Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another important part of your psychology, of strengthening your psychology so that you will learn English, or in fact, much faster. And there are two kinds of beliefs to general of beliefs. Limiting 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 ahead. So a limiting belief is a belief that stops you from improving, a belief that you from getting better. And I’d say most English have limiting beliefs and many English students have very limiting beliefs. I call these beliefs English trauma and I got name from a few of my Japanese students. They would tell me “AJ, can’t speak English well because I have English trauma.”
What is English trauma? is that, what are they talking about? Well, trauma means some kind injury, some kind of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep emotional hurt. So what they mean is they had some very negative, painful experiences with English the past. In other words, when they were in in English classes, even as adults going to other English schools, they had negative experiences. And all these negative experiences have created some very negative beliefs, some limiting beliefs. For example, they 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 belief that they have.
belief, a very common belief, English is difficult. Or, is complicated. Well, that’s just a belief. For me English very easy, I’m a native speaker, just like your native language you is very easy. Tomoe can speak Japanese fluently she’s Japanese, so I might say “Japanese is difficult,” and she say “No, Japanese is super easy.” These are just that come from our experiences. The problem is these limiting beliefs limit us. They in fact do us. They stop us from
getting better. They cause a lot of 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 system. It’s so different from English. And these beliefs hurt my motivation. They lower my energy, and fact they’re wrong.
They’re not true. Japanese does have to be difficult, it does not have to compli- cated. A small child, even a small American child, could Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And the reason is, number one reason is, they don’t have the limiting beliefs. They can sing and 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 English with you. You in a very painful, difficult way in the past. And so you developed, you these beliefs in your head. English is difficult. English boring. English is painful. I’m not good at English. I’ll never excellent English. These are just beliefs.
So how do eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. You they’re negative, you know they’re not helping you. But we have to figure out, how can get rid of the limiting beliefs? That’s the first step, have to weaken them. You have to make them weaker and weaker and weaker. You have to them down. Well beliefs get stronger from references. And is just an experience or a memory. Sometimes it’s something you imagine, actually. But it’s a specific experience a specific imagination, a specific moment, that makes the belief or 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, you think all these past experiences. You think of the time in middle school where your teacher your mistake and you felt terrible. And you think maybe the bad grades you got on the test or the red marks on your English papers. And you start adding more and more and more memories, more these negative 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, just have to question the references.

You have to question experiences. Take the power away from the experiences. And easy way to do that is just to ask about them. For example, let me ask this question. past English schools, were they excellent? Were they just fantastic English with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? Did you have a great every day? Well, I know for most of you the answer no. So that’s interesting, so if your schools were not excellent, maybe school was the problem. Maybe it’s not 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 lot about the 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, most 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 choosing very, very best books. And so maybe the reason 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 these past experiences. Maybe it was way you did it 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 one chapter in your book and learn it for a long time so that you totally 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 the opposite. The teachers very, very, very quickly. You learn one chapter in book, boom, after one week on to the next one, the next one. Each chapter has so many new words, much new grammar.
For example, my experience with 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. They just tried make us learn as many words as possible, a lot of words, lot of words, a lot of grammar, very, very fast. then, of course, I forgot everything. How about you? Did you learn deeply your schools? If not, maybe that was one of the problems. Maybe English difficult because you never learned deeply. Maybe English is not problem.
Finally, did you learn with a grammar method? Did you study a lot of grammar rules? Did take a lot of tests? Did you feel good about that? Again, the method was the problem. Maybe the school is the problem, not English. So about these questions and think about them every day. Think them a lot, especially this week as you listen to Lesson Number 4. I want you 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 not painful. English not boring. It’s only a belief. It’s only a experience. You can change that now and in the future. let’s do that.

Let’s talk now about empowering beliefs, the positive side. So to empower, verb, to empower means to make stronger. It means to give power to another person. Or in case, it means the beliefs give you power. An empowering belief is a that makes you feel 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 you stronger. example, here’s an empowering belief. You can replace your old limiting belief, add this instead. You can say “My brain is a natural learning machine.” Because that’s what all of the scientific shows, our brain naturally learns languages. It is designed 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 in totally natural way. And the more naturally I tried to Japanese, for example, or Spanish, the easier it feels. So this a new belief and you should write it down, about it. Write down this idea, this belief “My brain is natural language learning machine.” Think about it every day. Decide to choose belief. Here’s another 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. can think of a lot of examples for this. of these mini-stories you’re listening to, right? They’re fun. They’re stupid, sometimes. They’re crazy, sometimes. they’re not serious. English can be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering belief you want to choose you want to remember it every day.

And to make these beliefs stronger, you need experiences. Remember, need references, you need examples that prove the belief. I’m going to give you some examples and you can find more. find people who speak English very well. Or maybe even have learned another language very well. I’ll give you one of my favorite examples, Steve Kaufman of Linguist speaks, I believe, twelve languages now. I want you to find 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 native English speaker, he speaks Cantonese, he Mandarin, he speaks 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 he has.

Another belief he has is that you must language naturally and you must focus on meaning. So in words, he doesn’t focus on the grammar. He’s not focusing on textbooks. He’s reading interesting things that he enjoys. He’s listening to interesting things he enjoys. So, for him, language learning is interesting. What’s really interesting for is that these are the same beliefs that all of my students have. They all have these same ideas. The best students, ones who learn the fastest, the ones who have the best scores, the ones with the best speaking, they all believe these things. They all believe English is fun, interesting and effortless. They all believe that language is natural. They all believe that they should focus on the meaning, on the grammar and the little pieces of the language. So if want to be like these 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 thing, the last part of this lesson. What I want you do is write down two, three, four empowering beliefs, beliefs that give you power about English. “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Maybe “English can fun 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 an incantation. That’s a good word, that’s a new word, incantation.
An incantation a phrase or sentence that you say again and again. It 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. for us an incantation is just a belief you are 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 to 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, you’re getting ready for the lesson, you’re going to this out loud. You’re going to say “English can be fun effortless.” You’re going 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 and now you’re also saying these strong beliefs. English can be fun effortless. You repeat it again. English can be fun and effortless. And then you say it again. can be fun and effortless.

You can do 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 better than being bored. I promise you learn so much faster if you do this. So do these incantations every day just you do a lesson. Get your body strong, peak emotional state, then 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.”