Your expectations determine your reality (Patreon)

So I’ve been on the wild journey of self-healing for a while now, and I've been sitting on the big Q of expectations. The realisation of my expectations on myself and on other people. Of course, this late night thought sent me down a rabbit hole of blogs, articles, and research on the subject.

Your expectations determine your reality, especially when working towards your goals because if you don’t believe you can do it… well, you probably can’t. The mind is a powerful place.

But I’m talking about the expectations you know you shouldn’t have, but you can’t help but hold onto them for dear life.

The expectations that obtaining something will be the thing that will make you happy.

The expectation that everyone will like you if you act a certain way (and we then proceed to be disheartened when they don’t)

The expectation of an apology.

Expecting something is not only being entitled (offt, that one hurts), but it’s also setting ourselves up for disappointment. But what if I told you that it’s not YOU who has that expectation, it’s your ego. It’s your ego that wants the validation & the praise. And it’s your ego that longs to be understood.

It hit me hard one day, the realisation that I EXPECTED validation. I sent a text message to a friend. It was a screenshot of a message I had received earlier that I had been offended by. So I took a screen grab and forwarded it to my friend and sub-consciously waited for a response to validate my offended feelings, but that’s not what happened. My friend responded, making a joke and taking the side of the person I had been offended by. I was gobsmacked. My fingers were ready to start a war over text. I wanted to scream ‘HOW DARE YOU NOT SEE MY POINT OF VIEW’. That’s when i stopped and realised what I had just thought… I wanted my friend to validate me based on my point of view. I sent them a message, EXPECTING a certain response.

I took a breath and asked myself, is this me or my ego? You guessed it. It was definitely my ego.

So next time you’re warming up your shoulders ready to throw punches because your expectations weren't met, stop and take a breath. And just question who’s doing the talking, you or your ego?

A piece of advice... don't be entitled

J x