High Expectations, Low Attachment

Expectations.

Like,

Don't we all have them?

And sometimes they really leave us extremely disappointed.

And so some people say,

Well,

Let me never have any expectations.

But then I think that's a little bit sad because if I hire a carpenter to come and do some work on my house,

I expect him to show up,

Right?

If I'm in a committed relationship,

I expect honesty in that relationship and if that is not available then I'm going to end the relationship.

So I think we can't really get away and we don't really want to give up on expectations.

Now here's what I do.

I have the highest expectations.

I believe that everybody is always doing his or her best.

And I expect only the best.

And why do I want my world view to be like that?

It's because Well,

I really do believe that people do want to be at their best and they're always doing their best under the circumstances.

So this philosophy is something I developed when I was a teacher.

I used to teach little French children,

Or as I like to say,

I used to inflict English on little innocent French children in the French school system.

And I learned so much.

Maybe they didn't learn a lot,

But I certainly did.

And one thing I noticed was that They wanted to do their best,

But sometimes I thought,

Mmm,

This is not good enough.

And then I had to dig a little bit deeper.

I expected them to do this task in a certain way and to get to a certain result.

Now,

If they didn't do that,

What were my options?

Well,

Either they were spiting me,

They were really not playing with me,

Like they didn't want to do it,

And that was a personal affront.

They didn't know how to do it.

Or simply third option,

Which is the one I chose,

And that was to believe that they did what they could.

And that we all.

Don't we all just always do what we can?

And goodness knows that is not often perfect,

Is it?

I mean,

If we're being honest with ourselves,

I think we can recognize that.

We don't always do the perfect thing.

We don't always display the perfect behavior and we don't always.

.

.

Foresee perfect outcomes and all of that.

So if that was the case with the children,

I also noticed that the circumstances in their life played a very big part in how they performed.

And I took that even further and that's why I got into life coaching and that was to say,

Well really,

Their world view,

What they have been told and what they assume to be true,

Well,

That heavily influences their performance.

And that really got me thinking that,

Oh,

If they are told this at home,

Well,

The obvious result of believing that and being told that is that this is how they perform at school.

And I really wanted to bring that into my awareness and and ponder on okay so they believe they're doing their best and if I presume they are then what is preventing their best What is preventing that from living up to my expectations?

Well,

It's simply that they have got something preventing them from living up to my expectations.

And that could be that the cat just died.

It could be that there are arguments at home with mum and dad.

It could be that they were just bullied in the schoolyard.

It could be so many things.

But if we transfer that over onto the adult world,

Now,

Why would that be any different?

Why would they?

I don't believe it is.

So I think most people.

Most people want to do good.

So I'm not talking about perhaps a small percentage of people who don't care,

Or who are not bothered,

Or who don't want to do good.

But I think most of us really want to do good.

So how come How come what they do doesn't always live up to my expectations?

Short of it,

Well then I have to get curious.

There is no need to go into shame and blame and start telling people,

You should have behaved differently,

You shouldn't speak to me like that,

You shouldn't do that.

That really doesn't solve anything and it's not helpful and it doesn't have us feel good.

Now if I instead can get curious about it when I don't live up to my own expectations or my own standards,

When other people don't,

I can go in there and ask myself questions with curiosity.

And I find that much more rewarding because if I'm staying in the Shall I say the,

What can I call it,

The energy of curiosity?

Well,

Then I can stay curious and I don't have to go into the blaming or judging or shaming.

I can just stay curious and wonder,

Oh,

Why did he say that?

I wonder why he said that.

What could have happened in his life or what could have happened to him today for him to react like that?

And I can show a lot of compassion for that and I can feel good about it thinking,

Oh it's got nothing to do with me.

If I interpret his behavior as something being rude to me,

Well,

That's really on me,

Isn't it?

Because it's my interpretation.

What,

Instead of saying he's rude,

What if I reflect that back to me and I say,

Well,

What's that really reflecting back to me?

We're in.

Inside myself,

Where in my life am I being rude to me?

And I find that such an interesting question because I think we can all think of times where we have sort of slighted ourselves.

We have not perhaps spoken kindly of ourselves to ourselves.

We have perhaps sometimes made ourselves really small or we have omitted to speak up.

I'm sure we can find a lot of instances in a normal human life where we really haven't taken the very best care of ourselves.

So I think that this can be reflected in other people's reactions to us because how we behave to ourselves is how we are modeling to other people that we want to be treated.

So,

However they treat us,

It just can go straight back to us and we can sit here and ponder,

Oh,

Where am I doing that?

Where am I teaching them that this is okay?

How am I teaching them that this is okay?

I think that is a much more productive way of looking at expectations.

So when people,

Things,

Circumstances,

Myself,

Don't meet my expectations,

I can say,

This is not good enough.

I don't have to condemn the person.

I don't have to condemn myself.

I can just say,

This is not what I want.

It's really not what I want.

So instead of being upset about it,

I can just reframe that and say,

Oh,

This is what I prefer.

So the more specific I get on what I would prefer,

I think the more likely I am to be met with that in the future.

So sometimes this can be a little bit dramatic because we have to say goodbye to certain situations or circumstances in our lives.

We have to say goodbye to perhaps some people in our lives.

And sometimes we make that mean so much.

But really,

What if it was just completely and totally okay that we evolve and that some things,

Some people can't come with us into our new version.

What if that was just completely OK,

That there was nothing wrong with it,

And that maybe if we move on into our best version of ourselves,

Well,

Perhaps then the other people can be inspired?

And want to follow us or if they're not inspired well it's okay that they take a different route.

We really don't have to all be the same.

And we are under no obligation to stay who we were five minutes ago.

We are allowed to evolve.

So I think what is important here is to notice when somebody's behavior or a circumstance or yourself when you feel that disappointment.

