Managing Expectations
How To Live in the Moment
Welcome Players!
Expectations come in many forms and from many people. They can be positive or negative.
What an expectation does is puts you into a box. It defines the playing field. Tells you what you should, or should not, be doing.
Certainly there are people who are attached to expectations and find them highly useful . In life though, the last thing you want to do is be constrained to a certain way of thinking.
If a child was presented a problem, say, a puzzle. And they were told, “solve this puzzle”, we could assume the child would put forth an amount of effort to solve the puzzle. They might fail the first few times or grow frustrated at unsuccessful attempts, but given enough time and encouragement the child would eventually become a conqueror of puzzles.
Yet repeat the same scenario and this time tell the child, “I EXPECT you to solve this puzzle”, well now we’re dealing with a different burden. The child may feel the pressure of being successful. They might get nervous or anxious of what the consequences might be if they were to be unable to solve the puzzle. They might associate their ability to solve the puzzle with their self-worth as a person. So they try their hardest. But with that pressure comes mistakes, and an inability to think clearly or creatively. Their first few attempts are unsuccessful, and this starts a negative feedback loop of feeling bad about themselves. They try a few more times with even less impressive results. Do they continue to try and swim upstream or do they crumble under the weight of the expectations and admit their defeat as a failure?
That might be a little extreme for a child to solve a puzzle…
But what if we aren’t talking about a child, and certainly not talking about a puzzle?
What if you are that child, and your goals and aspirations are that mystery?
Today I’m going to talk about how expectations may be holding you back, and how releasing yourself of those expectations may just give you everything you need to finally put that last piece in place.
Hang on, this is going to get deep…
What is an expectation anyway?
It’s the predicted outcome of an event as viewed by the person holding it.
If I expect you to show up on time to our meeting, what I’m really doing is assuming you will be on time because of either a positive or negative consequence associated with the event.
If I’m an employer hiring for a position, well then I expect the interviewee to show up on time or else I won’t be offering them a position. There is the expectation, and then the (negative) consequence.
If I’m an employee interviewing for said position, well I have expectations for myself to show up on time because I want to give the best first impression that I can. And showing up on time is a way to ensure I did one more thing correctly to give myself the best chance at the job offer. There is the expectation, and then the (positive) consequence; which we can also refer to as a reward.
Hidden in the underlying meaning of expectations is the consequences or rewards associated with them.
But sometimes it’s not so clear.
A teacher might have expectations of their students to do their homework at home. What’s the consequence of not doing it? A failure to learn the material. Which means the student won’t pass the test. Which means the teacher didn’t do their job.
So the expectation by the teacher of the students doing their homework comes from the teachers desire to do their job well. If the students don’t do their homework not only will their learning be inhibited, but the teacher will be failing to uphold the very reason they were hired!
When you expect something, you aren’t just merely predicting an outcome. The whole concept of an expectation is that there is an associated consequence, reward, or judgement derived from either meeting or not meeting that expectation.
This is why expectations are a curse.
If I am playing tennis against an opponent, and I have been practicing hard and training hard for the past 6 months, I may be tempted to believe that I’m expected to win.
But what if my opponent is just better than me? What if they had more talent? More access to resources? More time to train? Would I still expect myself to win? Maybe, maybe not.
But if I go into the match with this expectation, should I lose, I will have lost a lot more than just the tennis match. I will have lost the game of value within myself.
Why did I expect to win? Was it because I thought I had a work ethic that was worthy of victory? No, that’s much too simplistic.
The expectation of winning in competition is that you are better than your opponent. So by expecting to beat my opponent before I knew who they were, I was already assuming that I had been practicing longer, harder, and more frequently than them.
And what if I lose? Will I be disappointed that I did not win? Of course. But I will also have to deal with the consequences of the cognitive dissonant lies I fed myself.
Did I lose because my opponent was better? Or did I lose because I hadn’t practiced enough? Or because I did X, Y, Z…
By going into the match with expectations, I now have to weigh the result against my expectations and try and figure out what went wrong. But what if my expectations were not in line with reality to begin with? What can I learn then? Nothing.
Expectations are judgements applied to actions (outcomes), and nothing more.
While it’s good to be hesitant at judging and jumping to conclusions, it’s even better to avoid being judgmental about the outcome of an event. The mental dexterity required to hold an expectation and then have to re-form it once it’s been either validated or invalidated is a lot of work.
Like in the tennis example; expecting myself to win is judging myself.
In the positive light: I am a winner. I am good. I have succeeded.
In the negative light: I am a loser. I am bad. I have failed.
Both the positive and negative reactions are only possible if there is an expectation before the event starts.
Should I go into the match with a neutral attitude; one where I have no expectations of the outcome, I can rid myself of having to execute judgement. I am simply prepared to play to the best of my ability and to allow the outcome of the game to be determined by my effort.
Well, should I lose in that example there ARE no polarized reactions. I lost because my opponent was better than me today. That simple.
I did not lose because of some difficult technique I haven’t been taught yet. I didn’t lose because they practiced harder and longer and more frequently than that (although could be true).
