“Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right” Henry Ford
We’ve all read that quote from Henry Ford, and we’ve all heard story after story of people who believed they could, or couldn’t do something, and proved their beliefs were reality. Self-fulfilling prophecies can be incredibly powerful, or downright dangerous, depending on your state of mind. If you’ve a cousin who is sure she’ll get cancer like her mom and grandmother, then she’s on her way to illness. If you’ve got a friend who is positive she’ll get a job right away, even if statistics say otherwise, then she’ll succeed.
I’ve always loved the story of neurologist and runner Roger Banister who was sure he could do what people told him was impossible, run a mile under four minutes. As soon as he did the impossible (from other people’s perspective, not his own) in 1954 and ran a mile in under four minutes, several others changed their minds about what was and wasn’t possible and also ran a mile under four minutes, the same month.
In Roger von Oech’s book A Whack on the Side of the Head, he talks about interviewing sales people in the top and bottom percentages of a particular company. The bottom fourth talked about all the reasons (excuses) they weren’t doing well, and the top quarter talked about knowing they would find a way to make the sale, and they always did.
He also gave a fascinating example of how a friend used the self-fulfilling prophecy mentality to be a world class swimmer. His friend, Bob Hopper, told von Oech, the main difference between himself and his competition was the mental preparation he did before each meet.
“Starting each day before the meet I run the following movie through my mind. I see myself…with three thousand cheering fans in the stands. I see myself going up to the starting block. I hear the gun go off, I see myself diving into the pool. I see myself coming to the wall, turning, pushing off into the backstroke with a small lead… The lead gets bigger as I kick hard… I see myself winning. I run this movie through my mind thirty or forty times before each meet. When it comes time to swim, I just get in and win.”
How can we use this self-fulfilling prophecy to our advantage? Start “seeing” what we want as if we already have it, according to author Stephen Covey’s advice in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Pay attention to what we’re thinking about our goal, what do we need to start thinking or saying to condition ourselves to believe we can accomplish whatever it is we’re aiming for. And like so many other things in life, to be good at this we can start practicing on small self-fulfilling successes and just keep working our way up to brilliant!
