Written by Eugene Morgan
We all have expectations. We expect the sun will come out each day. We expect our car to start each morning. We expect the school bus will arrive on time. We expect our favorite show will come on every Wednesday night. Milton Erickson expects his subjects will do something.
“Deeds are the offspring of hope and expectancy”
I like this quote because it tells us in a nutshell one of the reasons Erickson uses this attitude of expectancy is to facilitate change. Erickson understands that we have tremendous potentials as human beings at our disposal. When Erickson prescribes a task to his patients, he expects them to do the task because he knows what humanity is capable of. Erickson’s attitude of expectancy evokes an internal motivation to move the patient into action. Just like the sun will rise each day of our lives, Erickson expects that his subject will do something. No matter how insignificant the subject might think it is, as long as it is going toward the direction of change it is good. To Erickson it’s like a beginning of a small snowball rolling down a hill getting bigger and bigger.
From my last post, I wrote about the learning set getting the subject into the learning mode. To make a change, learning is required. Since learning can be difficult, Erickson creates an expectation for the subject to work through. Erickson expects the subject to deliver or at least to make an attempt to deliver.
“Expect” is defined in the dictionary as “to look forward to: anticipate.” Erickson always orients his patient to the future, and having an expectancy attitude, presupposes the future. I think it is a good idea to have an expectancy attitude towards personal growth.
For example, my goal for each week is to write a blog post. I think that is reasonable goal for me since I have a 9-5 job. So while I’m working my 9-5 job, I can look forward to working on an article for publication. I think anticipation psychologically can be rewarding in itself and a good way of establishing a new routine.
Developing a Routine
Getting into a routine increases our expectation of getting our goals realized, thus it’s important to develop a routine. To develop a useful routine we have to repeat the same task daily. As this happens, our brains will begin to develop new pathways and establish new connections, which in turn develops new habits in our routine. When we develop a new and useful routine, our old and out-of-date routine will diminish. If we want to master a new routine to get us to our goals, lets consider dividing them into smaller goals. Conquering smaller goals increases our expectation thus enforces the notion that we will succeed and not give up.
Divide and Conquer Goals
We have no expectation of meeting our goals, if we feel so overwhelmed by looking at the whole scope of the goal. We see how much we got to get done. It can be overwhelming for anyone who can see the beginning, middle and the end of a goal. But if we break the goal down into smaller and manageable projects it looks possible to complete each project on time.
Milton Erickson told a story about the four-minute-mile run to a high school athlete who was trying to break a high school record in a shot put competition. Erickson said that the four-minute-mile run was unbreakable for many years because no one had the expectation of breaking it. Some believed that it was humanly impossible to break the four-minute-mile run. However, there came a pre-med student who was interesting in breaking the four-minute-mile run. He knew he had to change his mindset if he wanted to break the four-minute-mile. So he started thinking about how other sports measured time by seconds. He realized that 240 seconds were manageable than working with four minutes. And so he trained himself to think in seconds instead of minutes. This was how he had broken the four-minute mile. He divided the minutes into seconds. All he needed to conquer was one second, which means 239 seconds to break the four-minute-mile. It is easier to take a second or two off his time than one minute. His attitude had changed and now he had the expectation to break four-minute-mile run.
Expectancy is an Attitude
Every child and adult knows about the fable, “The rabbit and the tortoise.” Where the rabbit challenges the tortoise to a race and the slow tortoise ends up beating the speedy rabbit. And then the moral of story; “Slow and steady wins the race.” The rabbit took a break, then fell asleep, lost track of time and lost the race.
The rabbit thought that he had enough time to rest but underestimated the tortoise. The tortoise won the race and was rewarded for his steadiness and his consistency. Speed doesn’t always get us where we want to go. Slow is not always a bad thing. It’s better to do it the right way then trying to find a shortcut way.
“Steady” is defined in my dictionary as “1: direct or sure in movement; also: calm 2: firm, fixed 3: stable 4:constant, resolute 5: regular 6: reliable.”
I like all six meanings because it describes the tortoise’s action and attitude. I can picture in my mind’s eye the tortoise’s action as firm, constant, regular. The tortoise’s attitude as very fixed on a goal, reliable and resolute