Do you feel consumed with people’s expectations? Do you often feel that why it’s always me to expect from when there are others around? Answers to these questions will take a different perspective on expectations. Let’s look at it.
We play so many roles in life simultaneously. Being a son, daughter, father, mother, relative, boss, subordinate, peer, friend, boyfriend, girlfriend, neighbour, acquaintance and many more such roles bring expectations along with them. Our boss may want us to be in office till 7 pm, our family may want us home by 6 pm, our friends may want to party with us after office. How do we get these extra hours from life?
Imagine a life where nobody expects anything from you. Your boss says that I don’t expect him/her to deliver. It doesn’t matter to your family anymore about what time you leave home and what time you get back. Your brothers and sisters are hardly concerned about you getting married or you even being invited on their functions. Will life now be loving and exciting?
Expectations are rather the opportunity to feel more worthy and important in life. Expectations leads you to challenge your own limits and raise your vibrations to live life to the fullest and not make it dull and meaningless. You will always be challenging and breaking your self-created limits to fulfil the expectations. The cause of worry is not the expectations, but our effort to be ‘Perfect’ in coming up to them. There is nothing called perfection in life. Indeed, you can always be little better, isn’t so?
Consider your life to be well placed if people are expecting big things from you. It’s not that you are at their disposable, but they consider you worth handling them. This doesn’t oblige you from making things perfect. Never strive for perfection rather strive to put everything in the present. Giving your 100% without worrying or attaching to the result or outcome will generate immense satisfaction in you. Worrying for the result or perfection will only limit your mindfulness in the work you do.
Still there can be some approaches in managing yourself to manage expectations. Few of them I’m listing here.
- Spiritual Approach: Do things without expecting back and detach yourself rom the result. Just put your focus on the effort you make and give it all.
- Logical Approach: If you are struggling with people and time then better to do an ‘expectation setting’ on the deliverables and reach out to a mutual agreement. This can apply to office or even at home.
- Psychological Approach: I call this as a 3P approach i.e “Perception-Procedure-Place”. It means, first change the perception about the matter, if it doesn’t work then change the procedure (method) of handling the expectation. If it still doesn’t work, then change the Place.
There can’t be a single approach to manage expectations. It is often the mix of above. Indeed, managing expectations is all about expanding yourself beyond the limits that often surprises you with a NEW YOU, whom you also never knew.
Managing expectations is like making a Dish which will not be perfect but still enjoyed by all and loved by the person who made it.
Sending Love, laughter and joy……………… Parth
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