Life: Largely a matter of expectations!!

“I am a nice person at heart, I have never done anything wrong to anyone. People should be good to me.”

“My boss keeps telling me to be innovative and creative but he never gives me an opportunity to express my ideas.”

“I didn’t workout today. I really want to adhere to the training plan that I have set for myself.”

Wondering what am I talking about?

Expectations!! It exists in every relationship around us.

Be it a parent – child relationship, a husband – wife relationship or a boss – subordinate relationship (This list is surely a long one). Parents have expectations from their children and vice versa, spouses have expectations from their bitter, I am sorry, better half, bosses from their subordinates and vice versa, we have expectations from our own self and so on.

First let us understand what does this term expectation mean? It’s a strong belief that something will happen or be the case. It is an act or state of looking forward to something. If it exists in every relationship and every one has some or the other expectation from the other, where is the challenge?

We feel bad or hurt when people don’t live up to our expectations.

Why does this happen?

Why do people not live up to our expectations?

There could be many reasons.

First, they don’t even know what we expect them to do.

Second, we are expecting too much out of them. Third, the person is downright not capable enough to fulfil our expectations.

The challenge then, may not always be the other person. The challenge could be lack of clarity or understanding. The challenge could be with our judgement of the other person.

The challenge could be that the other person doesn’t see any reciprocation from our end. It could be anything.

It is human to expect things to happen to us or for us and I don’t mean that having expectations is wrong, all I expect us to do is a little bit of thinking. And the concept of Expectation Account will help us get another perspective.

Expectation Account: All of us have an expectation account with people whom we are related to (think of it as a bank account).

The key here is to understand a simple fact that just like we have expectations from the other person, the other person also has some expectations from us.

When we meet someone’s expectations we make a deposit into that account and when we don’t, we make a withdrawal. Similarly, when the other person meets some of our expectations, they make a deposit and with every expectation that they don’t meet, they make a withdrawal.

Beginning of any relationship is a phase when people work towards making as many deposits as possible. Some withdrawals here and there can go unnoticed. The withdrawals don’t impact the relationship if you build a balance by making sufficient deposits. Problem arises when withdrawals start out numbering the deposits.

Having a one on one conversation with that person is a great option.

During the conversation, both share their expectations and synergize to come up with a situation where both work towards building that relationship keeping each others expectations in mind.

Aligning our expectations to reality will take us a long way on our journey to foster better relations. Aligning expectations with reality is a sure shot way to avoid disappointments. Remember, it cannot be a one of thing. It’s a journey.

They say, “Journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”, I call upon each one of us to take that first step on this journey of fostering better relationships and living better lives.

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