To notice,

Oh,

I'm really feeling disappointed.

Getting really intimate with that emotion so that you can normalise it in your system.

So we want to normalize emotions in our nervous system,

Not so that we are okay with feeling disappointment,

Well in a way it is,

But it's really just to let our nervous system know that nothing,

Nothing dramatic has happened.

That the world is not coming to its end,

That we don't have to go into fight or flight over this,

It's simply a feeling of disappointment.

So we are normalizing it so that we don't go into a state about it,

We don't panic about it,

We are okay with it.

And then what we have to teach ourselves from there is that,

Okay,

When I.

.

.

Do this.

Well,

I might be disappointed in myself.

When I teach other people that this is okay to do,

Because I'm doing it to myself.

When I teach other people that that's okay,

Well then I will be feeling disappointed at times.

And I think that,

Wow,

The growth opportunity here is just extraordinary.

And if we could just stay out of the blame and the judgment of it and simply just notice and then decide.

Decide how we really want it,

Like get really really clear on those standards on what we do expect.

And I found that the more I expect greatness from the world,

From people and from myself,

The more I meet with it.

So I do think that there is a case to be made for setting high expectations.

However,

Let's not make.

.

.

Let's not be dependent on the expectations.

So that's why we want to normalise whatever feelings we have if our expectations are disappointed.

We want to normalise feeling slighted,

Feeling disappointed,

Feeling angry,

Feeling frustrated.

We want to normalise it,

But we want to keep the expectations.

That way we get to be met with that greatness much more often.

We don't want to be dependent on it.

We don't want to ever get into the position where we need people to behave in a certain way.

Right?

We want to be okay if the carpenter never shows up.

We don't want to accept it,

Like we might want to get in touch with him,

But we don't want to have our happiness,

Our peace of mind destroyed by somebody not living up to our expectations.

We don't want to be destroyed either in our relationships if somebody is dishonest.

We want to get curious about it.

We don't want to condemn the person,

But I think what we do have to consider is that,

Okay,

This is where it stops.

I'm not willing to tolerate this.

I'm okay.

I really am okay with this person being dishonest because I don't know why they were I don't know what their circumstances are,

I don't know what they were thinking,

But something led them to be dishonest.

I wasn't expecting it,

So now I'm feeling disappointed,

Hurt,

Upset,

Whatever.

But that is okay.

It really is okay.

And as we evolve in life and we get to be happier and happier,

More and more fulfilled and more and more self-expressed,

I think we do get to the point where we don't need other people to behave in any kind of way and that we can have a relationship with them in whatever shape or form they choose to show up.

So we don't have to have intimate relationships with people we don't really enjoy.

We are allowed to say,

OK,

I'm not going to cultivate your friendship.

And then we get to choose the kind of person that we do want to be with,

The kind of person we want to be surrounded with,

So that we really get to have all of that goodness reflected back to us.

So what you might be saying is that oh well how do I get to that place?

How do I get to that place where I'm okay with sometimes being disappointed?

Expecting the best and then having people circumstances myself not live up to it.

How do I get to that place where it's okay?

I mean,

Let's imagine you said,

I want to release 10 kilos.

Let's imagine.

And then you say,

Okay,

I want to go to the gym every two days.

I want to do yoga on a Sunday and then I want to eat more vegetables and I want to blah blah blah.

And so you set yourself new standards don't you?

You set yourself perhaps very high standards.

And the time it takes for you to be the person who just naturally chooses those standards could take some time.

And most importantly,

It could take practice.

So we've got a moment where we are no longer who we used to be and we are not yet that version of ourselves that we want to be.

We've got that moment where we are in between and I think the shorter we make that moment,

The better we feel.

But when we are.

Sort of evolving into a new and greater version of ourselves.

We need to be a little bit patient with ourselves,

Or perhaps even a lot,

And we need to have a lot of compassion.

So.

Let's imagine again the person who's releasing 10 kilos.

Now if she just overeats and doesn't go to the gym for an entire week and doesn't attempt any yoga on the Sunday,

Now What's the point in her being really stern with herself and telling herself,

You screwed this up?

You really are not worthy of releasing that weight you really are not good enough and blah blah blah like we don't want to go there that just doesn't serve any purpose however we want to remind her that if ever she wants to go into that version of herself where she has released the weight she doesn't want to carry around where she is exercising where she is eating more vegetables,

All of that.

If she wants to go to that version,

Well,

She has to keep reminding herself.

And then she has to be very compassionate for when she falls down,

Because we are practicing.

And you can see the harp in the background here.

I used to be a harpist,

But I didn't wake up one day being able to play the harp.

I had to practice.

And with any new thing in life,

We do have to practice.

So if we can practice and make the mistakes without making ourselves wrong about them,

The whole experience gets to be really,

Really enjoyable.

Because imagine when I was playing the harp when I was little,

I was satisfied when I managed to play this piece of music,

Which today I would just think,

Oh,

That is not good enough.

Because now I could do so much better.

So imagine that with,

Let's say,

Weight loss.

Imagine you thinking on your weight loss journey,

Instead of thinking this is not fast enough,

I'm not doing enough,

I'm not succeeding.

Instead of thinking like that,

We're just noticing the little bits of progress that you do make.

And then notice,

Oh,

Today,

Actually,

I ate more vegetables.

Oh,

Actually,

This week,

I went to the gym every other day.

Fantastic.

And if we can live up to our own expectations like that,

Life gets to be so much more joyful.

And I think if we could extend that leniency,

If we can call it like that,

To other people.

Hmm.

We don't have to be upset,

We don't have to be disappointed,

We don't have to feel hurt.

I hope this is helpful and I hope that you will start reflecting on,

Well what exactly are my expectations?

And I would really suggest that you have only the highest expectations.