The Power of “Positive Expectancy” 

The Power of “Positive Expectancy” 

The key to achieving Big Dreams is to never lose faith in oneself. One can do this by using and leveraging the self-fulfilling prophecy to challenge oneself to live up to their own, self-appointed reputation.

 

For example, take the story of the teacher and the locker numbers. The story varies slightly depending on the source, but the general moral of the story is always the same…

 

“It seems that one year, there was a class of students who were so unruly that they burned out two different teachers. One teacher took early retirement and the other decided to get out of teaching altogether. This class was so bad that substitute teachers began to refuse to take it. So the district called a teacher who had applied for a job but hadn’t made the cut that year. They asked her if she would be willing to come in and finish out the year in return for the promise of a full-time position the next year. She eagerly accepted. 

 

The principal decided not to warn the teacher about the class, afraid that she would be scared off if she heard what she was up against. After the new teacher had been on the job for a month, the principal sat in on a class to see how things were going. To his amazement, the students were well-behaved and enthusiastic. After the students had filed out of the classroom, the principal stayed behind to congratulate the teacher on a job well done. She thanked him but insisted that he deserved thanks for giving her such a special class, such a great class, for her first assignment. The principal hemmed and hawed and told her that he really didn’t deserve any thanks. 

 

‘I knew I had a challenging group of kids here, so bright and rambunctious that I would really have to work to make school interesting for them because they are so intelligent.’ She slid the drawer open and the principal saw the list with the students’ names and the numbers 136, 145, 127, 128, and so on written next to the names. 

 

He exclaimed, ‘Those aren’t their IQ scores – those are their locker numbers!’ Too late. The teacher had already expected the students to be bright and gifted – and they had responded positively to her positive view and her positive handling of them.”

 

Here’s the trouble with this story and others like it. It perpetuates this belief that if someone else believes in me, then perhaps, I can begin to believe in myself. 

 

You don’t need someone else to believe in you for you to believe in yourself!

 

You don’t need someone to label you as “gifted” or “intelligent” for you to become successful. The only labels that matter are the ones we give ourselves! So, why not give yourself an incredible reputation to live up to?

 

If one is to achieve a Big Dream, the first step is allowing oneself to dream. Secondly, it’s to achieve Hustle Muscle. Third, is to keep believing in yourself throughout the process (and enjoy it a bit too!).