One of the first lessons I teach on my hypnotherapy training diploma is all about creating expectations… many of the more prolific hypnotherapy researchers demonstrate that hypnotherapy is far more effective with advanced levels of client expectation… I wrote about expectation in my ezine recently and I want to add to that concept today… if people expect, you have to deliver too!

Before my own training diploma even begins, I write asking them what they expect from me as the tutor and what their expectations of the course are. But on day one, we discuss the most important thing… Our hypnotherapy client’s expectations.

I tell my students that it doesn’t really matter who you are, how much you know, how much experience you have had being a therapist or hypnotising others, the client expects something, and you have to make sure it is positive.

Many schools of hypnotherapy, particularly cognitive behavioural hypnotherapists believe that hypnosis as a phenomena is purely about meeting expectations and behaving according to those expectations… heck, Sarbin believed the expectation was so important that a client simply role-played what they expected to happen in order to be hypnotised!

This essential piece of understanding does not only apply to students of hypnotherapy or professional hypnotherapists. Even if you’re just having fun with Hypnosis; learning it for your own use, for your own self-improvement in some way, to communicate more persuasively or anything else, this is one concept that can be expanded to many other areas of life.

To create a positive sense of expectation in another person (a client, a child, a co-worker, etc.), act confidently…. It is as simple as that. Behave as if you know the outcome…

Behave in a way that assumes the most positive and desirable outcome. Believe in it so that you demonstrate congruence… And you’ll create an abundance of expectation. And when people expect things to happen… Those things tend to happen.

If you are not convinced in your own abilities, when a client arrives at your offices, you might be spotted as being nervous in some way and not create the kind of expectation that you need for really effective hypnotherapy.

That’s one of the reasons all my students conduct case studies and get lots of practice before they go out into the world as a qualified hypnotherapist…

When any therapy client knows he’s about to get results…. When they can read it and hear it with every fibre of who and how you are…. Then what they expect is very, very likely to happen… Expectation is an incredibly hypnotic facet.

A couple of weeks ago, Keith came to me and gave me a presentation.

Him and I sat alone in my office sat at my desk and he was nervous. If I am honest, he made me nervous because he told me he was. When I told him that I was pleased with how he was dealing with this, he told me that I may not be when he had finished proposing what he wanted us to do with our business.

So I got nervous.

He expected issues with me and I started feeling like I was going to have issues too.

Keith and I have had a long, close relationship, and we want to take our business together to an entirely new level and so Keith presented to me some ideas and thoughts that he believed were the way forward.

I loved them.

I loved the entire process and they way that we are going ahead with a very new way of working together. There are going to be some challenges ahead for us both, and we are both going to encounter all kinds of fun and games on the way to where we want to be… But let me tell you what got me on board.

Despite being nervous about talking to me, despite his worries about how I would respond… I have that effect on people, my students will tell you that it can be an invigorating experience to spend time in close quarters with me… He expected it to be successful.

Keith expects the entire thing to be successful to the levels that I want and need. He expects it to the extent that he was utterly congruent and determined and believable in every way – I was and am on board entirely with how we are changing things in our business.

We both now expect.

I am back in my office now after 9 consecutive days of hypnotherapy training to a simply marvellous group of people from all over the world. Because of my belief in creating expectation and it being such a hypnotic phenomenon… They expected. They had big expectations in fact.

So I had to deliver. If you have created expectation, you need to deliver and make good on that expectation too. For my hypnotherapy students, I gave of myself greatly in terms of time, energy and effort… I think they could tell that their development and well-being is important to me… I gave them some bits and pieces that were in addition to what they thought they had paid for… I shared much of myself with them and we shared much laughter together.

Delivering upon the expectation created, ensures a happy life, a healthy business and a marvellous way of conducting oneself…