August 2022 Newsletter | Managing Expectations
Posted August 1, 2022
There’s a well-worn cliché: it’s the journey, not the destination, that matters. The point is the experience and not the outcome. But in a world where we can order something online and have it delivered within the hour, or watch a brand new film at home the day it comes out—a world of instant gratification—the experience part of the equation has all but vanished. When all we’re left with is the outcome, its importance is likely to increase greatly.
At the same time, as we grow more and more used to having our desires met instantaneously, as we exercise our “patience muscle” less and less, we become less adept at handling even the smallest of setbacks. This is why it is important to learn how to, and practice often, managing our expectations around the experiences we have.
Disappointment is a natural part of life but while it happens occasionally to everyone, it should not be the default. If you are always disappointed, or find that most experiences leave you feeling angry or upset, your expectations may be unaligned with reality. But we can learn to change that tendency by considering our cognitive processing habits and adjusting how we react.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, or CBT, teaches us that our feelings are our interpretations of the world rather than facts about the world. For example, if I text a friend to chat and my friend is not very responsive, I may interpret her lack of response as a sign that she doesn’t want to talk to me. I may then feel sad or unappreciated. I could even conclude that my friend does not like me, after all, she does tend to take a long time to respond to my emails and the last time we hung out she said she had to go home early.
In this situation, my friend is not meeting my expectations for how someone would behave if they liked me. But my expectations might not be aligned with reality: I may be expecting too much from my friend. Perhaps she is incredibly busy or dealing with something that prohibits her from responding very often. Or perhaps she has a different understanding of how often or how quickly friends should respond to messages. In either case, her level of contact may not provide any indication of how much she likes me or values my friendship.
We build our expectations on several foundations: past experiences, personal preferences or habits, hopes and desires, even fears. Our expectations can say a lot about us. Like many of our thought processes, our expectations can be somewhat invisible to us: we may not realize that how we imagine things will be or should be is a result of how we are interpreting the world.
So how might we better manage our expectations so that they are more aligned with reality? We can use CBT skills for countering Cognitive Distortions: recognize that our thoughts and feelings are not the same as facts and consider the evidence of the given situation in order to better understand reality (and, ultimately, through a better understanding of reality, learn to feel less disappointed or upset).
We can also choose to approach each situation in our lives with curiosity and kindness. Rather than trying to predict how things will turn out, we can bring a sense of wonder to the unknown. It can be helpful to remember that every experience we have is unique; you can go to the same restaurant a thousand times and you will have a thousand unique dining experiences depending on where you are seated, who your waiter is, what you order, and so on. Rather than expecting the next visit to be like the last (and potentially feel disappointed if it doesn’t live up to your memory), take pleasure in the surprises that may be in store.
Finally, we can practice Mindfulness and gratitude regularly to help us focus on the present moment and appreciate it for what it is, rather than what it is not.
Our CBT therapists can guide you in understanding your experiences and developing a personalized and collaborative plan to learn how to better manage your expectations.