Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another important part managing your psychology, of strengthening your psychology so that you learn English, or 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 from improving, a belief that stops you from getting better. I’d say most English students have limiting beliefs and English students have very strong limiting beliefs. I call these beliefs trauma and I got that name from a few my Japanese students. They would tell me “AJ, I can’t English well because I have English trauma.”
What English trauma? What is that, what are they talking about? Well, trauma means some kind of injury, kind of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep emotional hurt. So what they mean is that had some very negative, painful experiences with English in the past. In words, when they were in school in English classes, even as adults going to other English schools, they very negative experiences. And all these negative experiences have created very negative beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. For example, they say “I am good at English.” Well, that’s a belief. It may be true, may not be true. But it’s an opinion, it’s a belief they have.
Another belief, a very common belief, English is difficult. Or, English is complicated. Well, that’s a belief. For me English very easy, because 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 would say “No, Japanese is super easy.” These are just beliefs that come from experiences. The problem is these limiting beliefs limit us. They in fact limit us. They stop us from
getting better. They cause a lot of for us as students, as learners. I have them, too. As I try to Japanese, for example, I have a lot of these limiting beliefs I realize. I think “Oh, Japanese so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look at the writing system. It’s different from English. And these beliefs hurt my motivation. lower my energy, and in fact they’re wrong.
They’re not true. Japanese does have to be difficult, it does not have to be compli- cated. small child, even a small American child, could learn very effortlessly, very easily. And the reason is, the number one reason is, don’t have the limiting beliefs. They can sing songs play games and enjoy the language, and they’ll learn it quickly, so easily, they’ll say “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s same with English with you. You learned in a very painful, difficult way in past. And so you developed, you created these beliefs in your head. English is difficult. English is boring. is painful. I’m not good at English. I’ll never speak excellent English. are just beliefs.
So how do you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you these beliefs. You know they’re negative, you know they’re helping you. But we have to figure out, how can we get rid of limiting 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. reference is just an experience or a memory. Sometimes it’s just you imagine, actually. But it’s a specific experience or a imagination, a specific moment, that makes the belief stronger weaker. So, for example, you have this idea “English painful and boring.” And when you think of this belief, where does it come from?

Well, you think of these past experiences. You think of the time in school where your teacher corrected your mistake and you felt terrible. And you think of maybe bad grades you got on the test or all the red marks on 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 difficult. English is painful. I’m not good at English.” So to weaken these, you just to question the references.

You have to question the experiences. the power away from the experiences. And an easy way to do that is just to questions about them. For example, let me ask this question. past English schools, were they excellent? Were they just fantastic schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? Did you have great time every day? Well, I know for most of you the is no. So 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 because you did go to great schools. And did those schools that you went to, or the books you used, did use proven methods? Did they use research-based methods? Did they a lot about the research about English learning, English teaching? Did they only use the best methods? did they just use the textbook that everybody else uses?
Well, know from my experience as a teacher, most schools just use the same textbooks. They don’t know why. the boss tells them “We must use this book.” But they’re not choosing the very, very methods. They’re not choosing the very, very best books. And so maybe the reason believe English is difficult is because you used difficult methods in past, or your teachers did. Maybe you think English is boring because in past you used boring methods. You went to boring schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe English isn’t the problem. it was these past experiences. Maybe it was the you did it or where you did it. Ask yourself these questions. Think about them in detail. your limiting beliefs. Challenge your limiting beliefs. Another question, school did you learn 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% never forgot it? Probably not, most schools I have seen the ones I have taught in, it’s quite the opposite. teachers go very, very, very quickly. You learn one chapter your book, boom, after one week on to the next one, and the one. Each chapter has so many new words, so 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 as many words as possible, a of words, a lot of words, a lot of grammar, very, very fast. And then, of course, I forgot everything. about you? Did you learn deeply in your schools? If not, maybe that was one of problems. Maybe English feels difficult because you never learned deeply. Maybe English not the problem.
Finally, did you learn with a translation method? Did you study a lot of grammar rules? Did you take a of tests? Did you feel good about that? Again, maybe method was the problem. Maybe the school is the problem, not English. So think about questions and think about them every 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 and again. really be honest about it. And start to destroy these limiting beliefs. Get rid of them. They’re wrong. is not difficult. English is not painful. English is not boring. It’s a belief. It’s only 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 to empower, verb, to empower means to make stronger. It means to give power to person. Or in this case, it means the beliefs you power. An empowering belief is a belief that you feel powerful, that gives you power. That’s the kind of beliefs you want and you need to 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 one instead. You can “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Because that’s what all of the scientific research shows, brain naturally learns languages. It is designed to learn language. It should be easy. It should effortless. It should feel good. You learned your native that way. It wasn’t difficult was it? English was easy for me to learn, I did it in a totally natural way. And the more naturally tried to learn 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 fun and effortless.”

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

And to these beliefs stronger, you need experiences. Remember, you need references, you examples that prove the belief. So I’m going to you some examples and you can find more. Go find people who speak English well. Or maybe even that have learned another language very well. I’ll give you of my favorite examples, Steve Kaufman of The Linguist speaks, I believe, twelve languages now. want you to find these people and look at their beliefs. I’ll tell you some of beliefs because he’s a friend, I’ve talked to him a number of times, Steve believes, for example, that language learning is easy effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a native English speaker, he speaks Cantonese, speaks Mandarin, he speaks Japanese, he speaks Russian. These 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 you must focus on meaning. So other words, he doesn’t focus on the grammar. He’s not focusing boring textbooks. He’s reading interesting things that he enjoys. He’s listening to interesting things that he enjoys. So, him, language learning is interesting. What’s really interesting for me that these are the same beliefs that all of my best students have. all have these same ideas. The best students, the ones who learn the fastest, the ones have the best test scores, the ones with the best speaking, they all believe these things. They believe that English is fun, interesting and effortless. They all believe language learning is natural. They all believe that they should on the meaning, not on the grammar and the little pieces of language. So if you want to be like these people, you need to think like them. You need have the same beliefs as them.
So here’s what I want you to do. Here’s your homework. is the last thing, the last part of this lesson. What I want you to do is write 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, empowering 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 is a phrase or that you say again and again. It has almost a magic idea, it comes magic. An incantation is a magical sentence. It’s a sentence, you say the something will happen. That’s where it comes from. But for us an incantation is a belief you are going to repeat again and again again every day.So here’s what you’re going to do. For “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. 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 this out loud. You’re going to say “English can be fun effortless.” You’re going to say it with some emotion. Say with 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. English can be fun effortless. You repeat it again. English can be fun and effortless. And you say it again. English can be fun and effortless.

You can do this your room and its fine. You can do it outside and everyone 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 learn 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 be fun effortless. English can be fun and effortless. Now your body, your mind, beliefs, they’re all together, very strong. Then you’re ready to learn.

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