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Have you ever had one o/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f those days where nothing seems to go right? You overslept, you can’t /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/find your le/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/ft shoe, and your co/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/fee machine is going slower than a sloth working at a DMV. The day just seems to continue going downhill until you /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/finally have a breakdown over dropping a spoon. Trust me, I’ve been there. Un/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/fortunately, part o/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f that bad day may have been due to our own creation. In social psychology, there is a concept called a sel/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f-/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/ful/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/filling prophecy, which is when a belie/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f that we hold ends up in/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/fluencing our actions and /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/ful/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/filling our initial prediction. We o/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/ften /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/focus on this topic when we discuss negative instances, such as our bad day. By believing that we were having a horrible day, we acted in accordance with that belie/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f. You woke up aggravated at yoursel/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/for having slept in, so you interpret your co/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/fee machine as being out to get you when it takes its normal time to start up. Later that day, you express more /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/frustration during a job interview which leads to getting rejected despite your extensive experience. When you eventually get home and just want to watch some Net/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/flix while eating your /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/favorite ice cream, you end up knocking the spoon over when you reach /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/for it because you’re so preoccupied with replaying your mistakes in your head. This e/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/fect is due to a link between belie/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f and behavior. What you believe in/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/fluences how you behave, which in turn rein/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/forces that initial belie/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f and causes a /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/feedback loop.

Another type o/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f sel/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f-/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/ful/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/filling prophecy is behavioral con/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/firmation. This happens when people’s social expectations cause them to behave in such a way that encourages others to match their beginning expectations. Your new lacrosse coach may have heard /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/from one o/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f your teachers that you’re a star athlete, which could lead to them holding you to higher expectations and giving you higher praise on a regular basis. Suddenly, you /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/feel more competent, so you end up running that extra lap to improve your endurance while your coach watches proudly /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/from the sidelines. This positive outcome can also be called the Pygmalion e/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/fect, where high expectations lead to improved per/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/formance.

Applying This to Your Daily Li/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/fe
Sel/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f-/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/ful/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/filling prophecies can work against you i/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f you don’t monitor your thoughts, but you can also use them to your advantage. We can do this through three steps. The /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/first is identi/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/fying what kind o/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f mindset you need /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/for each situation. As nice as it would be, we can’t simply tell ourselves that we’ll get a per/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/fect 100% on next week’s exam and wake up with a per/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/fect 4.0 GPA. However, you can almost ‘/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/fake it till you make it’ by shi/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/fting your mindset to reassuring yoursel/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f that you’re an intelligent student who works hard and uses each opportunity to grow. It may /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/feel uncom/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/fortable and even like a lie at /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/first, especially since many o/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f us already have imposter syndrome to begin with, but i/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f you repeat this practice enough you’ll eventually shi/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/ft your actions to match that belie/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f. The key is to be consistent with it. Even i/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f you don’t get the grade you were hoping /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/for at /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/first, you can ask yoursel/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f what your ideal student would do in that situation. They would understand that it’s okay that they misunderstood some o/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f the material because now they can use it as an opportunity to review the questions they got wrong and to learn /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/from it. Even i/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f it /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/feels silly, this continuous a/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/firmation can completely change your li/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/fe in the long run.

The second step is to surround yoursel/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f with people who match your desired sel/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f. The mind is like a magical /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/farm; whatever seeds you plant in it will grow. Un/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/fortunately, there is no automatic quality control that sorts out our negative thoughts or realizes when something is sel/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f-deprecating. Growing up on the shyer side, I used to always be somewhat envious o/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f the girls who were super outgoing and /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/friendly to other people. Despite having no good reason to, I always thought that I could never be like them because I simply didn’t have the skills or con/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/fidence. I also surrounded mysel/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f with people who had the same kind o/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f low sel/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f-esteem and external locus o/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f control who agreed that it was out o/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f our control and that some people were just born lucky. It took a while, but once I started learning about psychology during my /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/freshman year o/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f high school I told mysel/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f that I would just try it out, even i/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f it didn’t work. Friendly people are kind, so I would give one person a compliment each day. It was scary at /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/first, but once others started to smile and respond positively then I gained con/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/fidence in this action and eventually started to actually consider mysel/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f as outgoing. I noticed that a/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/fter I had be/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/friended those outgoing girls in my class that it was easier to slip into the role o/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f who I wanted to be because they encouraged and rein/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/forced that behavior too.

The /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/final step is to continue revising and modi/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/fying your goals. Not every sel/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f-/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/ful/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/filling prophecy will come true because there are always /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/factors outside o/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f your control. You may tell yoursel/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f that you’re going to become the most naturally tan person on campus, but i/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f you’re like me whose skin would rather burn to a crisp be/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/fore allowing an extra drop o/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f melanin in it, that’s probably not going to happen. You should be realistic about your goals, the potential obstacles, and how to success/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/fully achieve them. Other prophecies may also not work /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/for you because they’re a little too /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/far out o/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f your com/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/fort zone. That’s okay, you just have to revise your plan and maybe start a little bit smaller be/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/fore working your way up. You should /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/focus on an attribute that you can change, rather than a large objective that may derail your process i/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f you don’t immediately achieve it. The main thing that I hope you take away /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/from this blog is that the next time you’re approaching a goal, think about how the ideal version o/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f you would work towards it. Truly convince yoursel/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/f that you embody those qualities, and your actions will /thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/follow accordingly.

Re/thrive/students/thrive-thursdays/selfulfillment/ferences

Myers, D. G., & Twenge, J. M. (2022). Social psychology (14th ed.). McGraw Hill Education.Ìý

Robert Rosenthal; Lenore Jacobson (September 1968). "Pygmalion in the classroom". The Urban Review. 3 (1): 16–20.