“I expect you to have this room cleaned by the time I get home today.” “My expectation is that you pull your own weight around here.” “You are expected to stay until 4:30 p.m. every Friday even though you don’t have classes or office hours after 11:15 a.m.” “We’ve been going out for 3 months, I expect you to give me an engagement ring for New Year’s Eve.” “This report is not up to my standards; I expect you to redo it over the weekend and get it back to me by 7:30 a.m. on Monday.” Oy! Expectations lead to future resentments and disappointments. (paraphrased from Anne Lamott: https://medium.com/clear-yo-mind/expectations-are-resentments-waiting-to-happen).
Ryan Reynolds shares, “When you have expectations, you are setting yourself up for disappointment” (https://www.centralofsuccess.com/expectations-quotes/). “‘The best things in life are unexpected because there were no expectations’, said Eli Khamarov, and he was right. Happiness is usually proportional to our level of acceptance and inversely proportional to our expectations” (https://www.socratic-method.com/quote-meanings-interpretations/eli-khamarov-the-best-things-in-life-are-unexpected-because-there-were-no-expectations). What are ‘expectations’ and how are they related to ‘standards’?
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, an expectation is “…a strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future…a belief that someone will or should achieve something” (https://www.oed.com). In the article, “Expectations: The silent killer of happiness“,the authors suggest that, “Expectations are personal beliefs about the events that may occur – or not. They are assumptions about the future, anticipations based on subjective and objective aspects. In fact, expectations are developed from a complex combination of our experiences, desires and knowledge of the environment or the people around us. Expectations vary from a small possibility of occurrence to an almost certain occurrence. Some expectations have an automatic character since they are fundamentally fueled by our desires, illusions and beliefs, so we feed them without being fully aware of their origin and without contrasting how realistic they are. Other expectations have a more reflexive character since they start from a process of analysis of the different factors involved, being more realistic” (https://psychology-spot.com/expectations-silent-killer-happiness/).
Writer, Greg Proffit, puts it succinctly and in your face: “You can create expectations in others, or harbour them yourself. This is a sword that cuts in both directions. You may either harbour or create expectations… If you create expectations that you lack either the willingness or ability to fulfil, you will be resented. End of story. Expectations are a test drive of hopes you convince yourself are already real” (https://medium.com). ‘Expectations’, themselves, are not ‘evil’, but forcing them on others and sometimes on ourselves can be harmful.
How do ‘standards’ relate to ‘expectations’? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a ‘standard’ is, “…a level of quality or attainment…an idea or thing used as a measure, norm, or model in [comparing]” (www.oed.com). When our standards are too high - whether we place them on ourselves or force them on others like our partner, our children, our friends, our work team, our students, our congregation / community - we risk alienating others, frustrating ourselves and others, and increasing unhappiness in ourselves and others. “No one would argue that having high standards for your work and your teams is a bad thing. Yet sometimes, extraordinarily high standards can be unproductive and halt forward movement in your[life]” (https://hbr.org/2024/11/when-your-high-standards-derail-your-success)
What may be he outcomes of forcing higher expectations and standards on others and on ourselves? According to health consultant, Andrea Darcy, “Our prediction of how we want things to go, expectations can seem harmless. But not always. Low expectations, for example, can mean you underachieve in life, or let others manipulate you. And what about high expectations? In a world focused on success and ambition, they can seem exemplary. But high expectations are often a form of trying to control both outcomes and other people, and can lead to considerable stress and mood swings. [Here are some] signs that your expectations are running [and may be ruining] your life:
little things, like your coffee made wrong or being a few minutes late, throw you right off you often feel people ‘let you down’
you tend to obsess on details — others have called you too critical or a perfectionist you have thorough ‘checklists’ for your future – your future partner, career, house, etc
you live your life with a constant burning feeling of dissatisfaction, frustration, or even emptiness
you suffer from guilt - a sign you expect too much of yourself
you often have feelings of resentment - a sign you expect too much from others
But surely high expectations are a sign of confidence? Expecting good things from life is indeed a sign of self-worth. The trouble is that most of us don’t expect good things, we expect exact outcomes. We don’t expect a good relationship. We expect to meet someone who is six foot one, makes over fifty thousand a year, lives within a twenty minute drive of our front door, went to one of three universities, and likes to do yoga.
How do high expectations cause low moods? Life inevitably throws curve balls. So trying to force an unrealistic outcome from everything leads to being disappointed. And if you are living under the misguided notion that you actually control everything, every curve ball will leave you feeling to blame. This leads to a mood-killing downward spiral of self-criticism and judgement that can result in depression and anxiety. A study on aging by a sociologist at Chicago University found that happiness levels tended to rise rather than fall with old age. One of the main reasons cited? Lower expectations and more acceptance of the way things were.
