Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another important part of managing your psychology, of your psychology so that you will learn English, or in fact, much faster. And there are two kinds of beliefs general categories of beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s talk 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 you from improving, a belief that stops you from getting better. And I’d say most English students limiting beliefs and many English students have very strong beliefs. I call these beliefs English trauma and I that name from a few of my Japanese students. They would tell “AJ, I can’t speak English well because I have trauma.”
What is English trauma? What is that, what are talking about? Well, trauma means some kind of injury, kind of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep emotional hurt. So they mean is that they had some very negative, painful experiences with English the past. In other words, when they were in school in English classes, as adults going to other English schools, they had negative experiences. And all these negative experiences have created some very beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. For example, they say “I am not at English.” Well, that’s a belief. It may be true, may not be true. But it’s an opinion, it’s a belief that they have.
Another belief, very common belief, English is difficult. Or, English is complicated. Well, that’s a belief. For me English very easy, because I’m a speaker, just like your native language for you is easy. Tomoe can speak Japanese fluently because she’s Japanese, I might say “Japanese is difficult,” and she would say “No, Japanese is easy.” These are just beliefs that come from our experiences. 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 try to learn Japanese, example, I have a lot of these limiting beliefs I realize. I think “Oh, is so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look at the writing system. It’s so from English. And these beliefs hurt my motivation. They my energy, and in fact they’re wrong.
They’re true. Japanese does not have to be difficult, it does not to be compli- cated. A small child, even a small child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And reason is, the number one reason is, they don’t have the limiting beliefs. can sing songs and play games and enjoy the language, and they’ll learn it quickly, so easily, they’ll say “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s the with English with you. You learned in a very painful, way in the past. And so you developed, you created these beliefs in head. English is difficult. English is boring. English is painful. I’m not at English. I’ll never speak excellent English. These are just beliefs.
So how you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. You know they’re negative, know they’re not helping you. But we have to figure out, how we get rid of the limiting beliefs? That’s the first step, you have to weaken them. have to make them weaker and weaker and weaker. have to cut them down. Well beliefs get stronger from references. And reference is just an experience or memory. Sometimes it’s just something you imagine, actually. But it’s a experience or a specific imagination, a specific moment, that makes the belief or weaker. So, for example, you have this idea “English painful and boring.” And when you think of this belief, where it come from?

Well, you think of all these past experiences. think of the time in middle school where your teacher corrected your and you felt terrible. And you think of maybe the bad grades got on the test or all the red marks your English papers. And you start adding more and more and more memories, of these negative experiences, these negative references. And if you get enough, you develop a very, strong, deep, powerful belief “English is difficult. English is painful. I’m not good at English.” So weaken these, you just have to question the references.

You have to the experiences. Take the power away from the experiences. And an way to do that is just to ask questions about them. For example, let me ask question. Your past English schools, were they excellent? Were just fantastic English schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? Did have a great time every day? Well, I know for most of you the answer 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 great because you did not go to great schools. And did those schools that you to, or the books you used, did they use proven methods? Did they use research-based methods? Did they a lot about the research about English learning, English teaching? Did they only the best methods? Or did they just use the that everybody else uses?
Well, I know from my experience as a teacher, most schools use the same textbooks. They don’t know why. Maybe the tells them “We must use this book.” But they’re not choosing the very, very best methods. They’re choosing the very, very best books. And so maybe the reason you believe English is is because you used difficult methods in the past, or your did. Maybe you think English is boring because in the past you used methods. You went to boring schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe English isn’t problem. Maybe it was these past experiences. Maybe it the way you did it or where you did it. Ask yourself these questions. about them in detail. Weaken your limiting beliefs. Challenge your beliefs. Another question, in school did you learn deeply? For example, you take 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 forgot it? Probably not, most schools I have seen the ones I have taught in, it’s quite the opposite. The teachers very, very, very quickly. You learn one chapter in your book, boom, after one on to the next one, and the next one. Each chapter has so many words, so much new grammar.
For example, my experience with in high school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve a total of maybe two years of Spanish, but forgot it all. Because we never 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? Did you learn deeply in schools? If not, maybe that was one of the problems. Maybe English feels because you never learned deeply. Maybe English is not problem.
Finally, did you learn with a grammar translation method? you study a lot of grammar rules? Did you take lot of tests? Did you feel good about that? Again, maybe the method was the problem. the school is the problem, not English. So think about these questions and about them every day. Think about them a lot, this week as you listen to Lesson Number 4. I want to think about these questions again and again and again. really be honest about it. And start to destroy limiting beliefs. Get rid of them. They’re wrong. English not difficult. English is not painful. English is not boring. It’s a belief. It’s only a past experience. You can that now and in the future. So let’s do that.

Let’s talk now about empowering beliefs, the positive side. to empower, the verb, to empower means to make stronger. It means to give 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 gives power. That’s the kind of beliefs you want and you need to choose them. You decide which beliefs will make you stronger. For example, here’s 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 to language. It should be easy. It should be effortless. It feel good. You learned your native language that way. It wasn’t difficult was it? English easy for me to learn, because I did it in a totally natural way. And the more naturally tried to learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, the it feels. So this is a new belief and should write it down, think about it. Write down idea, this belief “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” about it every day. Decide to choose that belief. Here’s another you might decide to choose “English can be fun effortless.”

English can be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering belief it’s also 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 serious. English can be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering you want to choose and you want to remember it every day.

And to make 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. Or maybe even have learned another language very well. I’ll give you of my favorite examples, Steve Kaufman of The Linguist speaks, I believe, twelve now. I want you to find these people and look at their beliefs. I’ll you some of his beliefs because he’s a friend, I’ve talked him 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 Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, he speaks Japanese, he speaks Russian. are all, supposedly, difficult languages. For him they’re not difficult. They’re and effortless. That’s a very strong belief he has.

Another belief he has is you must learn language naturally and you must focus on meaning. So in words, he doesn’t focus on the grammar. He’s not focusing on boring textbooks. He’s reading interesting that he enjoys. He’s listening to interesting things that enjoys. So, for him, language learning is interesting. What’s really interesting me is that these are the same beliefs that of my best students have. They all have these same ideas. best students, the ones who learn the fastest, the who have the best test scores, the ones with the best speaking, all believe these things. They all believe that English is fun, interesting effortless. They all believe that language learning is natural. They all believe that they should focus on meaning, not on the grammar and the little pieces the language. So if you want to be like these successful people, need to think like them. You need to have the beliefs as them.
So here’s what I want you do. Here’s your homework. This is the last thing, the part of this lesson. What I want you to do is write down two, three, four empowering beliefs, that give you power about English. Maybe “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” “English can be 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 do an incantation. That’s a word, that’s a new word, incantation.
An incantation is phrase or sentence that you say again and again. has almost a magic idea, it comes from magic. incantation is a magical sentence. It’s a sentence, you say the sentence something will happen. That’s where comes from. But for us an incantation is just a belief you are going to again and again and again every day.So here’s what you’re going to do. For example “English can be and effortless.” You’re going to say that out loud every day while you’re walking along and you’re your posture. And you’re breathing and 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 repeat this loud. You’re going to say “English can be fun and effortless.” You’re going say 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 also saying these strong beliefs. English can fun and effortless. You repeat it again. English can be fun and effortless. then you say it again. English can be fun effortless.

You can do this in your room and its fine. can do it outside and make 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 so much faster if you do this. So do these incantations every day just before do a lesson. Get your body strong, peak emotional state, and then say these incantations. English be 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 main story “Beliefs.”