The Positive Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Throughout my life I have made a number of prophecies or predictions about myself that have come true. Some are trivial (“I think I’ll enjoy that movie”). Some are important (“I think I will like being married to that woman”). Perhaps my personal prophecies merely reflect my confidence (“I will succeed in …”) or the lack of confidence (“I can’t do this . . . ”). Either way, they are often self-fulfilling.

If I attempted to walk along a long twelve-inch-wide wood plank I would have no problem. If that same wood plank was suspended between two twelve-story buildings I would be terrified and either refuse or, more than likely, fall. I am terrified of walking along the edges of cliffs or high buildings. Same activity (walking the plank), different prophecy, different result.

Tim, a close friend of mine, told me about one serious self-fulfilling prophecy from his first marriage. Tim had met his future wife, Marilyn, in high school when they were both sixteen-years-old. They dated, went steady, were engaged, and when they were both twenty-one they married. For the first seven years their marriage was excellent. Then, from Tim’s perspective, their relationship deteriorated. After three years of on-and-off arguments—often the same one—Tim concluded one night that he wanted to let Marilyn know that he was at a point in their marriage that required a make or break conversation. He felt that he needed to get her attention, and chose his words carefully.

As Tim tells it, they were sitting in the front seat of their old Pontiac and he said to Marilyn, “I’m thinking of leaving you.”

Tim did not say he was actually leaving because there was still an open question in his mind. He did want to let Marilyn know that their problems were continuing, and bothered him a lot.

Tim said he will always remember her immediate reply, which shocked him. “I’ve always expected this.”

“I’ve always expected this”? After five years of almost exclusively dating each other, more than ten years of marriage, after three children, after thirteen years of mutual loyalty, “I’ve always expected this”?

Tim was stunned.

Later he realized that Marilyn had been living for many years with a scary self-fulfilling prophecy—that Tim would eventually leave her. Perhaps she felt inadequate in some way. She may have been filled with the memory of her father, who was unreliable. I never asked. But Marilyn’s prophecy did come true. Tim told me that he wished her unconscious forecast had been that they would always be together because there might have been a different result.

By comparison, I visited a psychic years ago. I was concerned about three important business deals.

The psychic told me that all three would fail. Please note that this was her prophecy, not mine. I responded to her prediction by deciding to be even more careful and to pay more attention to each transaction. My prophecy, which turned out to be self-fulfilling, was that all three would succeed, and they did.

I realize that few, if any, of us ever want to be wrong, and it is easier to fail than to succeed. So when you predict failure you might be correct more often than when you predict success. In my mind, however, the real question is this: which prophecy will help you to succeed more often? That is the entire thrust and purpose of my People Tools series of books: to help you succeed more often. I know that when I predict failure or uncertainty for myself I am often accurate. But when I predict success, I am also often correct.

If prophecies tend to be self-fulfilling, I prefer to infuse them with optimism. I would rather succeed than correctly predict my own failure.

Alan