The dark side of expectations

We create expectations about almost everything in our lives, the family dinner, the new project at work, the meeting with the boss. Think about when you wake up in the morning. Why some days is so easy to get up even if you slept few hours, while in others you hit the snooze button over and over again? One possible answer: expectations. Your brain already knows what to expect from the day ahead and he has a saying about it. Without realizing it the brain gets formatted and shaped by all those expectations about your daily events. Then, a problem arises.

How can we live in the moment and look for opportunities if we are somehow trapped inside our expectations? 

Imagine this: you are waiting to enter a training session about conflict management. What are your thoughts?
1. “Really? What a waste of time!”
2. “Great! It’s going to be so interesting!”
This kind of dichotomy happens frequently. I’m going to have a meeting with my boss: “Oh no. He read my last project and hates it!” or “Great. He read my last project and loves it!” Truth is we never know and usually it’s neither great nor horrible. It just is what it is.
How many times we hear “It was better than I expected!” or “It was nothing like I expected”? Not so often we hear “It was just what I expected”. And that’s because our expectations are made to guide us and make sense of what’s going to happen. Shockingly, they are not made to be true.

So, what are we missing when we hold tightly to our expectations? The answer might be: a universe of opportunities!

I expect the training session to be awful. Then, I will be less attentive, less available and probably I will miss information that could really interest me. I expect it to be great. Then, I will be always waiting for surprising moments and dazzling truths, not enjoying what the session has to give me. The problem with expectations is this: while waiting to fulfil our expectations, we miss what is happening around us.

At work it happens all the time. Each of us has a tendency to expect less or more of the situations and we act accordingly to those expectations. We expect less we give less. We expect more we miss what we have. We get more than expected we suspect. We get less than expect we become frustrated. So hard to get it right! Imagine a blindfold. Yet, you can see something, you can see what you expect. So, you keep on walking cause you don’t realize what you’re missing. Two things may happen now:
1. You reach the goal, for instance you may get promoted. And you’re happy. But then, the blindfold disappears and you look back. What do you see?
2. You don’t reach the goal. You’re frustrated. But then, the blindfold disappears and you look back. What do you see?

The answer might be the same: a greater opportunity. When focusing in only one outcome, you miss other variables and chances along the way. Moreover, you may miss the solution to reach your goal, because sometimes the road is not linear.

Look around you. Accept novelty, meet new people, even though your first thought is they have nothing in common with you. Taking other roads and trying new paths increases our knowledge and thus our mental database. More information we gather, a higher chance we have to think outside the box.

Not surprisingly, characteristics such as flexible attention and curiosity are associated with creativity. Creative people tend to seize the moment and be open to change and opportunities. They still have goals, but meanwhile they enjoy the ride.


We find it impossible not to expect. It’s part of who we are… we expect to graduate and find a great job, to buy a house and get married, to get promoted and have kids, we expect to grow old and enjoy retirement. Surely not all of us will expect these things, but we all expect something. The key is to manage expectations: create them, but let them be flexible enough so each moment can be experienced to the fullest.