Read to Music - If you want to hear what I heard when I wrote this, listen to EMBRZ Radio radio on Pandora.
Great expectations
Meeting expectations
Missing expectations
Low expectations
High expectations
Setting expectations
What do you expect from life? From yourself? From others? We tend to get what we expect. Consider that nearly all of your choices in life reflect what you expect. Do you expect what others do? Ever wonder how your expectations are set? Are your expectations based on what you've already got? If you expect what you've always got, you'll get what you always got. Consider the possibility that our expectations limit us far more than we realize. If so, how are the limiting you from what you could get?
If you hold others to higher expectations that they do, you'll be disappointed. If others hold you to higher expectations than you can deliver, you'll disappoint.
Expect less, gain more
Expect more, gain less
What did you expect?
The reality of evaluation forms is that they are tied to what people expect. Did they get more than they expect? To deliver more than than a client expects, you must first find out what they expect. Miscommunication often arises from misunderstood expectations.
What if at the end of your life, you were given a feedback from to evaluate life? How would you? You answers will most certainly be define by what you expected life to deliver.
Comparisons.
We'd likely compare our lives to others.
Did life meet or exceed your expectations?
Did you meet or exceed your expectations?
Where did your expectations come from?
Most likely, your expectations came from your parents, your siblings, your friends, and then culture as a whole. Americans are driven to work 50+ hours/week because of the expectations our society has set. There are real world problems as a results. The higher expectations we've set have driven many to work longer hours. In turn, being able to afford more. Driving the cost of living up. In doing so, now to just live in many cities in America, you have have to meet expectations are you will be hard pressed to afford the life.
In Ben Zander's book The Art of Possibility, he introduces the idea of Giving an A. What it means is that you give everyone you meet an A. The idea is not that you are setting an expectation to live up to, but rather creating a possibility to live into. You assume they are already an A student at whatever they do. They are already operating at their full potential. If you assume they at their best, you will treat them with more respect. When you treat them with more respect, you will be given their best. Expecting more than they are capable of will only give you less. Expect less, gain more. Expect more, gain less.
Whether you are the president or a waiter...
Last night, we had dinner @ Big Sky. The waiter set an expectation when we asked how long the paella would take when we asked. He told us 10-15 minutes. It's no wonder that our otherwise positive experiences was turned negative when the meal took over 30 minutes to arrive, solely because of the expectation he set.
What if a timer had been set? If he could see that we had been waiting more than 15 minutes, would he have taken action?
A client kept sending me changes to his book. As soon as I'd send him back a revised edition, he'd send back more changes. Because I wanted to move on to another project, I'd make the change quickly and send it right back. But sending the changes right back set the expectation that any changes he needed would be made immediately. This engagement ended up hurting my business (but helping his). The attention I gave him came at the expense of my other clients.
I could have avoiding this by having a better process and not deviating from it! The process that would have protected me was:
My fee includes up to two revisions. Additional revisions incur a change fee of $85 per revision payable in advance. Allow 72 hours for new files to be returned.
No exception or not expectation?
Without expectation, he set expectations he could not meet.
Whether it's dinner or meditation, a movie or a date, the higher our expectations, the more likely we are to be let down by an experience. The more we'll miss the entire experience.
Go experience the entirety of all experiences and enjoy life more, let go of all expectations. Even expectations or ourselves feed our ego. And when we fail to meet those expectations, we unnecessarily beat ourselves up. We judge ourselves and others on expectations. But where do expectations come from? Are they rooted in reality? Not likely.
Do you have an expectation that what you are reading is going to provide you with some valuable insights? Something useful you can apply to improve your life experience?
To experience life authentically, we must drop any preconceived expectations we have for it. To relate to others with true authenticity, we need to drop expectations.
Preconceived anything is just that, a pre-concept. Concepts are not rooted in reality, they are ideas about reality.
Whether it's a meal, a politician, or a vacation... can you set aside ego driven expectations and just experience whatever happens?
Even a teacher - you set a high expectation, can it be continually met as the students expectations rise?
The experience we have is heavily weighted by the expectations we set.
The definition of expectation:
Are you expectations realistic?
Here is our always on normal state of being:
When our expectations are met, we are happy. When they are not, we are not.
Stop for a second. Do you see the insanity in this? Do you see how you are in total control of the experience?
The err in our ways is to go into any experience with any expectation whatsover. No matter how many times you've been there before, can you enter into it with a beginners mind?
How much of our suffering (no matter how little) is being driven my our expectations? Isn't it all of it? Here's why:
To have expecations is to resist what is. It is what it is, despite our expectations to the contrary.
The best experiences are those when our expectations are exceeded.
If you go into every experience with no expectations, then every experience will exceed your expectations.
Being satisfied and content is really that simple.
When we set expectations, we set ourselves and others up for disappointment. Disappointment is the seed of discontent. From discontent stems unnecessary suffering. It all ties by to expectations.
Expectations begin before we were born. Our parents had expectations for us the moment we were conceived. How we interpret those expectations shapes the decisions we make. Those decisions shape who we become. Thus, you could say that who are is a result of expectations.
High expectations, low expectations. Do you expect something good or bad? Do our expectations shape the world we are living into? Are our expectations a self-fulfilling prophecy?
If we expect bad things, will bad things occur? If we expect good things, will good things occur? Or our expectations only concepts and ideas which therefore have no baring on the events that follow?
In the space of karma, what role do expectations play?
Do you expect the cup of coffee you paid $2 for to taste good or bad? It's that 'expectedness' that creates the disappointment.
Aren't you pleasantly surprised when that $1 cup of coffee tastes great?
Do we get what we expect? How does expectation differ from assumption?
As you go into the next experience, let go of any expectation, and you will exceed all expectations.
"I'm disappointed in Facebook because I expected something different." In that statement, do you see that you are the cause of your own disappointment? You expected something you didn't get. The problem isn't what you go, it's that you expected in the first place.
Inevitably, all expectations will fail to be met. It's the nature of expectations.
It's the unexpected that leaves us in awe.
When you meet the experiences in your life unexpectedly, the experience of life will leave you in awe.
Establish yourself without expectation.
Exceptionally expectations.
When your experience of life is one that is free of expectations, you set yourself up for awe experience, because it's the unexpected that leaves us in awe. You already hold the key to living a life of content. Simply stop expecting more from life than what life gives.
The key that opens the door to content
When I fail to meet your expectations, I kindly ask that you revisit your expectations.
If I fail to meet your expectations, is it my fault or yours? It is your expectations that I'm failing to meet, so isn't it your fault for expecting something different than what is?
When someone (or something) fails to meet your expectations, whose fault is it?
Let's take an everyday example:
My wife is ordering a gift for a friend on Amazon. She is upset because it's going to take over a month to arrive. But it's a bracelet. I told her to take a screenshot of the bracelet and put it into the birthday card explaining that the gift is coming.
It's when things do go as well as we planned that Frustration stems from expectation. Expectation that a result is different than what it is. Frustration is resistance to what is. The key to losing frustration is to stop resisting what is.
Often, the seed of frustration is our own impatience. Impatience stems from expectation. Again, see how expectation is like a filter from which all experience arises?
Patience is respecting the system. The system of a everything is the concept of everything.
What is, simply is, the outcome of the system.
"In the ash of suffering, a phoenix can be born."
You need the mud to grow into a lotus.