Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another important part of managing your psychology, of strengthening your so that you will learn English, or anything in fact, much faster. And there two kinds of beliefs to general categories of beliefs. Limiting empowering.
Let’s talk about limiting beliefs first. Now limiting means, is something that stops you. It’s like a boundary. It you from going ahead. So a limiting belief is a belief that you from improving, a belief that stops you from getting better. I’d say most English students have limiting beliefs and many English students have very limiting beliefs. I call these beliefs English trauma and I got that name from a of 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 they talking about? Well, trauma means some kind of injury, some of 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 in English classes, as adults going to other English schools, they had negative experiences. And all these negative experiences have created some very negative beliefs, very limiting beliefs. For example, they say “I am not good at English.” Well, that’s belief. It may be true, it may not be true. But it’s opinion, it’s a belief that they have.
Another belief, very common belief, English is difficult. Or, English is complicated. Well, that’s just belief. For me English very easy, because I’m a native speaker, just your native language for you is very easy. Tomoe can speak Japanese because she’s Japanese, so I might say “Japanese is difficult,” and she would say “No, Japanese is super easy.” are just beliefs that come from our experiences. The problem is limiting beliefs limit us. They in fact do limit us. They stop from
getting better. They cause a lot of for us as students, as learners. I have them, too. As try to learn Japanese, for example, I have a of these limiting beliefs I realize. I think “Oh, Japanese is difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look at the writing system. It’s so from English. And these beliefs hurt my motivation. They lower energy, and in fact they’re wrong.
They’re not true. Japanese does have to 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 the limiting beliefs. They can sing songs and play games enjoy the language, and they’ll learn it so quickly, easily, they’ll say “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s the same with English with you. You learned a very 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 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 helping you. But we have to figure out, how we get rid of the limiting beliefs? That’s the first step, have to weaken them. You have to make them weaker and weaker and weaker. You have to cut down. Well beliefs get stronger from references. And reference is just experience or a memory. Sometimes it’s just something you imagine, actually. But it’s a specific or 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 belief, where does it come from?

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

You have to question the experiences. Take the 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, positive English teachers? Did you have great time every day? Well, I know for most of you the answer is no. that’s interesting, so if your schools were not excellent, the school was the problem. Maybe it’s not you. your English is not great because you did not go to great schools. did those schools that you went to, or the you used, did they use proven methods? Did they research-based methods? Did they know a lot about the about English learning, English teaching? Did they only use best methods? Or did they just use the textbook that everybody uses?
Well, I know from my experience as teacher, most schools just use the same textbooks. They don’t why. Maybe the boss tells them “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 the you believe English is difficult is because you used difficult methods the past, or your teachers did. Maybe you think English is because in the past you used boring methods. You to boring schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe English isn’t problem. Maybe it was these past experiences. Maybe it was the way you did it or you did it. Ask 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, did you one chapter in your book and learn it for a time so that you totally mastered it, so that you it completely, 100% and never forgot it? Probably not, most schools I have seen and ones I have taught in, it’s quite the opposite. The teachers very, very, very quickly. You learn one chapter in book, boom, after one week on to the next one, and the one. Each chapter has so many new words, so much grammar.
For example, my experience with Spanish in high school and university, I Spanish, I’ve had a total of maybe two years Spanish, but I forgot it all. Because we never learned deeply. They just tried to us learn as many words as possible, a lot of words, a of words, a lot of grammar, very, very fast. And then, course, I forgot everything. How about you? Did you learn deeply in your schools? not, maybe that was one of the problems. Maybe English feels difficult because you never deeply. Maybe English is not the problem.
Finally, you learn with a grammar translation method? Did you study a lot of grammar rules? Did you take lot of tests? Did 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 about them every day. about them a lot, especially this week as you listen to Lesson Number 4. I want you to about these questions again and again and again. And really honest about it. And start to destroy these limiting beliefs. rid of them. They’re wrong. English is not difficult. is not painful. English is not boring. It’s only belief. It’s only a past experience. You can change that and in the future. So let’s do that.

Let’s now about empowering beliefs, the positive side. So to empower, the verb, to empower means make stronger. It means to give power to another person. in this case, it 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 you need choose them. You must decide which beliefs will make you stronger. example, here’s an empowering belief. You can replace your limiting belief, add this one instead. You can say “My is a natural language learning machine.” Because that’s what 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 me to learn, because I it in a totally natural way. And the more naturally I to learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, the easier it feels. So this is a new belief you should write it down, think about it. Write down this idea, this belief “My brain is a language learning machine.” Think about it every day. Decide to choose belief. Here’s another belief you might decide to choose “English be fun and effortless.”

English can be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering and it’s also true. You can think of a of examples for this. Some of these mini-stories you’re 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 it every day.

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

You can do this in room and its fine. You can do it outside and everyone look at you and think you’re crazy. Why not? It’s than feeling powerless, right? It’s better than being bored. promise you will learn so much faster if you this. So do these incantations every day just before you do lesson. Get your body strong, peak emotional state, and then these incantations. English can be fun and effortless. English can be fun effortless. Now your body, your mind, your beliefs, they’re together, very strong. Then you’re ready to learn.

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