mistake and you 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 more and more memories, more of these negative experiences, negative references. And if you get enough, you will 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 the experiences. the power away from the experiences. And an easy way to do is just to ask questions about them. For example, let me ask this question. Your English schools, were they excellent? Were they just fantastic English schools fantastic, amazing, fun, positive 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 schools not excellent, maybe the school was the problem. Maybe it’s you. Maybe your English is not great because you did go to great schools. And did those schools that you went to, or the books you used, they use proven methods? Did they use research-based methods? Did they know a about the research about English learning, English teaching? Did they only use best methods? Or did they just use the textbook everybody else uses?
Well, I know from my experience as teacher, most schools just use the same textbooks. They don’t know why. Maybe boss tells them “We must use this book.” But they’re choosing the very, very best methods. They’re not choosing the very, very best books. And so the reason 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 teachers. Maybe English isn’t the problem. Maybe it was past experiences. Maybe it was the way you did it or where did it. Ask yourself these questions. Think about them 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 you 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 opposite. The teachers go very, very, very quickly. You learn one chapter in book, boom, after one week on to the next one, and next one. Each chapter has so many new words, so much new grammar.
For example, my experience Spanish in high school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve had a total maybe two years of Spanish, but I forgot it all. Because we never learned deeply. just tried to make us learn as many words as possible, a lot words, a lot of words, a lot of grammar, very, very fast. And then, course, I forgot everything. How about you? Did you learn deeply your schools? If not, maybe that was one of the problems. Maybe English feels difficult because you 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 good that? Again, maybe the method was the problem. Maybe the school is the problem, not English. So think these questions and think about them every day. Think them a lot, especially this week as you listen to Lesson Number 4. want you to think about these questions again and again and again. And be honest about it. And start to destroy these beliefs. Get rid of them. They’re wrong. English is not difficult. English is painful. English is not boring. It’s only a belief. It’s only a past experience. You change that now and in the future. So let’s do that.

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

And to these beliefs stronger, you need experiences. Remember, you need references, you need that prove the belief. So I’m going to give you some examples and you can find more. find people who speak English very well. Or maybe that have learned another language very well. I’ll give you of my favorite examples, Steve Kaufman of The Linguist speaks, believe, twelve languages now. I want you to find these people and at 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, example, that language learning is easy and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s native English speaker, he speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, speaks Japanese, he speaks Russian. These are all, supposedly, languages. For him they’re not difficult. They’re easy and effortless. That’s very strong belief he has.

Another belief he has is that you must learn language and you must focus on meaning. So in other words, he doesn’t on the grammar. He’s not focusing on boring textbooks. He’s reading interesting things he enjoys. He’s listening to interesting things that he enjoys. So, for him, language learning interesting. What’s really interesting for me is that these are the same that all of my best students have. They all have these same ideas. best students, the ones who learn the fastest, the ones who the best test scores, the ones with the best speaking, they all believe these things. all believe that English is fun, interesting and effortless. They all believe that language is natural. They all believe that they should focus the meaning, not on the grammar and the little of the language. So if you want to be like these successful people, you need to like them. You need 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 last part of this lesson. I want you to do is write down two, three, four empowering beliefs, beliefs that give you power English. Maybe “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Maybe “English can be fun and effortless.” “I love English.” I don’t know, write down, two, three, four empowering beliefs about English. And every day you’re to do an incantation. That’s a good word, that’s a word, incantation.
An incantation is a phrase or that you say again and again. It has almost a idea, it comes from magic. An incantation is a magical sentence. It’s sentence, you say the sentence something will happen. That’s it comes from. But for us an incantation is a belief you are going to repeat again and again and 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 loud every 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. 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 effortless.” You’re going to say it with some emotion. Say it feeling so you’re smiling, you’re breathing deep, you’re moving your body, you good posture and now you’re also saying these strong beliefs. can be fun and effortless. You repeat it again. English be fun and effortless. And then you say it again. English can 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 than feeling powerless, right? It’s better than bored. I promise you will learn so much faster you do this. So do these incantations every day just you do a lesson. Get your body strong, peak emotional state, and say these incantations. English can be fun and effortless. English can be fun effortless. Now your body, your mind, your beliefs, they’re all together, very strong. you’re ready to learn.

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