If we want to have better conversations with others we have to learn to give up a toxic habit, which we live with in all areas of our lives without realizing it.
[Sound of drums…]
I’m talking about… expectations.
We fill our lives with expectations regarding others and their behavior. We expect them:
…to guess how we feel and what we think;
…to meet deadlines;
…to help with tasks, etc., etc.
Ultimately, we expect them to fill what we think is their responsability.
Creating expectations in relation to others is as natural as all the relationship problems and resentments that arise as a result of governing our lives by these same expectations.
Let’s look at the hurricane of negative things that expectations bring with them:
1) They ELIMINATE our ability to be surprised in a positive way in our lives. Best case scenario, if someone lives up to our expectations, the result is…meh! 😒 Eventually, a slight satisfaction for having achieved what… we expected! We don’t even feel exactly grateful, because the person did “what they should have done”.
2) They LEAD to disappointment. Expectations are typically driven by the negative bias around which our mind orbits. If people don’t live up to our expectations, we quietly say to ourselves “I knew it!”. In fact, we had already run that scenario through our heads, and ended up just confirming that we were “right” (a phenomenon also known as confirmation bias).
3) TURN US into little dictators. The truth is that our will is not supposed to determine the behavior of others. Each person has their own experience, understanding of the world and needs. I may consider that the other person should do this and that, but this is nothing more than my assumption or judgment about their behavior. And why should my assumptions and judgments be more valid than those of others?
So, if our expectations harm our relationships and reduce us to a state of disappointment and resentment, what can we do instead?
The key word is: make agreements.
Making an agreement presupposes dialogue and co-construction. Expectations typically develop in silence and are unidirectional.
Agreements require clear communication. They are established between the parties involved and presuppose the unequivocal definition of roles and responsibilities.
And if not for all the reasons already mentioned, we must let go of expectations because if we do so we can at least discover that…
reality can overcome them in unexpected ways!
And we all need a little more of that magic in our lives!