High Expectations Motivate Others to Create Great Success

If someone says they are expecting, we know something is about to happen. When another person is expecting something of us, it often has a magical way of motivating us into doing it. We feel compelled somehow as if they've just spelled out how the future should look, and if we don't comply, our destiny will be altered.

We all know our expectations have let us down here and there, but its having such a high hope that those things will happen as we see them, that we are surprised when they don't. Expectations help others know what we need from them and give them parameters in which to do something. Having no expectations for something shows that we don't have much faith in the situation. But too by having too high of expectations we might create a situation where someone feels we've let them down. I believe holding high expectations within the brackets of what is possible, can encourage and motivate people to accomplishment what others believe they can do.

As a teacher, I believe this is a very important tool in guiding my students. When I say that I expect something, it gives them the knowledge of what outcome will be needed for positive results. I tend to believe that expectations really do help people produce; therefore, I strongly believe it is important to hold well thought out expectations. My students need to know I believe they can do well, need to understand what doing well would specifically mean in each case, and need to know how to achieve that. If I allow for sloppy work or incompleteness, I will most likely get those results in the future. On the contrary, if I clearly define high expectations for the task, it is then understood that that is the only outcome accepted.

Remember that these expectations are still on the chart of realistic. This is not a comparison of what is barely acceptable, and what is beyond amazing. In creating high expectations on a project for instance, I think about what I need the students to accomplish (learn), create the standards for how that will happen, and often share a rubric for them to see each grading area. I have noticed that over the years, students seem to react much better to the introduction of a project in which I have more clearly shown the expectations beforehand rather than not. They are typically not more motivated to be creative within wider options, but rather, become more apprehensive towards those unchartered territories feeling unsure if it will be accepted. I have had more positive and creative results with students that have been given clear guidelines in which they know what is expected, yet they can also produce creative ideas within.

To me high expectations are just visions of what can be. It is very possible and real, and is meant for encouragement. It gives guidance. In describing a good outcome beforehand, it allows for those outcomes to be imagined too by the worker, and then be successfully created