The Law of Expectation

In the 1960s a teacher was given a roster showing the actual I.Q. test scores of the students of one class, and for another class a roster in which the I.Q. column had been (mistakenly) filled in with the students’ locker numbers. The teacher assumed that the locker numbers were the actual I.Q.s of the students when the rosters were posted at the beginning of the semester.

After a year it was discovered that in the first class the students with high actual I.Q. scores had performed better than those with low ones. But in the second class the students with higher locker numbers scored significantly higher than those with lower locker numbers!

Isn’t it amazing that many people end up settling for what life and their environments throw at them instead of what potential they have inside? This challenge is what has made the majority of people live lives without expectation, settling for events and circumstances to do the bidding. This is further exacerbated by the comments and opinions people have of them, as if opinions ever mattered to an achiever!

Reminds me of an interesting cartoon I saw the other day that shows a fourth-grade boy standing toe-to-toe and nose-to-nose with his teacher. Behind them stares a blackboard covered with math problems the boy hasn’t finished. With rare perception the boy says, “I’m not an underachiever, you’re an overexpecter!”

See, average folk always seem to care much about what people think, and what the news and economic indicators say. They are always worried about failure, and they tend to get worked up with what would happen if things did not work! Their focus is so placed in the negative that they inadvertently activate the Law of Expectation which basically states…
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“Whatever you expect with confidence – will happen!”

​So therefore what people say about you has an effect, but what you say about yourself has quadruple the effect. Listen, what kind of internal dialogue do you have within you? Is it positive, filled with expectation and always willing to see the brighter side of all events in spite of whether it is a step forward or a drawback?

Mindsets or Paradigms

Steve Covey of the “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” fame defined this term as being how one looks at something which then goes on to affect the way they think and subsequently act. Many people never achieve much in their lives because they have mindsets that are fixed on the negative. They go a step further and always expect failure even before they start. This has even been justified by quotes like “hope for the best but expect the worst”! What a terrible quote! I would rather say “Expect the best but have a contingency for any eventuality”. 

When you create a positive statement like that, your mind starts to see things differently. This then means that instead of saying “I am broke”, you say “I am temporarily set back”. Instead of “There is no money” say “There is plenty of money and I just have to figure out how to get it to come to me”. Instead of “It is impossible” say “It is difficult but achievable with the right knowledge and experience”.

Never allow yourself to be a haven of negative thought as this will always activate the negative side of the Law of Expectation. When you feel hopeless, it always affects your belief cycle which inevitably affects your output. This hopelessness is most prevalent in the hearts of those that are financially challenged or what the world calls “the poor”. I do not refer to poor in spirit, but poor in means. We all have the capacity and abilities within us to become wealthy if we choose to. If our desire is to amass wealth, then we need to work on the Law of Expectation so that we always are able to utilize it thoroughly.

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Be especially watchful of what people within your environment (friends, relatives, news, people around you) always say about money and ideas to generate money.

Instead of allowing these negative words around you all the time, find people that are positive and likeminded, probably a club, or group, or team, or what Napoleon Hill calls a Mastermind Group and then connect to them, speak and share with each other, form a team and work with each other so that you negate the comments and info that your environment keeps throwing at you.

How? By your actions and results because you know better! Next we will be looking at the Law of Attraction.