I told you a sequel was coming, tadaa… like any good sequel, I will recap for you, so if you missed the first one, you may still proceed unfazed.
I’ve quoted Brene Brown a few times and I’m doing it again. In her latest book “Atlas of the Heart” she further explores my earlier rant about expectations and recently, I gratefully ripped the cap off my highlighter and scoured it, line by line for some solutions for us.
The more significant the the expectations, the more significant the disappointment. She narrows down two types of expectations. Those that are unexamined and unexpressed and those that are. We are always spinning around unconscious expectations in our head, on ourselves, on others, on situational outcomes, the list goes on. These unexamined (automatic in our head) expectations are the worst!
My sponsor always reminds me about the movie in my head. The same scenario I may be upset about was not at all a problem for my partner. The movie in my head was a very different movie that was playing in his. Sometimes we need to ask ourselves, are the outcomes we are looking for, are these beyond our control?
Brene gives the example in her book “I found the perfect gift for my sister, she is going to love it and it will absolutely make Christmas perfect!” Yikes, no pressure. Without really vocalizing this thought, maybe even to ourselves, we are basically predicting not only her reaction but how she will genuinely FEEL and think about the gift (aka about us) and we will bask in the glow of creating that perfect holiday memory. That’s a LOT of breathing room for the letdown headed your way. Deck the Halls!
Not only do we set ourselves up for disappointment but also we walk away feeling negatively about ourselves, the person in question and sometimes the whole day/evening!
Another amazing quote here is by Adam Grant, in Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know, where he says: “Intelligence is traditionally viewed as the ability to think and learn. Yet in a turbulent world, there’s another set of cognitive skills that might matter more: the ability to rethink and unlearn.”
Boom, mic drop. If we can sit with ourselves and ask questions like: “What am I expecting to happen here? WHY do I need this to happen and if it doesn’t go my way, what does that mean? and of course: Am I setting goals and expectations that are outside of MY control? If so, be brave enough to analyze yourself, start writing down some honest journaling and then read back over it. See any patterns? Are there things you CAN ask for? Ask. Are there things outside of your control, practice allowing those to be just what they want to be.
Expectations aren’t going anywhere but we can definitely start to ask a few questions so they don’t go off the rails, unchecked. Not lower expectations, just real ones.
