I was driving my way over to Yoga class and I heard a wonderful speech on AM radio about reducing our expectations of people around us. I wish I could give you the speaker’s name; unfortunately, I got to class before the announcer could inform his listeners.

Anyhow, it was a very timely message and I assume if you’re reading this you can probably benefit from this message as well.

The speaker was talking about how many of the players that made it to the baseball hall of fame had a hitting average of .300. If you’re not a baseball fan, it basically means they successfully hit the ball 3 out of 10 times. 3 out of 10 and they made the hall of fame!

When you look at it at face value, it looks like they failed 70 percent of the time. However, hitting for a .300 average in baseball is considered to be exceptional, and these players are praised highly for such a feat.

If a player hit the ball successfully 4 out of 10 times, he’d be considered an amazing player even in the company of his professional comrades.

How often have you praised those close to you for succeeding only 4 out of 10 times?

For those close to us we tend to expect much more then that and many times expect them to succeed at least 8 or 9 and sometimes 10 out of 10 times at everything they do.

Well, that sure does put a lot of pressure on someone.

When someone has that much pressure on him or her, the focus moves toward not how often they succeed but their fear of failing even once. And what we focus on expands.

So if fear becomes the dominant focus, then guess what? For the Subconscious mind – the process goes something like this: “well, he sure is focusing a lot on fear… mmm… he must like fear. Let’s give him more reasons to fear.”

You see, in the subconscious mind, the word security is not what is right or wrong, or what even feels right or wrong… rather security is that which is familiar and we tend to go back to what’s familiar even if it’s “bad” for us.

I’ll talk more about the subconscious mind and how it works in future blogs but for now back to the topic.

So, considering the above analogy, what if you praised those closest to you for successfully doing something 4 out of 10 times… now, I’m not talking about a routine that requires a higher percentage but how about if you were easier on them on the more “nomal” tasks of the day.

In fact, what if you took it easier on yourself and praised yourself for doing things right 4 out of 10?

From what I’ve seen in client sessions, when the parents of a child took this attitude, the child kept pushing to score higher and higher out of love as opposed to fear! And, if I may get a bit spiritual at this moment, love will take us a lot further then fear ever will.

So praise yourself and those around you when they hit .400. It will make life more loving and easy for you. More over, love will sew you seeds of more love, peace, calm and happiness.

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