Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

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

Well, you think all these past experiences. You think of the time in middle school where your 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 your English papers. you 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. is painful. I’m not good at English.” So to weaken these, you just have question the references.

You have to question the experiences. Take the power away the experiences. And an easy way to do that is just to ask questions about them. For example, me ask this question. Your past English schools, were they excellent? Were just fantastic 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, if your schools were not excellent, maybe the school the problem. Maybe it’s not you. Maybe your English is not great because did not go to great schools. And did those schools you went to, or the books you used, did they use proven methods? Did they use research-based methods? they know 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 just use the same textbooks. They don’t know why. the boss tells them “We must use this book.” they’re not choosing the very, very best methods. They’re 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 think English is boring because in the past you used boring methods. You went to boring schools. 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. Weaken limiting beliefs. Challenge your limiting 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 totally mastered it, so that you knew it completely, 100% never forgot it? Probably not, most schools I have seen and the ones have taught in, it’s quite the opposite. The teachers very, very, very quickly. You learn one chapter in your book, boom, one week on to the next one, and the next one. Each chapter has so many words, so much new grammar.
For example, my with Spanish in high school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve had a total of two years of Spanish, but I forgot it all. we never learned deeply. They just tried to make learn as 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 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 study a of grammar rules? Did you take a lot of tests? Did you feel good about that? Again, maybe method was the problem. Maybe the school is the problem, not English. think about these questions and think about them every day. Think them a lot, especially this week as you listen to Lesson Number 4. I want you to about these questions again and again and again. And really be honest about it. start to destroy these limiting beliefs. Get rid of them. They’re wrong. English is not difficult. English is not painful. is not boring. It’s only a belief. It’s only past experience. You can change that now and in the future. So let’s that.

Let’s talk now about empowering beliefs, the positive side. So to empower, the verb, to means to make stronger. It means to give power another person. Or in this case, it means the give you power. An empowering belief is a belief that makes you feel powerful, gives you power. That’s the kind of beliefs you want and you to choose them. You must decide which beliefs will make stronger. For example, here’s an empowering belief. You can replace your old limiting belief, this one instead. You can say “My brain is a natural language machine.” Because that’s what all of the scientific research shows, our naturally learns languages. It is designed to learn language. should be easy. It should be effortless. It should feel good. learned your native language that way. It wasn’t difficult was it? English was easy me to learn, because I did it in a totally natural way. the more naturally I tried to learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, easier 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.” Think about every day. Decide to choose that belief. Here’s another you might decide to choose “English can be fun and effortless.”

English 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 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 belief you want to choose you want to remember it every day.

And to make these beliefs stronger, need experiences. Remember, you need references, you need examples that prove the belief. So I’m going to 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, Kaufman of The Linguist speaks, I believe, twelve languages now. I want you to find these people and at their beliefs. I’ll tell you some of his because he’s a friend, I’ve talked to him a number of times, and Steve believes, for example, that learning is easy and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a native English speaker, speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, he speaks Japanese, he speaks Russian. These are all, supposedly, difficult languages. him they’re not difficult. They’re easy and effortless. That’s a very strong belief he has.

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

You can do this in room and its fine. You can do it outside and make everyone at you and think you’re crazy. Why not? It’s better than feeling powerless, right? It’s better than bored. I promise you will learn so much faster if you this. So do these incantations every day just before you a lesson. Get your body strong, peak emotional state, and then say incantations. English can be fun and effortless. English can be fun and effortless. Now your body, mind, your beliefs, they’re all together, very strong. Then you’re ready to learn.

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