Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another part of managing your psychology, of strengthening your psychology so that you will learn English, 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 means, limit is something that stops you. It’s like a boundary. It you from going ahead. So a limiting belief is a belief stops you from improving, a belief that stops you from getting better. I’d say most English students have limiting beliefs and many students 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 well because I have English trauma.”
What is English trauma? What is that, what are 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 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, had very negative experiences. And all these negative experiences created some very negative beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. For example, they say “I am not good English.” Well, that’s a belief. It may be true, it not be true. But it’s an opinion, it’s a belief they have.
Another belief, a very common belief, English is difficult. Or, English is complicated. Well, that’s a belief. For me English very easy, because I’m a native speaker, 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 easy.” These 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 as students, as learners. I have them, too. As try to learn Japanese, for example, I have a lot of limiting beliefs I realize. I think “Oh, Japanese is difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look at the writing system. It’s so different from English. And these hurt my motivation. They lower my energy, and in they’re wrong.
They’re not true. Japanese does not to be difficult, it does not have to be compli- cated. small child, even a small American child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And reason is, the number one reason is, they don’t have the limiting beliefs. They can sing songs play games and enjoy the language, and they’ll learn it quickly, so easily, they’ll say “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s the with English with you. You learned in a very painful, way in the past. And so you developed, you created these beliefs in your head. is difficult. English is boring. English is painful. I’m not good at English. I’ll never excellent English. These are just beliefs.
So how do you eliminate beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. You know they’re negative, you know they’re not helping you. But we have figure out, how can we get rid of the beliefs? That’s the first step, you have to weaken them. have to make them weaker and weaker and weaker. You have to cut them down. Well beliefs 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 or weaker. So, for example, 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 middle school where your teacher corrected your mistake and felt terrible. And you think of maybe the bad you 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 will develop a very, strong, deep, belief “English is difficult. English is painful. I’m not at English.” So to weaken these, you just have to question the references.

You have to the experiences. Take the power away from the experiences. And an way to do that is just to ask questions them. For example, let me ask this question. Your past schools, were they excellent? Were they just fantastic English schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? you have a great time every day? Well, I know for most of the answer is no. So that’s interesting, so if your schools were not excellent, maybe the school the problem. Maybe it’s not you. Maybe your English is not because you did not go to great schools. And did those schools that went to, or the books you used, did they use methods? Did they use research-based methods? Did they know a lot 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. Maybe the boss tells “We must use this book.” But they’re not choosing very, very best methods. They’re not choosing the very, very best books. And so maybe reason you believe English is difficult is because you used difficult methods the past, or your teachers did. Maybe you think 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 was these past experiences. Maybe it was the way you did it or where you it. Ask yourself these 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 one chapter in your book and learn it for a long time that you totally mastered it, so that you knew completely, 100% and never forgot it? Probably not, most schools I seen 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 the next one, and the next one. Each chapter has so many new words, so much grammar.
For example, my experience with Spanish in high school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve had total of maybe 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 lot words, a lot of grammar, very, very fast. And 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 never learned deeply. Maybe English is not problem.
Finally, did you learn with a grammar translation method? Did you study lot of grammar rules? Did you take a lot of tests? Did feel good about that? Again, maybe the method was the problem. Maybe the school the problem, not English. So think about these questions and about them every day. Think about them a lot, especially this week as listen to Lesson Number 4. I want you to think about 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. is not difficult. English is not painful. English is not boring. It’s a belief. It’s only a past experience. You can change that now and in future. So let’s do that.

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

English can be fun 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 not serious. English can fun and effortless. That’s an empowering belief you want to choose and want to remember it every day.

And to make 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 find more. Go find people speak English very well. Or maybe even that have another language very well. I’ll give you one of my favorite examples, Steve Kaufman of The speaks, I believe, twelve languages now. I want you 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 his belief. He’s native English speaker, he speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, speaks Japanese, he speaks Russian. These are all, supposedly, languages. For him they’re not difficult. They’re easy and effortless. That’s a strong belief 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 on grammar. He’s not focusing on boring textbooks. He’s reading things that he enjoys. He’s listening to interesting things that he enjoys. So, for him, language is interesting. What’s really interesting for me is that these are same beliefs that all of my best students have. They all have these ideas. The 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. They all believe that English fun, interesting and effortless. They all believe that language learning is natural. They believe that they should focus on the meaning, not on grammar 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 I want you to do. Here’s your homework. This is the thing, the last part of this lesson. What I want to do is write down two, three, four empowering beliefs, that give you power about English. Maybe “My brain is a language learning machine.” Maybe “English can be fun and effortless.” “I love 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 good word, that’s a 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 sentence something will happen. That’s where it comes from. But for 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 going to say that 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 add one more thing. As you walk, you’re getting ready for the lesson, you’re going to repeat out loud. You’re going to say “English can be fun effortless.” You’re going to say it with some emotion. Say it with so you’re smiling, you’re breathing deep, you’re moving your body, you good posture and now you’re also saying these strong beliefs. English can be fun and effortless. repeat it again. English can be fun and effortless. And then you say it again. English can fun and effortless.

You can do this in your and its fine. You can do it outside and make everyone look 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 do this. So these incantations every day just before you do a lesson. Get your body strong, peak emotional state, then say these 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 is the of the main story for “Beliefs.”