Beliefs

BELIEFS

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

Beliefs are another important part of managing psychology, of strengthening your psychology so that you will learn English, or anything in fact, much faster. there are two kinds of beliefs to general categories of beliefs. Limiting and empowering.
Let’s talk about beliefs first. Now limiting means, limit is something that you. It’s like a boundary. It stops you from going ahead. So a belief is a belief that stops you from improving, a belief stops you from getting better. And I’d say most students have limiting beliefs and many English students have very strong limiting beliefs. I call beliefs English trauma and I got that name from a few of my students. They would tell me “AJ, I can’t speak English well because I have English trauma.”
is English trauma? What is that, what are they talking about? Well, trauma some kind of injury, some kind of hurt. Emotional hurt, deep hurt. So what they mean is that they had some very negative, experiences with English in the past. In other words, when were in 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 limiting beliefs. For example, they say “I am not good at English.” Well, that’s a belief. It be true, it may not be true. But it’s opinion, it’s a belief that they have.
Another belief, a 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 like your native language for you very easy. Tomoe can speak Japanese fluently because she’s Japanese, I might say “Japanese is difficult,” and she would “No, Japanese is super easy.” These are just beliefs that come from our experiences. The problem is limiting beliefs limit us. They in fact do limit us. They stop us from
getting better. cause a lot of problems for us as students, as learners. have them, too. As I try to learn Japanese, for example, have a lot of these limiting beliefs I realize. think “Oh, Japanese is so difficult.” Japanese is complicated, just look at the system. It’s so different from English. And these beliefs my motivation. They lower my 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 small American child, could learn very effortlessly, very easily. And the reason is, the number reason is, they don’t have the limiting beliefs. They can sing songs and games and enjoy the language, and they’ll learn it quickly, so easily, they’ll say “Japanese is easy.” Well, it’s same with English with you. You learned in a very painful, way in the past. And so you developed, you these beliefs in your head. English is difficult. English is boring. English is painful. I’m not good English. I’ll never speak excellent English. These are just beliefs.
So how do eliminate these beliefs? Okay, you have these beliefs. You 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, you have to weaken them. You to make them weaker and weaker and weaker. You have to cut down. Well beliefs get stronger from references. And reference is just an experience or memory. Sometimes it’s just something you imagine, actually. But it’s a specific or a specific imagination, a specific moment, that makes the belief stronger weaker. So, for example, you have this idea “English is and boring.” And when you think of this belief, where does come from?

Well, you think of all these past experiences. You of the time in middle school where your teacher corrected 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 these negative experiences, these negative references. And if you enough, you will develop a very, strong, deep, powerful belief “English difficult. English is painful. I’m not good at English.” So to these, you just have to question the references.

You have question the experiences. Take the power away from the experiences. an easy way to do that is just to ask questions about them. 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 you the answer is no. that’s interesting, so if your schools were not excellent, maybe the school was the problem. Maybe it’s you. Maybe your English is not great because you did go to great schools. And did those schools that went to, or 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 use the that everybody else uses?
Well, I know from my experience as a teacher, most schools just the same textbooks. They don’t know why. Maybe the boss them “We must use this book.” But they’re not the very, very best methods. They’re not choosing the very, best books. And so maybe the reason you believe is difficult is because you used difficult methods in past, or your teachers did. Maybe you think English is boring because 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. it was the way you did it or where you it. Ask yourself these questions. Think about 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 a long time so that you totally mastered it, that you knew it completely, 100% and never forgot it? Probably not, schools I have seen and the ones I have taught in, it’s quite opposite. The teachers go very, very, very quickly. You one chapter in your book, boom, after one week on to the one, and the next one. Each chapter has so many new words, much new 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 it all. we never learned deeply. They just tried to make us learn many words as possible, a lot of words, a lot of words, a lot of grammar, very, fast. And then, of course, I forgot everything. How about you? Did you deeply in your schools? If not, maybe that was of the problems. Maybe English feels difficult because you never learned deeply. English is not the problem.
Finally, did you with a grammar translation method? Did you study a lot of grammar rules? Did you take a of tests? Did you feel good about that? Again, maybe the method was the problem. 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 as you listen to Lesson 4. I want you to think about these questions again and again and again. And be honest about it. And start 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 only belief. It’s only a past experience. You can change that now in 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 give power 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 of beliefs you want and you need to choose them. You must decide which will make you stronger. For example, here’s an empowering belief. You replace your old limiting belief, add this one instead. You can say “My brain a natural language learning machine.” Because that’s what all of the scientific shows, our brain naturally learns languages. It is designed to learn language. It should be easy. It should effortless. It should feel good. You learned your native language that way. It wasn’t difficult was it? was easy for me to learn, because I did in a totally natural way. And the more naturally tried to learn Japanese, for example, or Spanish, the it feels. So this is a new belief and 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 that belief. Here’s another belief you might decide to choose “English be fun and effortless.”

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

And to these beliefs stronger, you need experiences. Remember, you need references, you need examples that the belief. So I’m going to give you some examples and can find more. Go find people who speak English very well. Or even that have learned another language very well. I’ll you one of my favorite examples, Steve Kaufman of The speaks, I believe, twelve languages now. I want you to find people and look at their beliefs. I’ll tell you some of his beliefs he’s a friend, I’ve talked to him a number times, and Steve believes, for example, that language learning is easy and effortless. That’s belief. He’s a native English speaker, he speaks Cantonese, he Mandarin, he speaks Japanese, he speaks Russian. These are all, supposedly, languages. For him they’re not difficult. They’re easy and effortless. That’s a very belief he has.

Another belief he has is that you must learn language and you must focus on meaning. So in other words, he doesn’t focus on grammar. He’s not focusing 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 for me that these are the same beliefs that all of my best have. They all have these same ideas. The best students, the ones who learn the fastest, ones who have the best test scores, the ones with the speaking, they all believe these things. They all believe that is fun, interesting and effortless. They all believe that language learning natural. They all believe that 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. What I want you to do write down two, three, four empowering beliefs, beliefs that you 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 good word, that’s a word, incantation.
An incantation is a phrase or sentence that say again and again. It has almost a magic idea, it from magic. An incantation is a magical sentence. It’s a sentence, you say the sentence will happen. That’s where it comes from. But for an incantation is just a belief you are going repeat again and again and again every day.So here’s what you’re going to do. For example “English can fun and effortless.” You’re going to say that out loud 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 walk, as you’re getting ready for the lesson, you’re going to repeat out loud. You’re going to say “English can be fun and effortless.” You’re going say it with some emotion. Say it with feeling you’re smiling, you’re breathing deep, you’re moving your body, have good posture and now you’re also saying these beliefs. English can be fun and effortless. You repeat it again. can be fun and effortless. And then you say it again. English be fun and effortless.

You can do this in your room and its fine. You can do it and make everyone look at you and think you’re crazy. Why not? It’s better than 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 before you a lesson. Get your body strong, peak emotional state, then say these incantations. English can be fun and effortless. English can 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 of the main for “Beliefs.”