Living In Expectations Can Lead to Dissapointment

Living in Expectations Can Lead to Disappointment

Let’s talk about expectations. There’s been a lot of conversations I’ve been having lately with people about living in an “Expectation” of something.

Now an expectation is a strong belief or an assumption that you have around the way something should happen, or the way something should be.

When we’re stuck in that expectation, we start to lose the real vision that we’re searching for, and it gets quite blurred. I want to start to run through some of the way expectations creep into our lives, and how it can often set us up for disappointment.

The different layers of expectations are:

1. By Others

• Family
• Friends
• Co-Workers
• Behavior or Response

2. By Comparison

• Social Media
• People we know/meet
• A projected image

3. Set By Us

• Based on Perceptions eg. Of success
• Idea of what something “Should” look like
• Unrealistic / Unachievable
• Not Aligned with you. For example – You’re trying to copy someone else!!

So let’s kick it off with probably the one that most of us can relate to, and that’s the expectation set “By other” people around us.

Those are your family, your friends and could also be people that you’re working with or associates. These expectations are set because they have a vision and an assumption in their own head of the way things should look.

Let’s look at the family, for example. They might have this expectation that by a certain age, you should be married, settled down, starting to have a family and basically “growing up” in that sense. When you feel you’re not landing in those little squares that they’ve created, it can sometimes upset us in that sense that we’re not heading on this “right path” that we’re supposed to be on.

The expectations also around the behavior or the responses that we have with coworkers, our boss or anyone else around us in our life, that we have this expectation, they should react to a situation in a certain way or behave in a certain way, because that’s the way that we do it.

When they don’t, it can trigger you into having a negative reaction to that and being disappointed and most likely angry at them in some points in that way.

So the other expectation we live in is “Comparison”.

This is probably a really big one here especially around social media. It creates this expectation about how a successful life should be, or a successful business should be.

It might be through people we know or that we meet and we might look at them and go “wow”, you know what, they’ve got their life together, they’re doing really well, they’ve got a great business, everything’s great.

But we don’t really know that for certain because it’s a projected image that people create. So comparing ourselves and having that expectation that we should be at this certain level because social media tells us, or these people that we know (whether it be in our family or friends), are at this certain level, again, you can often start to disappoint yourself when you feel like you’re not getting there and you’re not achieving what you should.

And the big one, obviously, is the ones that we “Set for Ourselves” and the perceptions that we have.

In regards to how we interpret what the family says or what social media tells us where we should be or how we should be living. It’s the idea of what something should look like, when we start saying, “well, we should be here, or, I should be doing that from there”. This creates that upset with us, because we feel like we’re not doing what we need to do in our life to get there.

But what that’s actually showing us is we’re not clarifying what our vision and what our purpose should be. Because we’re living in this expectation set by other people and set by society or social media, we are starting to set unrealistic and unachievable goals to reach. You ultimately can’t reach that goal, because the people you’re imitating are living a different life to yours, their experiences are different, their circumstances different.

You’re not going to be able to create an exact copy and that’s what you’re trying to do, you’re trying to copy someone else’s life, and output and journey. That’s where you start to fall apart because you can’t be someone else.

You have your own values, your own vision, your own purpose and your own goals. So when you pull yourself out of this expectation of what things should be or the way they should be based on everything else around us, and start to create a vision that’s aligned with you, you can then break that down to start setting small goals.

To get the steps you need to start moving towards that vision and that life for you. Stop living in expectation, stop looking around at everyone else and thinking, “this is where I should be”; “That’s what I should be doing”; “Why aren’t I achieving this” etc. and start looking at what you are achieving in life because I can guarantee you, you’re achieving lots of things in life, you’re just not paying attention to it.

We tend to hang on to a lot of the negative things that we do, you know, the things that we’re NOT doing, instead of looking at all the little things that you ARE doing and that you are achieving, that you are accomplishing.

Switching that mindset around of taking yourself off the negative and putting yourself into the positive will really start to change how you look at yourself and how you interact. Drop the expectations that you get from everyone else and just really focus on a vision that you have for yourself. Where do you want to be that’s aligned with your values and your purpose and your beliefs, and then create a plan to get there.

So if you’re struggling with getting out of the expectations of others, and you’re looking at creating a vision for yourself with a structured plan to achieve that vision and you’re struggling or you’re stuck with it, feel free to reach out. My details are below so either send me a DM, or a text on 0419 404 103.

Let’s talk and let’s see how we can get you going on YOUR vision and dropping the expectations of others.