Why You're Not Getting What You Want | Pygmalion Effect

Have you ever wonder why you're not getting what you want?



I had such thoughts many times in my life.Why it's not happening?
Why am I not getting it,yet?
But in some occasion,I got what I want exactly as I wanted.

Sometime it works, sometime it's not working.
What am I missing here?

This isn't law of attraction.It's something else.
With time I learnt that ; it's because of you and because of people around you.


It was during my first year in med school.
Anatomy dissection hall
21st June 2010
1147a.m

For head and neck,Rakesh sir took the class for D batch.
He is quite young, slightly bald, speak good English, knowledgeable ,smart as well.BUT when he teach,you can't hear his voice especially if you're the last bench student.
51 competitive students that try to sit as near as possible with the teacher will be there.
In Malaysia, majority of us try to sit far to avoid attention of the teachers.There,it was the opposite.
Students wanted to be as near as they can with the teacher.

At times, it's frustrating trying your best to listen,making smart guesses what's he saying so that you can learn something.
At the end of the class,he asked the last bench students.One by one if they can listen what's he's teaching.
Everyone was nodding their head like a chicken despite the fact that they can't hear any shit.
It was my turn and my friend whispered,"Just say that you can't hear."
And I told him.
"Sitting behind is your fault or mine?"Rakesh asked.
That question it self made me realize something.This is not gona end well.

So whenever I went for anatomy oral test which is every 2, 3 days once,the moment he looked at me,he will assume that I'm definitely not gona answer it.
"You don't know right?"
"You're not even listening during class."
"I know you don't know just by looking at your face."
"Stupid."
"Bogus."
At times,he won't even ask me when it's my turn.

That's when I realized about Pygmalion effect.

It's the phenomenon whereby other's expectations of a person affect the  person's performance.
 A corollary of the Pygmalion effect is the golem effect, in which low expectations lead to a decrease in performance; both effects are forms of self-fulfilling prophecy.


When your face remind your coach of his enemy, doesn't matter what you do,he is not going to like you.Like a chain reaction,you won't perform well,he won't appreciate you nor try to make you better.The whole process become unenjoyable.
This notion happens often between houseman and MOs in hospital as well.
From my experience,this doesn't mean that you can't change it.

Eventually Rakesh started to like me.
Without touching their ego or making them look stupid,certain changes would enable them to change their point of view.

Other's perception does affect us but it's not the only reason we are not getting what we want.

The real reason is us.
We get what we expected not what we wanted.
This is the real problem with us that prevent us getting what we want.

Our brain works on the principle of anticipation.
What does it mean?
We constantly predict what we think is likely to happen before it ever occurs.
That interview,that breakup,that viva,asking something from a stranger,a date,in every situation,we will make a prediction at least in a subtle way even before it happen.
We are actually the plot writer of our life.If you know this simple psychology ,you can have a better screenplay of your life.

What we want is different,what we expect is different.
When the gap between expectations and what we want is big,it causes unnecessarily anxiety,fear and depression.

I wanted my viva to went well but deep inside somehow I expected that it won't be smooth.

I loved her but deep inside I expected that she's going to betray me.
We act and feel in a way that helps us prepare for what we think is going to happen.

We use our past experiences for the prediction.
The reason is,when we think about future,the same part of the brain gets activated as when we think about the past.

What's holding us isn't the past.
It's the belief that thing not going to be better.


If you're reading this, you're in deep shit, depressed, suicidal,ask your self this question.
"Can you see the light at the end of the tunnel?"
When?How?Can you?
Most of the time,we never even have an idea of it.
It is because we want to be happy,stress free but we never even expect it deep inside .If you expect such lights,you should know how to fix it .You would for sure.
Small positive anticipation and expectations change everything.
It's just that we never do that during hard time.

If you're expecting good thing, and you want the same, somehow we going to act in a way as per our expectations.
Its automatic .
If you want a good life but expecting tommorow going to be a hard day to deal with,you going to attract that hard day because that's how the whole anticipation and it's rewarding system of our brain works.

Even if opportunity to feel blessed is there,you can't make use of it because your expectations is bad.You already prepared for a bad day.

To change this,match your expectations and what you want.
Align them in a positive way.


I always wanted to be huge but deep inside I expected that it's not possible because of my genetic,small frame and bones.
What if I expect differently?
Let's give a try.