Manage Expectations

One of the biggest causes of frustration and disappointment in life, is the unrealistic expectations we have, of other people’s behaviour. The execution of behaviour, by others, is in their hands, not yours.

You may have heard the saying ‘expectations are premeditated resentments’. This to me, means that merely expecting something to happen will not produce fabrication, and that often, as humans, we often pin our hopes for happiness on particular expectations.

These two things, in turn, cause resentment if they don’t produce- we merely expect something to happen and produce happiness. When this doesn’t happen, we feel resentment towards whatever it was we were expecting.

This is not to say you should never have expectations. Rather, if you hold the people in your life to your personal expectations, you will feel a large amount if disappointment. Sooner or later, you will begin to believe everyone in your life is letting you down.

To manage your expectations; means that you understand and accept that other people are doing the best they can. Keep in mind that others are not deliberately setting out to disappoint or upset you. They are behaving based on the expectations they hold for themselves.

You don’t have the right to expect another person to live their life, according to how you believe they should.  Of course, you can hope, but in the end, people are who they are, believe what they believe, feel what they feel, and act in a way consistent with all of these.

Managing expectations also requires us to learn to understand and accept others as they grow through their individual life lessons. They may not always act as we would have, or we think they should have, but that is the way of the world.

Would you like to live your life based on another person’s expectations of you? Personally, I certainly would not.