Without the expectation, I can view the outcome for what it really is.
Just a point in time that demonstrates the spirit of competition.
There are 4 ways to view an outcome or event:
Positively
Negatively
Neutral
And not at all
We’ve already talked about how expectations force you into a positive/negative reaction.
And I mentioned how by withholding expectations you gain access to the third perspective, neutrality.
But what is the 4th? What does it mean to not hold a perspective at all?
Neutral and Not at all are very much like the colors, black & white. Where black is the absence of color, and white is the combination of ALL colors.
Being neutral is like the color white; it is understanding both the positive and negative judgements that may be held, and choosing neither. It is acknowledging that those judgements exist yet exerting control over not holding them.
Having no perspective at all is like the color black. It is the absence of any one perspective.
Hang with me here, we’re going to get existential…
The absence of perspective is not being devoid of perspective. It is the balance between holding no perspective at all, and holding every perspective.
A fine line is drawn between all or nothing, or is there no line at all?
Ok. If you’re sufficiently confused we’re ready to jump into some examples.
What is the difference between acknowledging the positive or negative judgements that can be tied to your expectations - choosing neutrality…
And holding space for all possible outcomes while acknowledging none of them, therefore taking on no perspective at all? (or every perspective)…
Back to tennis.
I learned my lesson about going in to a match with an expectation that I’m better than my opponent and should win.
For my next match, I’m much more cognizant of expectations. So this time I’m simply going to commit to playing to the best of my ability. Whether I win or lose, I will remain neutral, careful not to feed into positive or negative judgements about myself. I will use the information from the match (win/lose) in order to make changes to move towards a result I want.
AKA - if I lose, I will not be emotionally attached to the outcome. I will simply look at the facts as to why I lost, and commit to practicing to improve upon those weaknesses.
*plays match*
I lost. Bummer. I’m not upset!
I lost because my opponent had a much better forehand than me, and I couldn’t break his serve. Two very fixable problems.
And so I go back to practice my forehand, and I work to improve my service returns.
And so on and so forth does this process repeat as I continue to play the game of tennis.
Seems pretty… cold, no? It’s almost robotic. Input → outcome → analysis → output.
Play. Analyze. Practice. Repeat.
Is that how we should be living life??
Trick question… “should” implies there’s an expectation for how we live life… Remember: No expectations!
Is that how we want to live life? Like a robot moving from one analyzed outcome to another?
I can’t speak for everyone, but the monotony of that sounds very boring.
This is where the dimension of perspective #4 comes in: no perspective at all (yet every perspective at once). A bit paradoxical, I know, yet such is life.
What if I approached my next tennis match without expectations, without judgements, but with the consciousness that playing is an experience to be lived?
Instead of aligning my focus on the outcome, or focusing on not focusing on the outcome; instead of acknowledging positive and negative judgements and choosing neutral; instead of thinking of not thinking of feeling emotions and trying not to allow those emotions to affect me…
What if I just committed to the full experience of playing tennis?
What if I tried my hardest, gave it my full effort, and allowed the outcome to be just that… an outcome?
What if I neither accepted or denied the possibility of winning or losing, allowing both options to exist in balance with each other. One must happen, after all.
And when the match was over, and I had to come to terms with the outcome, I accepted the fate that occurred as a result of my decisions, both past and present.
I won or lost because of my practice, skill, and performance both leading up to the match and during it. The outcome was the outcome, and there is nothing I can do to change it now.
Of course being the competitor I am, and having accepted the reality of the outcome, I can move into using that experience to improve. Seeing where my strengths and weaknesses lie and how those attributes contributed to the context of the match, and then using that as feedback that will affect my future decisions.
Do you see now?
The difference between being neutral in expectations, ie: “I have no expectations for this match”, and having no expectations at all, “I am committed to playing tennis to the best of my ability” is a small but significant shift in perspective.
The first one is still allowing the expectation, or lack of expectation, to exert power over our mental state.
Whether you win or lose, you still feel the judgement of performance, yet you choose to ignore it and mentally overcome it.
The second one is seizing that power and allowing expectations to both exist and not exist simultaneously.
Whether you win or lose, you do not feel the judgement of performance, because you are living in the experience of the moment, of playing the match.
Once again, I know the paradoxical nature of this may be confusing. Or it may make perfect sense. That depends on your perspective…
With the woo-woo perspective stuff said, my message to you this week is this:
Be careful of what you expect from yourself, for your judgements may not serve you.
Be careful of what you allow others to expect from you, for their judgments may not serve you.
When you are able to rid yourself of judgments that result as a consequence (or reward) from expectations, you will be one step closer to accepting reality for the way it is.
And if you are able to reach a point where you accept reality for the way it is, you can return to living in the moment in its purest form. No expectations, just experience.
When you live in the experience, the outcome is irrelevant.
Without expectations, and without judgements, you are exactly where you are supposed to be and you are doing exactly what you are supposed to be doing.
Everywhere, everything, all at once. And none at all.
They are the same.
- Trainer 01