Beliefs

BELIEFS

Hello, welcome to the fourth lesson. 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 about limiting beliefs first. Now limiting means, limit is something that stops you. It’s a boundary. It stops you from going ahead. So a belief is a belief that stops you from improving, a belief that stops you getting better. And I’d say most English students have limiting beliefs many English students have very strong limiting beliefs. I call beliefs English trauma and I got that name from a few of Japanese students. They would tell me “AJ, I can’t English well because I have English trauma.”
What 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 they were 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 very limiting beliefs. For example, they “I am not good at English.” Well, that’s a belief. It may be true, may not be true. But it’s an opinion, it’s a belief that have.
Another belief, a very common belief, English 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 language for is very easy. Tomoe 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 experiences. The problem is these limiting beliefs limit us. in fact do limit us. They stop us from
getting better. They cause a lot of problems for as students, as learners. I have them, too. As I try to Japanese, for example, I have a lot of these limiting beliefs realize. I 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. They lower energy, and in fact they’re wrong.
They’re not true. does not have to be difficult, it does not to be compli- cated. A small child, even a American child, could learn Japanese very effortlessly, very easily. And the reason is, the one reason is, they don’t have the limiting beliefs. They can songs and 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, difficult in the past. And so you developed, you created these in your head. English is difficult. English is boring. is painful. I’m not good at English. I’ll never speak excellent English. These are beliefs.
So how do you eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. know they’re negative, you know they’re not 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 them weaker and weaker and weaker. You have to cut them down. Well beliefs get from references. And reference is just an experience or a memory. Sometimes it’s 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, you have idea “English is painful and boring.” And when you think this belief, where does it come from?

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

You have to question the experiences. the power away from the experiences. And an easy way to that is just to ask questions about them. For example, me ask this question. Your past English schools, were excellent? Were they just fantastic English schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, English teachers? Did you have a great time every day? Well, I know for most of you the is no. So that’s interesting, so if your schools 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 you 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 use the best methods? Or did they use the textbook that everybody else uses?
Well, I know from my as a teacher, most schools just use the same textbooks. don’t know why. Maybe the boss tells them “We must this book.” But they’re not choosing the very, very best methods. They’re not the very, very best books. And so maybe the reason you believe English is difficult because you used difficult methods in the past, or your teachers did. Maybe you think is boring because in the past you used boring methods. You went to boring schools. You had teachers. Maybe English isn’t the problem. Maybe it was these past experiences. Maybe it was way you did it or where you did it. 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 long time so that you totally mastered it, so that you it completely, 100% and never forgot it? Probably not, most schools have seen and the ones I have taught in, it’s the opposite. The teachers go very, very, very quickly. learn one chapter in your book, boom, after one on to the next one, and the next one. Each chapter has so many words, so much new grammar.
For example, my experience with in high school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve a total of maybe two years of Spanish, but I forgot it all. Because never learned deeply. They just tried to make us learn as many words as possible, a lot words, a lot of words, a lot of grammar, very, very fast. And then, of course, forgot everything. How about you? Did you learn deeply in schools? If not, maybe that was one of the problems. Maybe English 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 you good about that? Again, maybe the method was the problem. the school is the problem, not English. So think these questions and think about them every day. Think about them lot, especially this week as you listen to Lesson 4. I want you to think about these questions again again and again. And really be honest about it. And start to destroy these beliefs. Get rid of them. They’re wrong. English is not difficult. English is painful. English is not boring. It’s only a belief. It’s only a past experience. can change that now and in the future. So let’s do that.

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

English can be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering and it’s also true. You can think of a lot examples for 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 an empowering belief want to choose and 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 give some examples and you can find more. Go find people speak English very well. Or maybe even that have learned another language well. I’ll give you one of my favorite examples, Steve Kaufman of The speaks, I believe, twelve languages now. I want you to these people and look at their beliefs. I’ll tell you some of his because he’s a friend, I’ve talked to him a number times, and Steve believes, for example, that language learning is easy effortless. That’s his belief. He’s a native English speaker, speaks Cantonese, he speaks Mandarin, he speaks Japanese, he speaks Russian. are all, supposedly, difficult languages. For him they’re not difficult. They’re easy effortless. That’s a very strong belief he has.

Another belief he 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 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 really interesting me is that these are the same beliefs that all of my students have. They all have these same ideas. The students, the ones who learn the fastest, the ones have the best test scores, the ones with the best speaking, they believe these things. They all believe that English is fun, 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 like these successful people, you need to think like them. You to have the same beliefs as them.
So here’s I want you to do. Here’s your homework. This is last thing, the last part of this lesson. What I want you to do write down two, three, four empowering beliefs, beliefs that give power about English. Maybe “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Maybe “English can fun and effortless.” Maybe “I love English.” I don’t know, write down, two, three, four empowering beliefs 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, it comes magic. An incantation is a magical sentence. It’s a sentence, you the sentence something will happen. That’s where it comes from. But for an incantation is just a belief you are going to repeat again again and again every day.So here’s what you’re going to do. example “English can be fun and effortless.” You’re going to say out loud every day while you’re walking along and you’re doing your posture. And you’re breathing you’re smiling. Well, you’re going to add one more thing. As you walk, as you’re ready for the lesson, you’re going to repeat this loud. You’re going to say “English can be fun effortless.” You’re going 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 posture now you’re also saying these strong beliefs. English can fun and effortless. You repeat it again. English can be fun and effortless. then you say it again. English can be fun and effortless.

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

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