Easing expectations

Easing expectations would not be an across the board mantra, you can raise the bar and alternatively lower it, quite quickly depending on what results you are getting and what type of motivational mode you are finding yourself in.

First off, you want to adjust expectations and reset expectations to where they will get you to base camp one.

I don’t necessarily need to climb to the top of Mount Everest to experience what it is like to climb on the terrain of Mount Everest and there might be lots of excitement and exhilaration in doing a partial climb, say something like 3 quarters of the way up to the top.

I can then sidestep the increasing dangers and more extreme risks that unfold if I try to go all the way to the top of Everest.

Granted, I might lose a smidgen of bragging rights, but the experience can be fairly close to matching a full climb and the intrinsic worth to me is still present to a great degree.

Adjusting expectations downward at times can be a help in avoiding all or nothing thinking which can begin to manifest in all or nothing behavior.

Holding expectations or the bar of expectations at one continuous level also ultimately inhibits freedom, and doesn’t keep me loose and gander to where I can still come and go as I please with regards to some optional pursuits that I may like to pursue at times to a great degree and at times to a lesser degree.

The easing of expectations is not necessarily downward either.

I can ease or gradually increase my expectations, rather that trying to ratchet them up forcefully and maybe artificially, basically forcing the issue.

This way I can see how I do, how I feel, as I increase my expectation just a bit on this or that pursuit.

I might find I can enjoy a different genre of a movie than I usually go to by going to one or two films of another genre, rather than storming forward into many films in this new genre outright.

I might begin to try to make new friends that are a bit different in personality to what I am used to dealing with at the level of friendship, and give away some of the expectations that I should be hanging only with people say of a certain demeanor, temperament or who hold fast to certain viewpoints on what I consider to be vital issues.

I don’t have to give away these expectations I have held for all time and all situations, but I can give them up for a particular time, place and situation just the way I can give up in the moment on anything else.

If there are torrential storms, I can give up on the idea of sitting on the beach today and not feel guilty about it, but if the sun is shining on this weekend day, it is tough to let go of expectations that I should be taking advantage and get that beach afternoon in.

Expectations have a lot to do with what is advantageous, and taking advantage of the advantages.

If I have mixed feelings about a pursuit and my expectations on this are all over the map, what I want to hone in on a bit more and think about a bit more are what my expectations can be on this and when I am seeing a mixed bag, instead of backing off completely I might need to review and think about some of the advantages that still remain to pursuing this at least partially.

If am finding a marathon a little bit too much, but I can run a breezy ten miles, than I am still at a point of having advantages in that running ten miles breezily is still a pretty good thing to be able to do, it helps my personal confidence, which is an advantage, I can meditate while doing the run, which is an advantage, if I am in some country on a trip where I need to make a border run, I am capable of doing this which is an advantage.

While my expectations can be all over the place and in that confusion of not being sure as to where to land with and place my expectations right now, I can better do the review on this by keeping sight of real advantages that still exist, still remain intact and I still want to have some expectations around these real and still active advantages.

If momentarily I am not finding a too good music video on you tube, this doesn't mean I shouldn't continue looking because I can remember how good it makes me feel to see and listen to that great music video and how uplifting it has been when I have found them previously and therefore the advantages still weigh in potentially on scouting for additional good music videos.

Even if I am caught in an overall drift of things where it is not going that great, I can still have some good realistic expectations of the advantages that are still there potentially even from this disadvantageous position I now find myself in.

And my situation will never be wholly disadvantaged either, so I want to keep expecations alive on what the advantages still seem to be.

What I don’t want to do is stay waiting and waiting just until the fog lifts and only then maybe proceed on expectations

I need to be especially careful to do a better job in keeping some expectation alive and up and running when overall things might not seem to go all that great.

I can still proceed forward on any number of things with real and reality based expectations even if I am caught in the midst of troubles and problems that seem to fester and get in the way, and in part seem to block my paths.

To what extent can I get around these obstacles without a runaway effort that is a bit too much.

I can slide my expections down the ladder a bit, but that doesn't mean I am truly on the bottom rung, I am that low on the totem pole because of this presesnting obstacle?

It might be more of a challenge, if I have troubles surrounding me to keep some expectations alive and going, but freedom says that I don’t have to reduce expectations to just about zero or have them precisely in tune to difficult and trying circumstances that are right at hand.

There is a tendency to neatness and uniformity, where if things in many ways seem to be going bad, then I want my expectations to be reduced as well, and it is not automatic that I should be saying this or operating this way

I don’t need to be tuning my expectations to precisely the way things are going.

And then after tuning, there can be fine tuning, when say if I want to run 2 hours and at hour two I am feeling like I can run three, then I can change the expectation in the midst to 3 hours and so on.

If I am getting positive feedback, I can feed that positive feedback into my expectation loops and maybe increase expectations a bit based on positive feedback.

I can put things into the bag of expectations or take things out of the bag of expectations and throw them away, depending on what I am deciding to keep in the bad and what I am deciding to throw out the window, and that mixed bag of expectations will change a bit depending on what I want to keep in that bag.

But if I am feeling the no, the forget about it, the this can't happen mode of thinking, effectively, this usually is a sign to reduce expectations and see what is happening on the lower rungs of the expectation ladder and in fact at the lower rungs it still might be no, forget about it and this can't happen even then but you can reserve the right and freedom to take a look at this from the vantage point of reduced expectations and going down to lower rungs on the ladder and see what you are finding there.

Then I do want to put my expectations forward a bit and in fact some things aren't going to happen unless I increase my expectations to a new ground level where it can actually happen.

If I don't think I am a great public speaker, that doesn't mean I can' t take the mike and speak to an audience for 5 minutes.

But if I think I am so not so good at this that I wouldn't even do that, then I will not even do the 5 minute talk so I need to increase expectations to where at least I will jump into the foray of public speaking for at least a 5 minute turn at the mike, if I that 5 minute turn is ever going to actually happen.

I might think I have no ability to paint a picture, so why I am surprised that I haven't painted a picture in a decade, so I need to raise expectations above that absolute zero to ever begin to paint even one picture.

There are points to realize, if I am expecting absolutely nothing, that I will be doing absolutely nothing and in some cases, I should realistically stay with that, but I must realize that to get going on some on some pursuits, I have to raise my expectations to some degrees about zero or else nothing will ever happen.

So the mixed bag of expectations can and will change depending on what I choose to put in this bag and on what is available to put in this bag, but if nothing at all is in the bag, then there is nothing to pull out even if the circumstances change and become more favorable to the pursuit or idea.

I can't jump into the marathon, if I have absolutely no training in the bag, and if I do run a bit, say 10 miles, I can increase to a marathon potentially because I have the ability to run ten miles in that bag.

And because some things are so far out there, that I would never expect it, such as say swimming the English Channel might seem so far out of reach, that doesn't mean I can’t get out my surfboard, get into those high waves I used to like and take another go at the good times that used to be.

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