Travis Bradbury* says our attitudes to life and what we expect from it can be pathways to success — or pitfalls that will leave us permanently frustrated and depressed.
Your expectations, more than anything else in life, determine your reality.
When it comes to achieving your goals, if you don’t believe you’ll succeed, you won’t.
Research shows that people who believe in themselves use more metacognitive functions than those who don’t.
This means that they use more of their brains and have more brainpower to solve problems.
The tricky thing about your expectations is that they impact other people too.
As far back as the 1960s, Harvard research demonstrated the power of our beliefs in swaying other people’s behaviour.
When teachers in the studies were told that certain (randomly selected) children were smart, those kids performed better, not only in the classroom, but also on standardised IQ tests.
Indeed, we get the most out of other people when we believe in them.
Research shows that this happens because when we believe in someone, we treat them better than people we think will fail.
Letting your doubts cloud your belief in someone (or something) practically ensures their failure.
Patients who have low expectations for medical procedures or treatments tend to have poorer results than those who expect success.
If a doctor uses a treatment with a clinically verified high rate of success but presents it in a negative light, the probability of a negative outcome increases.
Be especially wary of the expectations that follow — they give people all kinds of trouble.
Life should be fair:
We’ve all been told a million times (and likely told other people) that life isn’t fair.
However, a surprising number of us subconsciously expect life to be fair, and we believe that any unfairness that we experience will somehow be balanced out.
If you’re stuck in that mindset, it’s time to get over it.
When something ‘unfair’ happens, don’t rely on outside forces to get you back on your feet.
Sometimes there isn’t any consolation prize, and the sooner you stop expecting there to be, the sooner you can take actions that will actually make a difference.
Opportunities will fall into my lap:
One of the most important things a person can do is stick his or her neck out and seek opportunity.
Just because you deserve a raise or a promotion, doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.
You have to make it happen.
You have to put in the hard work, then go and get what’s yours.
If we limit ourselves to what’s given to us, we are at the mercy of other people.
Everyone should like me:
People have hang ups, and that means all sorts of decent, kind, respectable people are not liked by (some) others, for no good reason.
When you think that everyone should like you, you end up with hurt feelings when you shouldn’t.
Instead of expecting that people will like you, focus on earning their trust and respect.
People should agree with me:
Sure, you know what you’re talking about, and for that reason, people should take you seriously.
However, expecting people to agree with you out of courtesy or because your ideas are so incredibly sound is another story.
Something that’s obvious to you might not be so to someone with different experiences and a different agenda.
So stop being offended when people disagree with you, and stop assuming that there is only one right answer (yours).
People know what I’m trying to say:
People can’t read your mind, and what you’re trying to say is rarely what other people hear.
You can’t expect people to understand you just because you’re talking — you have to be clear.
Whether you’re asking someone to do something without providing the context or explaining a complex concept behind a big project, it’s easy to leave out relevant information.
Communication isn’t anything if it isn’t clear, and your communication won’t be clear until you take the time to understand the other person’s perspective.
I’m going to fail:
As I’ve touched upon already, if you expect to fail, you stand a higher chance of creating the very outcome you’re worried about.
If you fail, accept that sometimes you’ll fail and sometimes you’ll succeed, but if you pursue an endeavour, believe with all your being that you’re going to succeed.
Otherwise, you’ll limit the chances of that happening.
Things will make me happy:
Sure, things can make life more fun and comfortable in the short run, but they can’t make you happy in the long run.
Too many of us expect a future event to make us happy, instead of looking more deeply into the real causes of our unhappiness.
If you don’t fix what’s going on inside, no external event or item is going to make you happy, no matter how much you want it to.
I can change him/her:
There’s only one person in this world you can truly change — yourself — and even that takes a tremendous amount of effort.
The only way that people change is through the desire and wherewithal to change themselves.
Still, it’s tempting to try to change someone who doesn’t want to change, as if your sheer will and desire for them to improve will change them.
Let go of this faulty expectation.
Build your life around genuine, positive people, and avoid problematic people that bring you down.
Believing that you’ll succeed really does make it more likely that you will.
It also means that you’ll need to let go of some erroneous expectations that will only get in your way.
* Travis Bradberry is the co-founder of TalentSmart, a provider of emotional intelligence tests, emotional intelligence training, and emotional intelligence certification. He can be contacted at TalentSmart.com.
This article first appeared on the TalentSmart website
