Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are important part of managing your psychology, of strengthening your psychology that you will learn English, or anything in fact, faster. And there are two kinds of beliefs to general categories beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s talk about limiting first. Now limiting means, limit is something that stops you. It’s like a boundary. It stops from going ahead. So a limiting belief is a belief that stops from improving, a belief that stops you from getting better. And I’d say most English have limiting beliefs and many English students have very strong 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 that, what are they talking about? Well, trauma means kind of injury, some kind of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep emotional hurt. So what they mean is they had some very negative, painful experiences with English in the past. other words, when they were in school in English classes, even adults going to other English schools, they had very negative experiences. And these negative experiences have created some very negative beliefs, some limiting beliefs. For example, they say “I am not 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.
belief, a very common belief, English is difficult. Or, is 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 is difficult,” and she would “No, Japanese is super easy.” These are just beliefs that come from our experiences. problem is these limiting beliefs limit us. They in fact do limit us. stop us 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 a of these limiting beliefs I realize. I think “Oh, Japanese is difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look at the writing system. It’s different from English. And these beliefs hurt my motivation. They lower my energy, and fact they’re wrong.
They’re not true. Japanese does not have to be difficult, it does not have be compli- cated. A small child, even a small American child, could learn Japanese effortlessly, very easily. And the reason is, the number reason is, they don’t have the limiting beliefs. They sing songs and play games and enjoy the language, they’ll learn it so quickly, so easily, they’ll say “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s the same with English you. You learned in a very painful, difficult way in past. And so you developed, you created these beliefs in your head. English is difficult. English is boring. is 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 these beliefs. You know they’re negative, you know they’re not helping you. we have to figure out, how can we get rid of limiting beliefs? That’s the first step, you have to weaken them. You to make 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 just something you imagine, actually. it’s a specific experience or a specific imagination, a specific moment, makes the belief stronger or weaker. So, for example, you this idea “English is painful and boring.” And when you of this belief, where does it come from?

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

You have to question the experiences. Take power away from the experiences. And an easy way to do that is to ask questions about them. For example, let me ask question. Your past English schools, were they excellent? Were they just English schools with fantastic, amazing, fun, positive English teachers? Did 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 school was the problem. Maybe it’s not you. Maybe your English is great because you did not go to great schools. And did those schools that you to, or the books you used, did they use proven methods? Did they research-based methods? Did they know a lot about the research about English learning, English teaching? Did they use the best methods? Or did they just use the that everybody else uses?
Well, I know from experience as a 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 the 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 methods in the past, or your teachers did. Maybe you English is boring because in the past you used methods. You went to boring schools. You had boring teachers. Maybe isn’t the problem. Maybe it was these past experiences. Maybe it the way you did it or where you did it. Ask yourself these questions. Think about them in detail. your limiting beliefs. Challenge your limiting beliefs. Another question, in school you learn deeply? For example, did you take one chapter in your book and it for a long time so that you totally mastered it, so that you it completely, 100% and never forgot it? Probably not, most schools I have seen the ones I have taught in, it’s quite the opposite. teachers go very, very, very quickly. You learn one chapter in your book, boom, one week on to the next one, and the one. Each chapter has so many new words, so new grammar.
For example, my experience with Spanish high school and university, I took Spanish, I’ve had a total 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? you learn deeply in your schools? If not, maybe that one of the problems. Maybe English feels difficult because you never learned deeply. Maybe English not the problem.
Finally, did you learn with a grammar translation method? Did you study a of grammar rules? Did you take a lot of tests? Did feel good about that? Again, maybe the method was problem. Maybe the school is the problem, not English. So think about these questions and think about every day. Think about them a lot, especially this week you listen to Lesson Number 4. I want you think about these questions again and again and again. really be honest about it. And start to destroy limiting beliefs. Get 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 now and the future. So let’s do that.

Let’s talk now about empowering beliefs, the positive side. So empower, the verb, to 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 belief makes you feel powerful, that gives you power. That’s kind of beliefs you want and you need to them. You must decide which beliefs will make you stronger. For example, here’s an empowering belief. You replace your old limiting belief, add this one instead. can say “My brain is a natural language learning machine.” Because that’s what all the scientific research shows, our brain naturally learns languages. It is to learn language. It should be easy. It should be effortless. It feel good. You learned your native language that way. It wasn’t difficult was it? English was easy for to learn, because I did it in a totally natural way. And the more naturally I tried 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 is 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 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. But they’re serious. English can be fun and effortless. That’s an empowering belief you want choose and you want to remember it every day.

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

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

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