Run your Expectations or they will Ruin You, Your Emotions and Life

 According to the Dictionary an Expectation is: 

a strong belief that something will happen or be the case;

a belief that someone will or should achieve something;

When is the last time that you have run a check on the Expectations you are using towards your self and especially towards others?

Do you experience feelings of Hurt, Sadness, Anger, Frustration, Resentment in your interactions with other people? Or do you experience Joy, Affection, Love, Respect, Satisfaction, Appreciation?

Same types of feelings (positive or negative) you may experience also in relation towards yourself!

Have you wondered  why in some cases you have pleasurable feeling while in other cases you have painful emotions? What is the difference that makes the difference?

We usually are habituated to feel pleasurable feelings if the things go in accordance or above our expectations. If on the other hand things go differently than we expected in a negative way, i.e. we get less then we'll usually feel painful type of emotions.

Same principle applies not only in relation to things but also or more so in relation to other people or to ourselves. 

So do you think or even believe strongly that your emotions are caused by the things or other people? What if that's not the case? 

I would argue that a  common underlying factor, theme or cause that predetermines how we feel in a given situation is not caused by how things turn out or how other people behave.

The primary cause for the way we feel is the PRESET EXPECTATIONS WE HAVE in relation to a situation or person. 

That was a kind of a bitter pill to swallow for me but it's kind make sense if you think about it.

For example lets say that you expect John to give you 50 Dollars. If he gives you 50 or more you'll have pleasurable feelings. But what if John gives you less or even instead of giving he steals 100 $ from you?

You'll most likely feel negative, painful type of emotions.

Most of the time and most of the Expectations we use are triggered automatically and at a unconscious level. So you need to make a deliberate effort to uncover them. Once you become aware of them you may decide to change, keep, update, contextualize, modify, replace them.

If you were to have expected for things to happen as they already happened you would feel joy instead of sorrow. So why haven't you?

Next I propose to you a series of steps and questions to help you to run a Diagnose and Redesign of the Expectations you're using.

Step 1. Expectations Awareness

Take a situation, an experience or a relation with another person. Most likely if you're reading this you are feeling painful type of emotions in that situation or in relation to that person or to yourself.

So just ask your self: 

What do I Expect in this Situation, from this Person or from myself?

What do I think it's fair in this Situation?

What must happen in this situation so that I feel happy about it?

How should things go so that I feel satisfied?

2. Expectations Assessment

Now we are going to check, evaluate and assess the Expectations we have uncovered at the previous step. Check for:

Source / Provenance : Where do these Expectations come from? 

Ownership: Have you decided consciously to use this type of Expectations? If not, is it more likely that you have assimilated, copied them from others without even realizing it?

Upon: Especially about Expectations relating to other persons. Have you talked about with the other person and Agreed Upon the expectations that are guiding and governing your relationship or have you Imposed Upon them a set of expectations that they aren't even aware of?

Uniqueness: Especially about Expectations relating to other persons or ourselves. Do you start from the premise that the Expectations you're using are the only way to think about this situation? Are you open to consider that other types of expectations could just as well apply to this situation, relation? How do you decide which Expectations are more appropriate, useful, beneficial under these circumstances?

Timing:

When do you expect that your Expectation is to be meet / fulfilled? Do you require / expect for others/things to happen immediately, urgently or are you willing to consider a delay?

Meaning / Interpretation: What does it mean if an Expectation isn't meet? Most of us tend to personalize (self identify) the fulfillment of an expectation or lack thereof  with self worth, self esteem, self value. If someone behave as we expect them towards ourselves then we tend to feel/conclude that we are valued, we have value. If not that we are not valued by the others, i.e. that we don't have value.

Qualifications: We often hold expectations towards others or ourselves without asking if they/we are able to fulfill them. So ask if you or X person is willing, ready, able, prepared to meet a given expectation? Your expectation may valid but directed towards the wrong person. Same expectation directed towards another person might be meet easier, faster.

3. Expectations Redesign

After you have uncovered and assessed your Expectations you may realize that some of them don't serve you well. You can predict that keeping them will most likely lead to sufferings, frustration, pain.

Ask yourself:

Reset From Scratch: If you were to look at your mind as computer program what kind of Expectations would you give yourself?

Offer: Knowing what you now know....If you were to give as a gift to someone that you care about would you offer them these expectations?

Self-Empowerment: How could you rethink the Expectations for this type of situations/persons so that you feel happy, empowered, resourceful most of the time regardless of how things turn out?

Intensity: Compare how you would feel if the outcome differs if you were to set your expectation as: I prefer things to happen in this way. vs Things must happen always only this way!

Else: What else / other aspects should be redesigned about how you set expectation so that you increase your chances for success and happiness?

 

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