I've found that whatever you expect, with confidence, becomes your own self-fulfilling prophecy.

When you confidently expect good things to happen, good things usually happen to you. If you expect something negative to happen, you are usually not disappointed.

Your expectations have an inordinate effect on the people around you as well. What you expect from people and situations determines your attitude toward them more than any other factor, and people reflect your attitude right back at you, like a mirror, whether positive or negative.

Dr. Robert Rosenthal of Harvard conducted dozens of controlled experiments over the years to test the power of the expectations of teachers on student performance. In his landmark book, "Pygmalion in the Classroom," he tells of case after case where teachers were told that a student, or sometimes a whole class, was extremely bright and was predicted to make a quantum leap in academic performance in the coming year.

Even though the students were chosen from the school population at large, as long as the teacher believed that the student or students were exceptional, and the teacher expected the student to do well, the students performed vastly better than other students in the same or similar classes, and vastly better than could have been predicted by previous grades or behavior.

In your own personal life, your expectations of your staff, your boss, your customers and even of your own future tend to come true. Your expectations exert a powerful influence on people and events, for good or for ill, so be careful!