Your Expectations Don’t Just Influence Your Destiny, They Determine It

You are influenced by parents, friends, teachers, and society. Some bolster your outlook and encourage you to reach for the sky. Naysayers undermine your future.

Some folks have your best interest at heart. Others want to pour you a cup of gloom and doom.

External influences reinforce your viewpoints and shape your expectations over time.

When you believe the world’s unfair, you’ll be on the lookout for things to go wrong and people to do you harm.

Negative expectations ultimately turn into self-fulfilling prophecies.

Expectations Matter More Than You Think

Expectations have a dramatic impact on behavior and performance. For example:

• When you believe people are trustworthy, you’ll invest in long-term relationships rather than thinking everyone’s out to get you.

• When you believe hard work pays off, tough days are viewed as opportunities rather than believing the company is taking advantage of you.

• When you believe life has its ups and downs, you’ll take bad days in stride rather than thinking you’re the only one with problems.

• When you believe the world is your oyster, you pursue it with vigor. When you think people like you don’t stand a chance, you quit before you even start.

Expectations don’t just influence destiny, they determine it.

What do you notice about the power of expectations?

This post is adapted from Leadership by Example: Be a role model who inspires greatness in others by Frank Sonnenberg. 

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Frank Sonnenberg is an award-winning author and a well-known advocate for moral character, personal values, and personal responsibility. He has written 10 books and has been named one of “America’s Top 100 Thought Leaders.” Additionally, his blog — FrankSonnenbergOnline — has attracted millions of readers and was recently named one of the “Top Self-Improvement and Personal Development Blogs” in the world and one of the “Best Inspirational Blogs On the Planet.” Frank’s newest book, Leadership by Example: Be a role model who inspires greatness in others.

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Previously Published on leadershipfreak.blog with Creative Commons License

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EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT “NOT” BEING YOURSELF

Warren Bennis was brilliant when he said, “Becoming a leader is synonymous with becoming yourself.” But what if you’re a jerk-hole?

Perhaps you shouldn’t always ‘be yourself’. I’ve been told, for example, we should write the way we talk. (Be yourself.) But what if you’re a boring windbag when you talk?

A beginning:

Sammy Davis Jr. sang, “I’ve Gotta Be Me.” The lyric goes, “What else could I be but what I am?”

The way you were born doesn’t reflect the person you could become.

It’s one thing to accept a genetic disposition toward alcoholism, for example. It’s destructive to embrace it.

Sometimes I’m at my best when I’m being like someone else.

Perhaps you don’t gotta be you. But how?

Emulate others:

I enjoy being like people I admire.

I remember the slow painful recovery after my accident. One day I looked in the mirror and saw my dad looking back. (Not literally of course.)

When I looked in the mirror that day, I admired my own toughness. That’s when I realized that the grit in me was dad-in-me. It still feels fantastic.

When I’m like the people I admire, I affirm my best self.

It’s fulfilling to be like someone who has strength where you have weakness.

I practice humility by reflecting on humble people I respect, not by following natural inclinations.

I learn to connect with others by reflecting on the great connectors in my life, not by doing what comes naturally.

I learn wisdom by emulating the sages.

Necessary skill:

Choose carefully when choosing people to emulate.

Show me your influences and I’ll tell you who you will become.

1. Move from admiration to emulation.
2. Being impacts behaviors and behaviors impact being.
3. Listen to things that rub you the wrong way. They expand you.

How might being yourself not serve you well?

How has emulating someone made you a better person?

Previously Published on leadershipfreak.blog with Creative Commons License

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