Managing your Expectations

To expect something means to hope, to anticipate, to look forward to and to think that something is about to happen. Expectation is one of the fundamental attributes of humanity. When you are in a state of expectation that something will happen, only one of two can happen. Either what you expect will happen or it does not happen. What you expect will happen do not matter if it is for good or bad. In order words, there are both positive as well as negative expectations.

Human expectations have three key components: yourself, your actions and the desired outcomes.  It works as the computer system, which has three key components: the input, the processor and the output. Another metaphor that I can think of for human expectations is the farmer, the seed and the produce. In order words, you can expect to reap whatever you sow!  In computer jargon, it is garbage in, garbage out. As a leader, if you sow sincerity of purpose, you will expect to reap trustworthiness. In any relationship, if you sow love, you will expect to reap affection and total devotion.  In a home, if you sow hospitality, you will expect to reap unity. At work, if you sow respect to others, you will expect to reap the respect of others. If you sow devotion to your duty, you will expect you rewards. The opposite of all this is also true.

Another metaphor that I regularly use to explain human expectations is that they are like a TRUST fund with five valuable assets as deposits. You can deposit and withdraw any of the five valuable assets as and when you like. The five valuable assets are:

Truthfulness

Reasonableness

Understanding

Sincerity

Temperance 

The good thing about the TRUST fund is that it is totally under your control. This is because you cannot live your life to the expectation of others and you cannot control the action of others.

Being truthful to yourself and to others keeps your fund in credit. Any expectations that you may have that do not align with your core values and beliefs are a withdrawal from the fund. It has potential negative consequences.  Everything you do must have a reason. It does not matter whether that reason is good or bad. However, both have consequences, which you must be aware.

You cannot treat another person with contempt and yet have reasonable expectation that the person should respect you. That would be contrary to the law of give-and-take. Such unreasonable expectation is a withdrawal from the fund.

Failure to understand another person’s point of view before making assumptions about that person is a withdrawal from the fund. In any human relationship, for understanding to have a positive effect, it must be reciprocal. Because you understand your friend, you also expect that friend to understand you. That is asking too much of your friend.

Sincerity of purpose is another critical element in managing expectation.  Your inability to deliver what you have promised yourself or others is a withdrawal from the fund.  Your inability to exercise self-control in your day today relationships with other people is a withdrawal of fund. Conversely, each time you do the opposites of the above, you are adding assets to the fund.

I have my own expectation of life. I have my own expectation of my children. Those expectations came from my core values and beliefs. I brought up my children with those values and beliefs.  However, I do not expect my children to live to my own expectations. I want them to have their own expectations and aspire to live up to them.

If you expect too much for yourself, you stand the risk of not being able to bring the best out of whatever you do. If you expect too much of others you can expect disappointment as they may not live to your expectation. If people expect too much from you, they may also well go away disappointed as you may also not live up to their expectation.

Anyone can expect anything from you, only you know what you can expect of yourself. People can make judgement of what they think you should be, what they think you should do or have, it is only you that know who you are, what you can do, what you can be or what you can have. Striving to live up to other people’s expectations is like living other people’s live. You will be running like headless chicken and doing what other people expect you to do.

What people expect of you is irrelevant. What matters is what you expect of yourself.
People can expect anything from you. They have the right to think they do. However, they have no right to make you live your life to their own expectation. It is a winless war living to other people expectation. The more you strive to do that the more the shift in what they expect of you. Even when you cut off your head in order to fit the life they expect you to live, they will tell you that you should cut it closer to your neck.