Know Your Expectations

                There has been a topic that has continued to arise this week. I have had clients discussing their beginning efforts for new year goals, others discussing the switch back to regular life/schedule, and others reflecting on the recent time spent with family. What topic would continue to arise, you ask? So many were unclear about their own expectations or had high expectations that led to a feeling of disappointment. Has this happened to you? Either not realizing you had an expectation until it was not met or having a higher expectation that was unable to be met?

                There are two main cognitive distortions that can lead to these moments – cognitive distortion meaning a shift in reality that is made during your interpretation of the situation. It is cognitive distortions that allow you to take subjective data and believe it to be objective data, mainly because of a certain feeling you are getting from the situation.

One of the distortions is called jumping to conclusions, specifically for situations it is called fortune-telling. With this distortion you make a prediction if a situation is going to work out well or not and then believe the prediction to be true. If it matches reality, you may not even be aware it happened. However, if there is a mismatch, there is a slight chance you are pleasantly surprised, but I have observed more often than not it is people feeling disappointed. You would become pleasantly surprised when you assumed the situation would be terrible and it turned out to be anything better than terrible. The disappointment comes from having the thought that the situation was going to work out, go well, or be incredible; an expectation is set higher than what the situation delivers. I must red flag that sometimes unexpected and unwanted things happen and it is completely rational to feel disappointed. However, I am specifically focusing the situations where you may have set an unrealistic expectation rather than an unfortunate event.

The best way to combat jumping to conclusions and fortune-telling is to maintain an open mind or curious mind. A thought from this mindset may sound like, “I am not sure how this is going to go, and I am sure I will be able to manage.”

The other cognitive distortion present is “should” statements. You have rules for how you want yourself, other people, and the world to be. Our “should” statements than becoming expectations for our experiences. You most likely are not even consciously aware that you have these rules – at least until a situation does not follow the rules. There is a two-pronged negative here. If a situation goes as it “should,” you may not notice it with any amount of gratitude. However, if the situation does not go as it “should,” you will experience disappointment.

So how do you combat the “should,” statements? It is all about intention and being aware of expectations. It may be easier to just not have expectations. The narrative can sound the same as the previous example: “I am not sure how this is going to go, and I am sure I will be able to manage.”  You can also recognize that your expectations are preferences and from there recognize that it is alright if you do not get what you prefer sometimes. Please, recognize when things work out as you do prefer – it adds to your positive mindset.

Two main points to remember:

Rather than assuming how a situation will go, maintain an open, curious mind to simply experience what happens.

Watch for your rules and remember they are preferences for how you want things to be to minimize the disappointment and acknowledging when preferences are met.