Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

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

Well, think of all 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 the bad you got on the test or all the red marks on your English papers. And start adding more and more and more memories, more of 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 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. Your past English schools, were they excellent? Were just fantastic English 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 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 books you used, did 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 the best methods? Or did just use the textbook that everybody else uses?
Well, I know from my as a teacher, most schools just use the same textbooks. They don’t why. Maybe the boss tells them “We must use this book.” But they’re not choosing the 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 in the 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 teachers. Maybe English isn’t the problem. Maybe it was past experiences. Maybe it was the way you did it where you did it. Ask yourself these questions. Think them in detail. Weaken your limiting beliefs. Challenge your beliefs. Another question, in school did you learn deeply? For example, did you take one chapter in your and learn it for a long time so that you totally mastered it, so that knew it completely, 100% and never forgot it? Probably not, most schools have seen and the ones I have taught in, it’s quite opposite. The teachers go very, very, very quickly. You learn one in your book, boom, after one week on to next one, and the next one. Each chapter has so many new words, much new grammar.
For example, my experience with Spanish high school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve had total of maybe two years of Spanish, but I it all. Because we never learned deeply. They just tried make us learn as many words as possible, a lot of words, a lot of words, lot of grammar, very, very fast. And then, of course, I everything. How about you? Did you learn deeply in your schools? If not, maybe that 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 a lot of grammar rules? Did you take a of tests? Did you feel good about that? Again, maybe the method was the problem. Maybe the school the problem, not English. So think about these questions and think about them every day. Think about them lot, especially this week as you listen to Lesson Number 4. I you to think about these questions again and again again. And really be honest about it. And start to these limiting beliefs. Get rid of them. They’re wrong. English not difficult. English is not 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 empowering beliefs, the positive side. So to empower, the verb, to empower means to stronger. It means to give power to another person. in this case, it means the beliefs give you power. An empowering belief is a belief that makes 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. For example, here’s an empowering belief. You can replace old limiting belief, add this one instead. You can say “My brain 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. should be effortless. It should feel good. You learned your native language that way. It wasn’t was it? English was easy for me to learn, because I did it in a totally natural way. the more naturally I tried to learn Japanese, for example, Spanish, the easier it feels. So this is a new and you should write it down, think about it. Write down this idea, this belief “My brain is natural language learning machine.” Think about it every day. to choose that belief. Here’s another belief you might decide choose “English can be fun and effortless.”

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

And make 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 speak English very well. Or maybe even that have learned another language well. I’ll give you one of my favorite examples, Steve Kaufman of Linguist speaks, I believe, twelve languages now. I want to find these people and look at their beliefs. I’ll 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 belief. He’s a native English speaker, he speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, he speaks Japanese, he Russian. These are all, supposedly, difficult languages. For him they’re difficult. They’re easy and effortless. That’s a very strong he has.

Another belief he has is that you must learn language naturally you must focus on meaning. So in other words, he doesn’t focus the grammar. He’s not focusing on boring textbooks. He’s 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 me is that are the same beliefs that all of my best students have. They have these same ideas. The best students, the ones learn the fastest, the ones who have the best test scores, the with the best speaking, they all believe these things. all believe that English is fun, interesting and effortless. all believe that language learning is natural. They all that they should focus on the meaning, not on the grammar the little pieces of the language. So if you to be like these successful people, you need to think like them. 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 this lesson. What I want you to do is down two, three, four empowering beliefs, beliefs that give you power about English. Maybe “My brain is natural language learning machine.” Maybe “English can be fun and effortless.” Maybe “I English.” I don’t know, write down, two, three, four empowering beliefs about English. And day you’re going to do an incantation. That’s a word, that’s a new word, incantation.
An incantation is a phrase or sentence that say again and again. It has almost a magic idea, it comes from magic. An incantation is a sentence. It’s a sentence, you say the sentence something happen. That’s where it comes from. But for us an incantation just a belief you are going to repeat again 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 posture. And you’re breathing and you’re smiling. Well, you’re going add one more thing. As 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 and effortless.” You’re going to 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 beliefs. English can be fun and effortless. You repeat it again. can be fun and effortless. And then you say it again. English can be fun effortless.

You can do this in your room and its fine. You can it outside and make everyone look at you and think you’re crazy. Why not? It’s than feeling powerless, right? It’s better than being bored. promise you will learn so much faster if you do this. So these incantations every day just before 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. Then you’re ready learn.

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