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 will learn English, or anything in fact, much faster. And there are two kinds of beliefs to categories of beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s talk about limiting first. Now limiting means, limit is something that stops you. It’s like a boundary. It stops you from ahead. So a limiting belief is a belief that stops you improving, a belief that stops you from getting better. And I’d say most students have limiting beliefs and many English students have strong limiting beliefs. I call these beliefs English trauma and I got name from a few of my Japanese students. They would tell me “AJ, I can’t speak well because I have English trauma.”
What is English trauma? is that, what are they talking about? Well, trauma some kind of injury, some kind of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep hurt. So what they mean is that they had some very negative, painful experiences with in the past. In other words, when they were school in English classes, even as adults going to English schools, they had very negative experiences. And all negative experiences have created some very negative beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. example, they say “I am not good at English.” Well, that’s a belief. It may be true, it 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, because I’m native speaker, just like your native language for you is very easy. can speak Japanese fluently because she’s Japanese, so I might say “Japanese is difficult,” 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 in fact do limit us. stop us from
getting better. They cause a lot of problems for as students, as learners. I have them, too. As I try to learn Japanese, for example, I a lot of these limiting beliefs I realize. I think “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, look at the writing system. It’s so different from English. And these hurt my motivation. They lower my energy, and in fact they’re wrong.
They’re true. Japanese does not have to be difficult, it does not have to compli- cated. A small child, even a small American child, could learn Japanese effortlessly, very easily. And the reason is, the number reason is, they don’t have the limiting beliefs. They can sing songs play games and enjoy the language, and they’ll learn it so quickly, easily, they’ll say “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s the same with with you. You learned in a very painful, difficult way in past. And so you developed, you created these beliefs your head. English is difficult. English is boring. English is painful. I’m not good at English. I’ll speak excellent English. These are just beliefs.
So do you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. You they’re negative, you know they’re not helping you. But we have to out, how can we get rid of the limiting beliefs? That’s the first step, you have to them. You have to make them weaker and weaker weaker. You have to cut them down. Well beliefs get stronger from references. reference is just an experience or a memory. Sometimes it’s just something you imagine, actually. But it’s a specific or a specific imagination, a specific moment, that makes the belief stronger weaker. So, for example, you have this idea “English is painful boring.” And when you think of this belief, where it come from?

Well, you think of all these experiences. You think of the time in middle school where your teacher corrected your mistake and felt terrible. And you think of maybe the bad grades you got on the test all the red marks on your English papers. And you start more and more and more memories, more of these negative experiences, negative references. And if you get enough, you will develop a very, strong, deep, powerful “English is 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 to ask questions about them. For example, let me 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 answer no. So that’s interesting, so if your schools were not excellent, maybe the school was the problem. it’s not you. Maybe your English is not great because you did not go to schools. And did those schools that you went to, or the books you used, did they proven methods? Did they use research-based methods? Did they know a lot about the research about learning, English teaching? Did they only use the best methods? Or they just use the textbook that everybody else uses?
Well, I know my experience 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 the very, very best methods. They’re not choosing the very, very best books. And so maybe the you believe English is difficult is because you used methods in the past, or your teachers did. Maybe you think English is because in the past you used boring methods. You went to 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 these questions. Think about them in detail. Weaken your limiting beliefs. your limiting beliefs. Another question, in school did you 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% and never forgot it? not, most schools I have seen and the ones I have in, it’s quite the opposite. The teachers go very, very, very quickly. You one chapter in your book, boom, after one week to the next one, and the next one. Each has so many new words, so much new grammar.
For example, my experience with Spanish in high school university, I took Spanish, I’ve had a total of maybe two years Spanish, but I forgot it all. Because we never deeply. They just tried to make us learn as many as possible, a lot of words, a lot of words, a of grammar, very, very fast. And then, of course, I forgot everything. How you? Did you learn deeply in your schools? If not, that was one of the problems. Maybe English feels difficult because you never learned deeply. Maybe is not the problem.
Finally, did you learn with grammar translation method? Did you study a lot of grammar rules? Did you a 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, especially this week you listen to Lesson Number 4. I want you to think these questions again and again and again. And really be honest it. And start to destroy these limiting beliefs. Get rid them. They’re wrong. English is not difficult. English is not painful. English is not boring. It’s only belief. It’s only a past experience. You can change that now in the future. So let’s do that.

Let’s talk about empowering beliefs, the positive side. So to empower, the verb, to empower means make stronger. It means to give power to another person. in this case, it means the beliefs give you power. An empowering belief a belief that makes you feel powerful, that gives 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 one instead. You can say “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” that’s what all of the scientific research shows, our brain naturally learns languages. It is to learn language. It should be easy. It should effortless. It should feel good. You learned your native language that way. It wasn’t difficult it? English was easy for me to learn, because I it in a totally natural way. And the more naturally I to learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, the easier feels. So this is a new belief and you should write it down, think it. Write down this idea, this belief “My brain is natural language learning machine.” Think about it every day. Decide choose that 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. You can think 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. But they’re 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 make these beliefs stronger, you need experiences. Remember, need references, you need examples that prove the belief. So I’m going give you some examples and you can find more. Go people who speak English very well. Or maybe even that have learned language very well. I’ll give you one of my favorite examples, Steve Kaufman The Linguist speaks, I believe, twelve languages now. I want you to find people and look at their beliefs. I’ll tell you of his beliefs because he’s a friend, I’ve talked to a number of times, and Steve believes, for example, that learning is easy and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a native speaker, he speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, he speaks Japanese, he speaks Russian. are all, supposedly, difficult languages. For him they’re not difficult. They’re easy and effortless. That’s a very belief he has.

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

You can do this in your room and fine. You can do it outside and make everyone look at you and you’re crazy. Why not? It’s better than feeling powerless, right? It’s better being bored. I promise you will learn so much faster if you do this. So do incantations every day just before you do a lesson. Get your body strong, peak state, and then say these incantations. English can be fun and effortless. English can be fun 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.”