Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

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

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

You to question the experiences. Take the power away from the experiences. an easy way to do that is just to ask questions about them. For example, let ask this question. Your 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 for 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 great because you did not go to great schools. did those schools that you went to, or the books used, did they use 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 did they use the textbook that everybody else uses?
Well, I know from experience as a teacher, most schools just use the same textbooks. They don’t why. Maybe the boss tells them “We must use book.” But they’re not choosing the very, very best methods. They’re choosing the very, very best books. And so maybe reason you believe English is difficult is because you used methods in the past, or your teachers did. Maybe you English is boring because in the past you used methods. You went to boring 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 yourself questions. Think about 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 your book and learn it for a long time so that you totally mastered it, so that you it completely, 100% and never forgot it? Probably not, most schools I have and the ones I have taught in, it’s quite opposite. The teachers go very, very, very quickly. You one chapter in your book, boom, after one week on to the next one, the next one. Each chapter has so many new words, much new grammar.
For example, my experience with Spanish in high school 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 us 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 you learn in your schools? If not, maybe that was one of the problems. Maybe feels difficult because you never learned deeply. Maybe English is the problem.
Finally, did you learn with a grammar translation method? Did study a lot of grammar rules? Did you take a lot of tests? 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 them every day. Think about them a lot, especially this week you listen to Lesson Number 4. I want you think about these questions again and again and again. And really be honest it. And start to destroy these limiting beliefs. Get rid of them. They’re wrong. English is difficult. English is not painful. English is not boring. It’s only belief. It’s only a past experience. You can change now and in the future. So let’s do that.

Let’s now about empowering beliefs, the positive side. So to empower, the verb, empower means to make stronger. It means to give power to another person. Or in this case, 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 need to choose them. You must decide which beliefs will make you stronger. example, here’s an empowering belief. You can replace your old limiting belief, this one instead. You can say “My brain is a natural learning machine.” Because 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 be effortless. It should feel good. You learned your language that way. It wasn’t difficult was it? English was easy for to learn, because I did it in a totally natural way. the more naturally I tried to learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, the easier feels. So this is a new belief and you write it down, think about it. Write down this idea, belief “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Think about it day. Decide to choose that belief. Here’s another belief 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. You can 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. they’re not serious. English can be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering belief you to choose and you want to remember it every day.

And to these beliefs stronger, you need experiences. Remember, you need references, you need examples prove the belief. So I’m going to give you some and you can find more. Go find people who English very well. Or maybe even that have learned another language very well. I’ll give you one my favorite examples, Steve Kaufman of The Linguist speaks, believe, twelve languages now. I want you to find these and look at their beliefs. I’ll tell you some of beliefs because he’s a friend, I’ve talked to him a number times, and Steve believes, for example, that language learning easy and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a native English speaker, he speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, speaks Japanese, he speaks Russian. These are all, supposedly, difficult languages. For 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 must on meaning. So in other words, he doesn’t focus on the grammar. He’s focusing on boring textbooks. He’s reading interesting things that he enjoys. He’s listening to 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 my best have. They all 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 all these things. They all believe that English is fun, interesting effortless. They all believe that language learning is natural. all believe that they should focus on the meaning, on the grammar and the little pieces of the language. So if you want be like these successful people, you need to think like them. need to have the same beliefs as them.
So here’s what I want to do. Here’s your homework. This is the last thing, the last of this lesson. What I want you to do is write down two, three, empowering beliefs, beliefs that give you power about English. Maybe “My is a natural language learning machine.” Maybe “English can be and effortless.” Maybe “I love English.” I don’t know, down, two, three, four empowering 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 a phrase or sentence that say again and again. It has almost a magic idea, it comes magic. An incantation is a magical sentence. It’s a sentence, you say the something will happen. That’s where it comes from. But us an incantation is just a belief you are to repeat again and again and again every day.So here’s you’re going to do. For example “English can be and effortless.” You’re going to say that out loud day while you’re walking along and you’re doing your posture. And you’re and you’re smiling. Well, you’re going to add one thing. As you walk, as you’re getting ready for the lesson, you’re going to this out 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 deep, you’re moving your body, you have good posture now you’re also saying these strong beliefs. English can be fun and effortless. You repeat again. English can be fun and effortless. And then you say it again. English can fun and effortless.

You can do this in your room its fine. You can do it outside and make 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 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 these incantations. can be fun and effortless. English can be fun effortless. Now your body, your mind, your beliefs, they’re all together, very strong. you’re ready to learn.

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