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A Cure for Self-Doubt Is Setting Unrealistic Expectations
It’s not about deluding yourself, but rather finding a better starting point
In the 1980s, educator Jaime Escalante taught calculus at one of the worst schools in East LA, with a dropout rate as high as 55%. Escalante and his calculus class turned the reputation of the school around, with a high percentage of his students passing the AP calculus exam.
When a film based on this story came out, Dolores Kohl Solovy and Patricia Brieschkeis wrote, “Our children will meet our expectations. What would happen if we really believed it? If the people who run schools believed it? If teachers everywhere believed it?”
While people’s expectations, and even past evidence, might work against us, we all need reminders to believe. Here, we’ll look at the label of unrealistic expectations for ourselves (not the ones we set on other people). If you’ve ever said something like, “That’ll never happen for me,” “Why do I even try?” or “I’m not smart enough to do that,” to yourself, this post is for you.
Dealing with distorted, unrealistic expectations
We talk ourselves out of dreams we’ve barely had, probably because we never hear them again after a mere whisper. When a teacher told Di’Zhon Chase she might be able to enroll in a class at Harvard, she reacted with skepticism. Chase tells the New York Times, “Harvard isn’t part of the conversation — you don’t even hear that word in Gallup. It isn’t something that adults expect out of us. I don’t think it’s because they don’t believe in us; it’s just so much is stacked against us.” At his blog, Seth Godin writes:
“When our culture (our media, our power structures, our society) says, ‘people who look like you shouldn’t expect to have a life like that,’ we’re stealing. Stealing from people capable of achieving more, and stealing from our community as well. How can our society (that’s us) say, ‘we don’t expect you to graduate, we don’t expect you to lead, we don’t expect you to be trusted to make a difference?’”
