Have you ever noticed the link between your expectations and your happiness, especially when those expectations are aspirational? While aspirational goals can stretch us and help us grow, aspirational expectations often make us miserable. Why and how can we change that?
WHY
Aspirational expectations judge that the current reality isn’t good enough. Aspirational goals acknowledge the current reality and create a plan for how to change that reality. Aspirational expectations say we should be able to wave a magic wand, take a pill, or simply wake up to this idealized reality.
Aspirational expectations can be of ourselves (I should be able to ___ or shouldn’t ___), others (They should/shouldn’t ___), or circumstances (It should/shouldn’t ___).
For example, I hated the idea of “wasting” time. Every moment needed to be purposeful and productive, with things done to the best of my abilities. I’ve had workaholic tendencies: even meditating or walking the dog in a beautiful setting was purposeful and thus a bit of a chore. Life was an activity, not a gift to be relished.
Over the years, this has loosened, thank goodness. I find it much easier to be present. The last hurdle was sitting on the back deck with my husband. I would get so antsy that I felt like I was coming out of my skin. There could be the most beautiful sunset, but watching for more than five minutes was “a waste of time”.
This changed as soon as I recognized that I had too high of expectations of life, marriage, and myself. Now I can enjoy being out there for hours, watching the changes in the sky and mountains. Seeing the birds at play. Talking about whatever comes up without the pressure of having a “meaningful” conversation.
HOW TO CHANGE
Here are some techniques that have helped me over time to loosen my unrealistic expectations and enjoy life more.
Contemplate the linkage between expectations and happiness
What expectations drive your decisions and emotional state? How do they impact your relationships and understanding of and forgiveness of yourself and others? How do they impact your ability to grow and get things done?
How did your expectations originate? If you choose an expectation, how old were you when you decided that? What were you trying to do or protect through choosing that expectation? Did your family do things a certain way? Did classmates, teachers, friends, or others have expectations of you? Did society, social media, movies, stories show a vision that grew into an internalized expectation? Given your life experiences, if you could choose now and wouldn’t be judged by others, would you choose the same expectations?
A great method for doing this is described by Katie Byron in her book Loving What Is. I highly recommend it.
Meditation and Mindfulness
I started a regular meditation practice in the winter of 2017. When combined with mindfulness, meditating for 10 to 20 minutes before and after work created great peace for me. Here’s a link to a video that describes the method for practicing that was so useful for me. https://youtu.be/dnB94M8ZA9w?si=71paij1Khy-ynbfe
I really enjoy body scan style meditations, especially those by Tara Brach, who is on Spotify. I really like this free one which is guided for the first 5 minutes, then there’s 5 minutes of silence, then 3 bells. I grew into it over time, starting with 5 minutes once a day. https://www.tarabrach.com/ten-minute-basic-guided-meditation-practice/
If you find your brain is racing a lot, progressive relaxation may be an easier entrance point to meditation: it’s so physically active, it makes it easier to let go of thoughts. Here’s a video that does a great job of explaining and walking you through how to do it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpGqacz9Bhs
Positive Intelligence
What I call aspirational expectations, Positive Intelligence calls The Judge. As a Certified Positive Intelligence Coach, I’ve helped over a hundred individuals learn how to increase their resiliency and mental fitness so they can recover faster and faster from bigger and bigger obstacles. Positive Intelligence provides “an operating system” consisting of three core muscles. It helps tremendously for reframing perspectives, moving out of the stress response, and into the best version of yourself. To see if this method would appeal to you, are two free assessments. https://www.positiveintelligence.com/saboteurs/ and the PQ assessment here about halfway down the page: https://www.positiveintelligence.com/science/
If this appeals to you, I coach people with and without the app for this program. There are advantages to each approach.
RIM®
RIM® stands for Regenerating Images in Memory. It is the process that helped me realize (three weeks ago) that my expectations of life were making me miserable. It is a way of interacting with your subconscious mind to allow it to reveal to you want the problem is and how to resolve it. You have the answers and path forward in you and RIM® helps you discover them.
It’s deep and nonlinear and so sometimes it can take a couple of weeks to realize the full impact of a session. It took three days for me to find peace in the realization about my expectations. I didn’t have to work at it. It just showed up for me. RIM® is likened to psychedelics except you are conscious and in complete control the whole time. We’re simply dialoging with each other. It’s been so incredibly powerful for me personally and clients I’ve facilitated, that I want to do more and more of this work. You can learn more here: https://lisabrewercoaching.com/rim
Miscellaneous
All the approaches above are very powerful and just a few of the techniques I’ve used with clients. Exploring what modality is most impactful for each individual is what I love about coaching. Sometimes the work goes deep, sometimes all that’s needed is information and practice. If you’d like to explore what may be useful for you, I offer free consultations. https://lisabrewercoaching.com/book-online
We can all change. We do it all the time. Sometimes having a trained professional accompany you can speed the process dramatically, even if just to offer a suggestion of a methodology. I hope something in here has sparked ideas or inspiration for you to create the change you want!
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