Random Thoughts #22 - Setting Expectations

We develop relationships, friendships, partnerships and situation-ships every day.  And as those ‘ships’ evolve, so do expectations. Expectations are understandable. You create this lasting bond with someone. You trust them—become comfortable with them. You develop this give-them-the-clothes-off-your-back mentality and you ‘expect’ them to do the same. Then, when they do the opposite, you get disappointed.

 

It’s important to understand that everyone is different. Different thought processes—different personalities—different perspectives—different life experiences—different expectations. True, it’s a remedial observation but people do forget it. We become so inundated with self, strategizing, overthinking and validating our own thoughts, we trick ourselves into believing that other people should think like we do.

 

Take a look at the chart below.  According to an online study, two of the emotions on the chart, anger and sadness, are responses to expectations not being met.  The other two emotions, anxiety and shame, are felt by the other side, the person trying to meet your expectations. As you can see, the chart asks the question, “Are your expectations realistic or unrealistic?”  In my opinion, this chart is a really good representation of setting unattainable expectations.  Now imagine a worse scenario—you never expressing your expectations to a person.  How does the other person even know what to aspire to??

                                                                    

I’m gonna tell you a personal story about expectations. I had a friendship that spanned 15 years. I began to feel like I was carrying the friendship. For years, she satisfied her best friend responsibilities, including me in her family time, inviting me to outings, calling me to chat it up about life and drama. Suddenly, it changed. I became the only one initiating phone calls. I’d find out about her family gatherings after they already occurred. She became so non-existent in my life that I started to question the ‘best friend’ label. I started questioning her. Did I do something wrong? Why haven’t we hung out? Her response would give me lukewarm reassurance. Then, the ultimate happened. I accomplished a major milestone in my life—and she missed it. That was the deal breaker—the unmet expectation. My explanation of her behavior was that she’d become complacent in the friendship.  I felt that friendships are a 2-way street. No matter how long the friendship lasts, you always have to work at it.  When you stop working, the ‘ship’ has sailed.

 

But, as they say, hindsight view is 20/20. Once I started to evaluate it, I learned how setting expectations ended the closest friendship I had. I didn’t look at it from her perspective. She’d encountered a bunch of life-changing situations during the complacency stage of our friendship. Loss. Struggle. Love. Pain. Financial strife. And in all of her situations, I kept trucking along in our friendship as if nothing was happening. And what I failed to realize was that life-changing situations not only preoccupy you—they change you. And it gets deeper than that! I’d encountered my own life-changing situations. Depression. Loss. Low self-esteem. And those situations changed me! So, here you have 2 people dealing with each other the same way under different, extenuating circumstances.  It’s a lose-lose situation.

 

Nine times out of 10, expectations aren’t communicated, resulting in a communication breakdown. Two people end up at odds because one didn’t meet a requirement—because reciprocity isn’t exercised. I read a book once by Dr. Robert Cialdini called The 6 Principles of Influence. Reciprocity is one of the 6 principles. It’s at the top of the list because it’s used so excessively. Another principle is ‘liking’. Liking is the act of doing something for someone without expectation or reward.  Just doing things out of the goodness of your heart.  No expectations.  No reciprocation.  We get away from liking so often because we desire validation—a feeling that we are not being used. And if you’re like me, you’ve had a past experience in which a person genuinely didn’t value you or used you. And it changes you—it makes you, in a sense, paranoid. Then, you start setting expectations on everyone and believe that if they don’t meet our expectation, they aren’t worth our time. You forget about LIKING.  Just liking someone because you do.  Just doing because you want to.  Just treating someone the way you want to be treated. Just paying it forward.