I feel that “expectations” are a rather tricky emotion, as it can set us up for both failure
and success. And there seems to be a delicate balance in there, which can be pretty
hard to find at times.
When you have low expectations of yourself and your capabilities, you can be sure that
you won’t have success. When you don’t expect that you’ll ever lose the weight, you
are more likely to eat that extra cookie, because there’s little point in leaving it out of
your diet. When you expect that you’ll never be promoted to the next level at work,
you are less likely to invest in acquiring the required skills and knowledge for the role
and to apply for the opportunity when it presents itself. And so on… With low
expectations, you are likely to achieve low results, as it will become a self-fulfilling
prophecy.
And equally so, higher expectations can help you achieve better results. When you
truly believe that you can run that marathon, you will train hard and put your best foot
forward to achieving it, which increases your chances of indeed reaching that finish
line. When you expect a good result, you probably won’t settle for anything less, and
your focus and determination will do the rest. As such, high expectations can become
a self-fulfilling prophecy too.
However, where things may get awkward, is when we set our expectations wrong.
Expecting too much will likely lead to failure and disappoin