How Expectations Can Lead to Unhappiness
Imagine these scenarios:
1. You planned a birthday dinner for a close friend. You cooked all the food, make dessert, and got them a thoughtful present. You wanted to make sure they felt special. However, when it came to your birthday, the thoughtfulness and planning wasn’t reciprocated, and you felt disappointed.
2. A new restaurant and arcade experienced opened in your town and all your friends and family have been raving about it. You don’t get to plan a lot of date nights with your significant other because of your busy schedule, but you decide to make a reservation for that weekend. When you go, the arcade is packed, and the food is subpar. You feel like you wasted a rare opportunity for fun with your partner.
3. You work from home, but sometimes you like to switch it up and go to your favorite coffee shop. You spend most of your day there in your favorite spot with your preferred drink. When you get to the coffee shop, your table is taken and they’re out of your drink. It throws off your whole day.
Any of these sound familiar? These are great examples of how expectations can ruin your day and make you unhappy. You’ve probably heard the saying, “expectations are premeditated resentments.” When we expect things to happen and they don’t come true, it can leave us feeling disappointed.
Expectations, and the lack of them coming to fruition, can be extra prevalent during the holiday season. Maybe we expect to get certain gifts from loved ones or expect holiday dinners to go a certain way. Our past experiences usually cause us to anticipate what will happen this holiday season.
Why we have expectations
Humans function by using past experiences to dictate their future ones. Whether it’s expectations about our career, relationships, or social life, we like to plan for how it’s going to turn out.
We can set expectations around our relationships with significant others based on how our parents treated each other and what the dynamics of their relationship were. We can also set high expectations for ourselves in our career, like when we want to get a promotion or where we see ourselves in the future. We can set expectations for our friends and social lives based on how we treat others or how we want events to go.
The difference between goals and expectations
Goals are milestones we set for ourselves. They motivate us to succeed. As long as we set realistic goals that we can actually accomplish, they won’t damage us in any real way. Things start to get a little dicey when we set very high expectations for ourselves.
Humans have always been prone to perfectionism; it’s totally normal. However, when we continually set high goals for ourselves that we can’t realistically accomplish, it can lead to some not very fun feelings like disappointment and insecurity.
Managing expectations
Awareness is the key to managing your expectations. Being aware of the unrealistic standards or high amount of pressure you’re putting on things can give you a sort of reality check. You can step back and reassess how you’re feeling and why you have high expectations.
If you find what is happening is not what you expected, you can also try to look for the positives in whatever you’re experiencing. There are a few methods of snapping yourself out of a disappointed state and remaining optimistic:
Permeance
Take in the good things and let go of the bad. Try to find three positives in the situation you’re feeling disappointed about.
Pervasiveness
When we’re feeling down, it’s very easy to focus on the negatives and let them build on each other. Don’t let the bad things snowball. Build upon the good.
Personalization
When things do go well and meet your expectations, make sure to acknowledge that and reward yourself.
Don’t get too upset with yourself for having high expectations and being disappointed when they’re not met, it happens to all of us. Just try to take a step back and focus on the positives.
The holiday season can be a catalyst for disappointment, so make sure you’re managing your expectations this year with family events, gifts, and everything else they have in store. If you start to feel down about how something is going, focus on the time well spent with your loved ones.
If you’re find yourself consistently disappointed and unhappy and would like to talk to someone about it, please reach out to us. Our team of therapists is here to provide support and guidance. We look forward to connecting with you.
