Eight (8) Principles for Finding the Fountain of Youth- Part 11

"I just kept on doing what everyone starts out doing. The real question is, why did other people stop?"– William Stafford

* A word about “expectations “as a motivator which happens to be our* Psychological principle or concept # 5. In the 1970’s, I empirically researched the relationship or cause-effect between expectancy and performance. To oversimplify, I found out about the expectations that 4th grade children had on a particular arithmetic assignment. Some children expected to do well, while other children expected to do poorly on the assignment. Pupils who expected to do well, on this assignment did in fact do well. On the contrary, pupils, who expected to do poorly, did in fact do poorly. The students who expected to do well easily outperformed students, who expected to do poorly on the assignment. Do not discount the power of expectations as it relates to performance.

Consider this quote by Michelangelo: "The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark."
– Michelangelo Buonarroti

Michelangelo, here are my comments about setting your level of aspiration too high, failing and having a string of failures. Too much reinforced failure is not a good thing and can lead to more and more disappointment and interfere with setting realistic goal expectations.

From Secretariat: I fall on the side of Michelangelo. My expectation are always higher then I know I will achieve. How else would you push yourself to improve.

More about the power and the importance of expectations, the mind-body connection and “how” and “what” we think.

To be continued: