By Ellen Borowka, MA
What do you expect in your life?
Do you find that you feel disappointed or angry, and you are not sure
why? Well, you probably had an expectation that wasn't fulfilled.
Expectations play a big part in our lives. Our expectations determine
whether we feel good or bad - happy or sad - content or angry - over
what happens in daily life. They impact how we feel about our
relationships, work, friends, and people we meet on the street, special
days like holidays or birthdays and the world around us. Expectations
set up the judge and jury on how we feel about our lives and ourselves.
We give a great deal of power to our expectations! That is not to say
that if we don't get what we expect that we shouldn't feel sad or mad.
Yet, if we know more about our expectations and where they come from,
then we can find ways to deal with them in a healthy manner. Then we
can take our power back and have more choice in how we view and
interact with our world.
The
Source of Our Expectations
So, how do expectations work? Well, first we
gather and accept our expectations from a variety of sources, starting
from a very young age. We learn much of our expectations from our
families, which can include what to expect of others and ourselves, how
feelings should be expressed, and how problems should be handled. If we
learned from our family that people could not be trusted, then that
plays into our expectations of the world around us.
Other
expectations come from our religious beliefs (or those we have been
brought up with); what we see in the media - television, movies,
magazines, etc.; and what our society and culture holds as valuable and
important. These factors all impact different aspects of our lives,
like how we expect to raise our children or relate in our
relationships. Or what we expect to do in our careers or believe of our
limitations and responsibilities. An example of this is how media gives
us definite and perhaps narrow views of gender, which influences what
we expect from men and women.
The
Struggle to Fulfill
The
next step is how our expectations are met or not met, and we have many
unhealthy ways to try to meet them. Many struggle to fulfill them by
pushing or controlling situations to fit into the mold already created.
We may use manipulation, persuasion, passive 
aggression or intimidation (with anger or
tears) to fill our expectations. Or we might not do anything and allow
ourselves to be disappointed so as to reinforce what we already believe
about others or ourselves. When our expectations are not taken care of,
then we feel those around us have failed us and that leads to anger and
bitterness. We may feel used, abused and betrayed by others, which
feeds into rage and distrust. Underneath the anger and betrayal is the
feeling of not being loved and accepted by others and that really
hurts. These feelings are made even stronger by memories of similar
experiences from our past. Times when we had disappointments with our
parents, siblings, friends, teachers and others. When we may have felt
unloved or rejected by those around us. This can even drive us to set
up expectations of others, to gain what we feel we didn't receive as a
child.
Types
of Expectations
There
are many different types of expectations that are based on 
looking to others for approval, respect,
attention, and love; validation of our good self, qualities and
success; to have control or power in situations; to be taken care of by
others and so on. If we didn't receive this when growing up then that
would impact our expectations of whether or not we might achieve these
now. We may even unconsciously select or attract people to fill these
types of expectations, who may not be able to do so. So, we sabotage
ourselves and create failure from the very beginning. We may choose
people that have similar issues to those from our past, like someone
who has a similar temperament to our father or mother. So, we are
recreating the past with all the old expectations in an effort to
resolve old issues. the old expectations in an effort to resolve old
issues. These situations will keep coming up until we are ready to heal
them. For example, many people seem to have, time after time - job
after job, similar problems with their supervisors or co-workers. They
need to trace the issues back to the original source, and work them out
there before dealing with the present issues.
Managing
Expectations
Now,
how do we handle our expectations? First, it helps to be aware of what
you expect, and disappointment is your first clue that an expectation
was unfulfilled. Ask yourself what did you expect? What were you
looking for in this situation or this person? You might need to dig
around some to get to the primary issue. For example, if I hoped for a
birthday card from a friend and it didn't come, then I would think of
what I expected from my friend. What did I want and need from that
person? The bottomline is I wanted to know that I was loved and
accepted by my friend. Now, this is really important if I didn't feel
loved or accepted by someone in my past then I would have to deal with
that first.
Evaluating
Expectations
Next,
it is important to evaluate whether or not your expectation was
reasonable and realistic. Many times we have expectations that are not
reasonable or realistic, but that doesn't mean that we are "bad" or 
demanding. It just means that we hope for
things that, perhaps, we didn't get at some time in our life.
Occasionally, I find myself expecting my husband to know something I
want or need without him being informed of my desires. What I am doing
is wanting him to read my mind, which might be connected to my past
where I didn't always feel emotionally attended to. Acting on
unreasonable or unrealistic expectations can cause intense
disappointment and conflict with others. When evaluating your
expectations, be honest with yourself - is your expectation reasonable
and realistic? For example, expecting yourself to never get angry or
sad is pretty unrealistic. Lastly, be clear what you expect with
others. You must be able to express your expectations and not assume
that others would or should know what you want. It's difficult to get
your expectations filled if you can't communicate them to others.
Influencing Factors
An
exercise to help you explore your expectations is looking at various
factors that impact them. For friendships, you might want to consider
what you are looking for, and what do you need/want from a 
friend. How do you expect to handle
conflict and communication with your friends? Who has control and power
in this relationship? Who makes decisions and what is expected around
that? How are feelings and thoughts shared? What is ok and not ok in
your emotional intimacy? How much trust do you have in your friendship?
How much emotional dependency is ok? How much do you rely on each
other? How do you define forgiveness and how does that affect your
friendships? What experiences, beliefs and values are impacting your
expectations with your friends? Relationships have a central part that
is similar to friendships so you can use the same questions as above.
There are also many different areas in relationships and I'll try to
cover the most important ones. How do you define romance? What is
romantic for you and for your partner? How do you define love and what
do you expect from love? What is intimate for you? What is ok and not
ok in sexual intimacy? How do you approach problems and situations with
your partner - as a team or independently and what does that do to your
expectations?
Self-Expectations
We
have many, many expectations that we place upon ourselves, which should
also be explored. What do you expect of yourself? Do you expect
yourself to be a certain way? Do you expect yourself to be perfect,
good and controlled? Do you judge and criticize yourself when you can't
be that way? Do you feel you should be taking care of others - perhaps
filling their needs and desires before your own? Do you need to be in
control and what do you expect of others? How do you handle conflict
and why? Is it ok for you to be wrong or not know something? Do you
believe that feelings must be handled in a certain way, like never
losing one's temper? Where did all these expectations come from and
why? When we can understand our expectations and where they come from,
then we can begin to select those we wish to keep and begin to resolve
those that hold us back. We begin to gain more control and feel more
satisfied with our lives. Expectations can bring hope and excitement to
our lives. We just need to be sure that we are directing, not
following, them in our lives.
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is needed from Lighthouse Consulting Services, LLC to reproduce any
portion provided in this article.
©2008 This information contained
in this article is not meant to be a substitute for professional
counseling.
If
you would like additional information on this topic or others, please
contact your Human Resources department or Lighthouse Consulting
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