Expectations (as I mentioned in a previous post) are powerful things. People tend to live up to their expectations of themselves. For the majority of people who are not living consciously, this often involves absorbing the expectations of others. For those who ARE aware, though, this linking of expectations and outcomes can be of enormous benefit.

You can set your own expectations. There are some things you can do to make it easier to set and reinforce the expectations you choose. First of all, thinking about specific things will influence your expectations. For instance, if you constantly think about failure in a certain venture, you start expecting to fail. The opposite is true, as well. If you think about the success of a project you are working on, especially if you think about it as a foregone conclusion, you will start to expect it to succeed.

This tendency is even more powerful when you go beyond thinking in words to visualizing. This, however, is not a bad thing. In fact, it makes it easier to intentionally set your expectations. Any time you start thinking negative thoughts about something in your life, immediately change the direction of your thoughts. It doesn’t have to be going from negative to positive immediately on the same topic, you can simply think about a different topic where you are NOT having negative thoughts. At the same time (not literally as in the same second, but as in don’t worry about having eliminated all negatives first), start visualizing positive things about that topic.

For instance, you can use this to improve relationships. Any time you find yourself thinking negatively about your relationship you want to improve, change your train of thought. You can either try to think of the positive aspects of the relationship, or if that’s too hard, you can think of something else that is good (maybe you just watched a good movie and you can just think about that, instead). Then, when your head is clear of the negatives (not permanently, just for the moment), you can work on visualizing positive developments in the relationship. You can picture spending more time together, doing something fun together, or whatever… as long as it’s positive to you. If you keep doing this, you will eventually change your expectations so that this better relationship is what you are sure is ahead. This will make a difference in many ways, such as affecting your choices in regards to your relationship, improving your mood (which sometimes can improve a relationship all on its own!), etc.

You can reinforce this change even more by saying what you want in a positive way. For instance, don’t say “We’re not arguing any more.” Instead, say “Our relationship is more peaceful and loving.” If you repeat this, and especially if you intentionally put emotional energy into it, it can have a very strong effect in a very short time. When you combine these things, clearing out negative thoughts, visualizing positive results, and speaking the words as if it were already done (especially with the emotional energy in it), the results can be nothing short of astounding.

This topic fascinates me, so there will likely be more posts on it in the future, and it may even eventually get its own category, but for now just try the above techniques for at least a week, and watch what happens (for many people, it takes far less than a week… one day is frequently enough to see a difference)!