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 English, or anything in fact, much faster. And there are two kinds of beliefs to general categories beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s talk about limiting beliefs first. limiting means, limit is something 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, belief that stops you from getting better. And I’d say most English students have beliefs and many English students have very strong limiting beliefs. I call these English trauma and I got that name from a of my Japanese students. They would tell me “AJ, I can’t speak English because I have English trauma.”
What is English trauma? What is that, are they talking about? Well, trauma means some kind of injury, kind of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep emotional hurt. So they mean is that they had some very negative, painful with English in the past. In other words, when they in school in English classes, even as adults going to other schools, they had very negative experiences. And all these negative experiences created some very negative beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. For example, they “I am not good at English.” Well, that’s a belief. It may be true, it may not be true. 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 native for you is very easy. Tomoe can speak Japanese because she’s Japanese, so I might say “Japanese is difficult,” she would say “No, Japanese is super easy.” These are 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 us as students, as learners. have them, too. As I try to learn Japanese, for example, I have lot of these limiting beliefs I realize. I think “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” is complicated, just look at the writing system. It’s different from English. And these beliefs hurt my motivation. lower my energy, and in fact they’re wrong.
They’re not true. Japanese does not have to be difficult, does not have to be compli- cated. A small child, a small American child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. the reason is, the number one reason is, they don’t the limiting beliefs. They can sing songs and play and enjoy the language, and they’ll learn it so quickly, easily, they’ll say “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s the same with English you. You learned in a very painful, difficult way 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 speak excellent English. These are just beliefs.
So how you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. You know they’re negative, you they’re not helping you. But we have to figure out, how can we rid of the limiting beliefs? That’s the first step, you have to weaken them. You have to them weaker and weaker and weaker. You have to cut them down. 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 stronger or weaker. So, for example, you have this “English is painful and boring.” And when you think of this belief, where it come from?

Well, you think of all these past experiences. You think of the in middle school where your teacher corrected your mistake and you felt terrible. And you think maybe the bad grades you got on the test or the red marks on your English papers. And you adding 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 these, you just have to question the references.

You have to question the experiences. Take the 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? they just fantastic English schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? Did you have a time every day? Well, I know for most of the answer is no. So that’s interesting, so if schools were not excellent, maybe the school was the problem. Maybe it’s you. Maybe your English is not great because you not go to great schools. And did those schools that you went to, the books you used, did they use proven methods? they use research-based methods? Did they know a lot about the research about English learning, English teaching? Did only use the best methods? Or did they just the textbook that everybody else uses?
Well, I know from my experience as teacher, most schools just use the same textbooks. They don’t know why. the boss tells them “We must use this book.” But they’re not choosing the very, very methods. They’re not choosing the very, very best books. so maybe the reason you believe English is difficult is you used difficult methods in the past, or your did. Maybe you think English is boring because in the past you boring methods. You went to boring schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe isn’t the problem. Maybe it was these past experiences. it was the way you did it or where you it. Ask yourself these questions. Think about them in detail. Weaken your limiting beliefs. 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 you mastered it, so that you knew it completely, 100% and never forgot it? Probably not, most schools I seen and the ones I have taught in, it’s quite the opposite. The go very, very, very quickly. You learn one chapter in book, boom, after one week on 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 and university, I took Spanish, I’ve had a total of two years of Spanish, but I forgot it all. Because we never learned deeply. They just to make us learn as many words as possible, a lot of words, a lot of words, a of grammar, very, very fast. And then, of course, I forgot everything. How about you? Did you learn in your schools? If not, maybe that was one the problems. Maybe English feels difficult because you never learned deeply. Maybe English is the problem.
Finally, did you learn with a grammar translation method? you study a lot of grammar rules? Did you a lot of tests? Did you feel good about that? Again, maybe method was the problem. Maybe the school is the problem, not English. So think about these questions and think them every day. Think about them a lot, especially this as you listen to Lesson Number 4. I want you think about these questions again and again and again. And really be about it. And start to destroy these limiting beliefs. 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. let’s do that.

Let’s talk now about empowering beliefs, positive side. So to empower, the verb, to empower means to make stronger. It means to power to another person. Or in this case, it means the beliefs you power. An empowering belief is a belief that makes feel powerful, that gives you power. That’s the kind beliefs you want and you need to choose them. You must decide beliefs will make you stronger. For example, here’s an empowering belief. can replace your old limiting belief, add this one instead. You can say “My is a natural language learning machine.” Because that’s what all of scientific research shows, our brain naturally learns languages. It is designed to language. It 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 for me to learn, I did it in a totally natural way. And the more I tried to learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, easier it feels. So this is a new belief and you 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 belief 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. 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 not serious. English can be 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 need that prove the belief. So I’m going to give some examples and you can find more. Go find who speak English very well. Or maybe even that have another language very well. I’ll give you one of favorite examples, Steve Kaufman of The Linguist speaks, I believe, languages now. I want you to find these people and look at their beliefs. I’ll tell you some his beliefs because he’s a friend, I’ve talked to him a number of times, Steve believes, for example, that language learning is easy and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a English speaker, he speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, he speaks Japanese, speaks Russian. These are all, supposedly, difficult languages. For him they’re not difficult. They’re and effortless. That’s a very strong belief he has.

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

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

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