Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another important part managing your psychology, of strengthening your psychology so that you will English, or anything in fact, much faster. And there two kinds of beliefs to general categories of beliefs. Limiting empowering.
Let’s talk about limiting beliefs first. Now means, limit is something that stops you. It’s like a boundary. It you from going ahead. So a limiting belief is a belief that stops you from improving, belief that stops 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 got that name from a few of my Japanese students. They would tell me “AJ, can’t speak English well because I have English trauma.”
What English trauma? What is that, what are they talking about? Well, trauma means some kind 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. And all these experiences have created some very negative beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. For example, they “I am not good 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 they have.
Another belief, a very common belief, 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 speak Japanese fluently she’s Japanese, so I might say “Japanese is 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. stop us from
getting better. They cause a lot of problems for us as students, learners. I have them, too. As I try to learn Japanese, example, I have a lot of these limiting beliefs I realize. I “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. 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 American child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And reason is, the number one reason is, they don’t have limiting beliefs. They can sing songs and play games and enjoy the language, and they’ll it so quickly, so easily, they’ll say “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s the same with English you. You learned 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 speak excellent English. These are just beliefs.
So how you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. You know they’re negative, you they’re not helping you. But we have to figure out, 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 stronger from references. And reference is an experience or a memory. Sometimes it’s just something you imagine, actually. But it’s specific experience or a specific imagination, a specific moment, that makes the stronger or weaker. So, for example, you have this “English is painful and boring.” And when you think of this belief, where does it come from?

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

You have to question the experiences. Take power away from the experiences. And an 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 English schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? you have a great time every day? Well, I know most of you the answer is no. So that’s interesting, so if your schools were excellent, maybe the school was the problem. Maybe it’s not you. Maybe your English is great because you did not go to great schools. And did those that you went to, or the books you used, did they proven methods? Did they use research-based methods? Did they know lot about the research about English learning, English teaching? they only use the best methods? Or did they just use the textbook that everybody uses?
Well, I know from my experience as a teacher, schools just use the same textbooks. They don’t know why. Maybe the boss tells them “We must this book.” But they’re not choosing the very, very best methods. They’re not choosing the very, best books. And so maybe the reason you believe English is is because you used difficult methods in the past, or teachers did. Maybe you think English is boring because the past you used boring methods. You went to schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe English isn’t the problem. Maybe it was these past experiences. it was the way you did it or where 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 chapter in your book and learn it for a long so that you totally mastered it, so that you knew it completely, 100% never forgot it? Probably not, most schools I have seen and ones I have taught in, it’s quite the opposite. The teachers go very, very, quickly. You learn one chapter in your book, boom, after one week on to the next one, the next one. Each chapter has so many new words, so much grammar.
For example, my experience with Spanish in high school and university, took Spanish, I’ve had a total of maybe two years of Spanish, I forgot it all. Because we never learned deeply. They tried to make us learn as many words as possible, lot of words, a lot of words, a lot grammar, very, very fast. And then, of course, I forgot everything. How about you? Did you learn in your schools? If not, maybe that was one of problems. Maybe English feels difficult because you never learned deeply. English is not the problem.
Finally, did you with a grammar translation method? Did you study a lot of grammar rules? Did you take a lot tests? Did you feel good about that? Again, maybe the was the problem. Maybe the school is the problem, not English. So think about these and think about them every day. Think about them lot, especially this week as you listen to Lesson Number 4. I want you to think about questions again and again and again. And really be about it. And start to destroy these limiting beliefs. Get rid them. They’re wrong. English is not difficult. English is painful. English is not boring. It’s only a belief. It’s a past experience. You can change that now and the future. So let’s do that.

Let’s talk now about empowering beliefs, the side. So to empower, the verb, to empower means make stronger. It means to give power to another person. Or in this case, it means 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 want and you need choose them. You must decide which beliefs will make you stronger. For example, here’s empowering belief. You can replace your old limiting belief, this one instead. You can say “My brain is a language learning machine.” Because that’s what all of the scientific shows, our brain naturally learns languages. It is designed to learn language. It be easy. It should be effortless. It should feel good. You learned your native that way. It wasn’t difficult was it? English was for me to learn, because I did it in a totally natural way. And more naturally I tried to learn Japanese, for example, Spanish, the easier it feels. So this is a belief and you should write it down, think about it. Write down this idea, this “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Think about it every day. Decide choose that 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 also true. can think 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. they’re not 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 examples that 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 one of my favorite examples, Steve of The Linguist speaks, I believe, twelve languages now. I want you find these 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 learning easy and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a native English speaker, he Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, he 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 that you must learn language naturally and you must on meaning. So in other words, he doesn’t focus on grammar. He’s not focusing on boring textbooks. He’s reading interesting things that enjoys. He’s listening to interesting things that he enjoys. So, for him, language learning is interesting. What’s interesting for me is that these are the same beliefs that all of best students have. They all have these same ideas. best students, the ones who learn the fastest, the ones who have the best 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 learning is natural. They believe that they should focus on the meaning, not on the and the little pieces of the language. So if you want to be these successful people, you need to think like them. need to have the same beliefs as them.
So here’s what I want you do. Here’s your homework. This is the last thing, the last part of this lesson. What want you to do is write down two, three, four empowering beliefs, beliefs give you power about English. Maybe “My brain is natural language learning machine.” Maybe “English can be fun and effortless.” Maybe “I love English.” I don’t know, down, two, three, four empowering beliefs about English. And every day you’re going do an incantation. That’s a good word, that’s a word, incantation.
An incantation is a phrase or sentence you say again and again. It has almost a magic idea, it comes from magic. An incantation a magical sentence. It’s a sentence, you say the sentence something will happen. That’s where it from. But for us an incantation is just a belief you are going repeat again and again and again every day.So here’s what you’re to do. For example “English can be fun and effortless.” You’re to say 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 one more thing. As you walk, as you’re getting ready the lesson, you’re going to repeat this out loud. You’re going to say “English can fun and 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 have good and now you’re also saying these strong beliefs. English can be fun and effortless. You it again. English can be fun and effortless. And then you say it again. can be fun and effortless.

You can do this your room and its fine. You can do it outside make everyone look at you and think you’re crazy. not? It’s better than feeling powerless, right? It’s better than being bored. I promise you will learn much faster if 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 be fun and effortless. Now your body, your mind, your beliefs, they’re together, very strong. Then you’re ready to learn.

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