Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another important part of managing your psychology, of your psychology so that you will learn English, or anything fact, much faster. And there are two kinds of beliefs 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. So limiting belief is a belief that stops you from improving, a belief that stops you from better. And I’d say most English students have limiting and many English students have very strong limiting beliefs. call these beliefs English 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? What is that, what are they about? Well, trauma means 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 in school in English classes, even as going to other English schools, they had very negative experiences. And all these experiences have created some very negative beliefs, some very limiting beliefs. For example, they “I am not good at English.” Well, that’s a belief. It 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 is difficult. Or, English complicated. Well, that’s just a belief. For me English very easy, because I’m a native speaker, like your native language for you is very easy. can speak Japanese fluently because she’s Japanese, so I might say “Japanese difficult,” and 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 students, as learners. I have them, too. As I to learn Japanese, for example, I have a lot of these beliefs I realize. I think “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” is complicated, just look at the writing system. It’s so different English. And these beliefs hurt my motivation. They lower my energy, in fact they’re wrong.
They’re not true. Japanese does have to be difficult, it does not have to be compli- cated. A small child, even small American child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And the is, the number one reason is, they don’t have limiting beliefs. They can sing songs and play games and 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 very painful, difficult way in the past. And so you developed, you created beliefs in your head. English is difficult. English is boring. is painful. I’m not good at English. I’ll never excellent English. These are just beliefs.
So how do you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have beliefs. You know they’re negative, you know they’re not you. But we have to figure out, how can we rid of the limiting beliefs? That’s the first step, have to weaken them. You have to make them weaker weaker and weaker. You have to cut them down. Well beliefs get stronger from references. And is just an experience or a memory. Sometimes it’s just something you imagine, actually. But it’s a experience or a specific imagination, a specific moment, that the belief stronger or weaker. So, for example, you this idea “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 time in middle school where your teacher corrected your mistake and you felt terrible. you think of maybe the bad grades you got the test or all the red marks on your papers. And you start 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, belief “English is difficult. English is painful. I’m not good at English.” So to weaken these, just have to question the references.

You have to the experiences. Take the power away from the experiences. an easy way to do that is just to questions about them. For example, let me ask this question. Your past schools, were they excellent? Were they just fantastic English with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? Did you have a great every day? Well, I know for most of you the answer is no. that’s interesting, so if your schools were not excellent, maybe the was the problem. Maybe it’s not you. Maybe your English is not great you did not go to great schools. And did those schools that you went to, the books you used, did they use proven methods? Did they use research-based methods? Did 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. 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 in the past, your teachers did. Maybe you think English is boring because in the past you used boring methods. You to boring schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe English isn’t the problem. Maybe it these past experiences. Maybe it was the way you it or where you did it. Ask yourself these questions. Think them in detail. Weaken your limiting beliefs. Challenge your limiting beliefs. question, in school did you learn deeply? For example, did take one chapter in your book and learn it for long time so that you totally mastered it, so you knew it completely, 100% and never forgot it? Probably not, most schools I have and the ones I have taught in, it’s quite the opposite. teachers go very, very, very quickly. You learn one chapter in book, boom, after one week on to the next one, and next one. Each chapter has so many new words, so much grammar.
For example, my experience with Spanish in high school and university, took Spanish, I’ve had a total of maybe two years of Spanish, but I forgot all. Because we never learned deeply. They just tried to make us learn many words as possible, a lot of words, a lot words, a lot of grammar, very, very fast. And then, of course, forgot everything. How about you? Did you learn deeply your schools? If not, maybe that was one of the problems. English feels difficult because you never learned deeply. Maybe English 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. Maybe the is the problem, not English. So think about these questions and think about them every day. Think them a lot, especially this week as you listen Lesson Number 4. I want you to think about these again and again and again. And really be honest about it. And to destroy these limiting beliefs. Get rid of them. They’re wrong. English not difficult. English is not painful. English is not boring. It’s a belief. It’s only a past experience. You can that 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 to another person. Or in this case, it means beliefs give you power. An empowering belief is a that makes you feel powerful, that gives you power. That’s the kind of you want and you need to choose them. You must decide which beliefs will make you stronger. example, here’s an empowering belief. You can replace your old belief, add this one instead. You can say “My brain is a natural language machine.” Because that’s what all of the scientific research shows, our brain naturally learns languages. It is designed learn language. It should be easy. It should be effortless. It should feel good. You learned your native that way. It wasn’t difficult was it? English was for me to learn, because I did it in a natural way. And the more naturally I tried to learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, easier it feels. So this is a new belief you should write it down, think about it. Write this idea, this belief “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” about it every day. Decide to choose that belief. Here’s belief you might decide to choose “English can be and effortless.”

English can be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering belief it’s also true. You can think of a lot of examples this. Some of these 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 empowering belief you want to choose and you want to remember every day.

And to 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 people who speak English very well. Or even that have learned another language very well. I’ll give you one of my favorite examples, Steve Kaufman The Linguist speaks, I believe, twelve languages now. I you to find these people and look at their beliefs. I’ll tell you some of beliefs because he’s a friend, I’ve talked to him number of times, and Steve believes, for example, that language learning easy and effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a native English speaker, he 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 has.

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

You can this in your room and its fine. You can do it outside and make everyone look at and think 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 you do this. So do these incantations every day before you do a lesson. Get your body strong, peak emotional state, and say these incantations. English can be fun and effortless. English can be fun and effortless. Now body, your mind, your beliefs, they’re all together, very strong. you’re ready to learn.

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