As for having high expectations from others, nothing lasts long on as pedestal without falling. Worse, wanting certain things from others can blind you to what they actually can offer you. The end result can be troubled relationships, intimacy issues, and loneliness. High expectations also dictate our response to the little things in life and our capacity to be resilient. For example, if you have the high expectation that things should always be easy and go your way in life, then something small like the train being two minutes late one morning can mean you show up at work in a funk that lasts all day. And the high expectation that friends should be endlessly loyal can mean one person not calling you on your birthday can result in months of upset, even if you later find out they were sick with flu.
[Some pesky] psychological issues [are] connected to high expectations.
perfectionism
low self-esteem from failing at what you expect confirms your low beliefs of yourself
negative core beliefs by expecting too much of others you have a perfect excuse to push them away
fear of failure which can lead to setting yourself up to fail, unconsciously proving your fear valid
fear of change if I focus on things going the way I want they won’t change
unrealistic expectations can also be a sign of borderline personality disorder where you have a very distorted idea of other people and what they have to offer
How do I know what my expectations are?
Try making an ‘expectation inventory’. Sit down and write down what your expectations are from each area of your life, trying to be as honest as possible. What do you want from work, family, home, and your money situation? What about leisure, spirituality, your social life?
Take the inventory one step further by having a day dedicated to noticing your expectations. First, set a timer to go off every hour on the hour and write down what you expected during the hour that has just passed.
Then try to notice every time you feel annoyed, frustrated, or let down. What is the expectation behind what you are feeling? Write that down too.
Once you have amalgamated your list of expectations, it can be really helpful to sit down and ask yourself some good questions. These can include things like: is this what I really want, or is it what my family, friends, or society want from me? how does this expectation serve me? how does this expectation hold me back? what would it take to let this expectation go? what would I lose by letting go of this expectation? what would I gain by letting go of this expectation?” (https://www.harleytherapy.co.uk/counselling/setting-expectations.htm).
Executive coach, Peter Bregman, shares: “One night as I lay awake, I began to think about my daughter. She can have difficulty controlling her impulses and she falls quickly into conflicts with friends. How often have I scolded her or given her unsolicited pushy advice, annoyed that she acted the way she did? I’d assumed that, if she wanted to, she would change. But, from the vantage of my own struggle, I realized how wrong I’d been. My daughter is doing the absolute best she can. And my judgment of her behavior — of her — only makes her feel and behave worse. That’s when it really hit me: My expectations of everyone, including myself, are counter-productively high.
High expectations can have a positive effect; people need a high bar to stretch towards. But I think many of us take it too far. We slip so easily into criticisms of ourselves and those around us — family, friends, coworkers, public figures — that we no longer expect people to be human beings. And when we shame ourselves and others for failing, we make things worse. We contribute to pain while nurturing impotence.
When we face weakness — ours or someone else’s — it doesn’t help to blame someone or something, pretend it’s not important, or simply decide to change. And it’s not sufficient to identify a three-step process to fix the problem. So what does help?
Here’s the best I’ve come up with: compassion.
As far as I can tell, for advice to be useful at all, it needs to be preceded by compassion. Yes my daughter needs support, guidance, instruction, and advice. But she needs compassion first. As the saying goes: Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. That certainly includes me. And, I’m betting, you. Being compassionate will probably make us better, more effective people. If not, at least it will reduce the suffering that accompanies weakness. And it will most certainly make us nicer to each other and to ourselves” (https://hbr.org/2012/02/the-problem-with-high-expectat).
Confession: Changing the behavior of exerting too high standards and forcing too high expectations on myself and on others is a lifelong journey for me because it’s a trait that either developed through being nurtured in a judgmental environment or it’s part of my nature. I have contributed negatively in relationships by having extremely high standards, exceedingly high expectations that I put on others and on myself. Gotta say being single is so much easier for me because I can honor many of my own high standards and expectations. When I hold others to those standards & expectations, though, disappointments, resentments, frustrations, break ups, magical thinking, blaming ensue. And, this pattern has repeated many times over my life. Ouch! I’m a confident and ambitious person by nature and those are often seen as positive strengths to possess; still, like all of our strengths, they can be like the Star Wars’ Force. They can easily go to the ‘dark side’ of arrogance and lack of compassion for others. I believe that our strengths can create more problems for us than our weaknesses when they are allowed to run amok.
Have your expectations and standards gotten in your way or have caused problems for others? How do you raise your standards and exceptions when appropriate? How do you lower your standards and expectations when appropriate? Please share your stories, thoughts, insights, and suggestions by either commenting below this post if you are reading this on social media, or, if you are reading this through your email subscription, please share, by emailing me, at reimaginelife22@gmail.com.
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