What do you expect out of life?

You’ve probably heard, or perhaps even offered some version of this advice:

Lower your expectations, so that you
won’t be disappointed when life lets you down.

I disagree wholeheartedly with this point of view.

When you expect circumstances or people to disappoint you, you don’t insulate yourself from hardship. In fact, you increase the likelihood that you will continually be disappointed.

Expectations Enable or Limit You

When you program your mental software to ratchet down expectations, you get exactly what you seek. You begin to act in a way – and interact with others – to manifest the quality of excellence you anticipate.

And the most detrimental of all low expectations are those you place upon yourself.

Expect Greatness – Start with You

Do not underestimate the power of your expectations. In life, you get precisely what you expect. What you expect becomes the measure you work to achieve. Your expectations of others telegraph how others should treat you. Furthermore, what you expect of yourself – whether success or perpetual hardship – will program your thinking and actions to deliver the results you’ve forecasted.

• Expect people to disappoint you, and they consistently will.
• Expect difficulties at every turn, and you will receive them.
• Expect life to be unfair, and it will gladly oblige you.

Stretch your Expectations

Begin to expect more of yourself. Hold yourself to a higher standard. Work to become better, so that you will be ready for the opportunities that you expect to arise.

Live by a code of expectations that says, “I will treat myself and treat others with integrity.” Expect others to operate at the same high standards you set for yourself. Some will disappoint you. Others will rise to your expectations.  In this way, you will more easily be able to enlist the team that will get you where you expect to be in life. You’ll also be able to identify the people who will only hold you back.

Don’t expect life to be difficult. Expect it to be challenging. Then prepare yourself for the challenge. Expect that you will rise above short term difficulty to experience long term abundance, as well as the joy that comes from becoming a better person.

Instead of validating your shortcomings, work to reduce or eliminate them. Expect that the future “you” is better in every way: Better professionally. A better spouse, parent and friend. More healthy. Spiritually fit. Congruent with what you deeply believe and truly deserve.

Only action will get you there. But expectations define where “there” will be, and provide the means and method for you to complete the journey.

What you will achieve or will become will require effort. So expect it. But it also requires the proper expectations. Would you expect anything less?