When Expectations Go Belly Up

How often do you think back about the outcomes you desired but never obtained? Maybe they were trivial or maybe they were momentous. Maybe you expected Ben & Jerry’s “Blueberry Cheesecake Frozen Yoghurt” but got “Chunky Monkey." Maybe you expected to work on a new project that would get you greater visibility and credibility but it never materialized.

When those things happened, you likely ran through a progression of emotions (in varying degrees) from sadness to loss to anger to frustration to self-pity – the universal components of disappointment. Disappointment is the result of not having your positive expectations met. Depending upon the makeup of those expectations, your sense of disappointment may be acute, occurring once or infrequently, or chronic, happening over and over again.

Obviously, not all unmet positive expectations produce disappointment. Those that do tend to result from faulty judgment, unrealistic wishes, exaggerated hopes, or dependence upon chance. The closer expectations are connected to reality, the more likely they will match the actual probability of the occurrence of what you expect. Reality-connected expectations are also less likely to disappoint you, or do so severely.

When you deal with disappointment, it’s important to remember that the reasons for your not reaching your goal are less important than what you think about it and how you feel. Anticipating, hoping, wishing, and getting emotionally involved give you a sense of control over the results of the expectation. The harder you expect it, the surer you are it will happen. Then, if it doesn’t happen or happen as you expect, you will likely feel cheated.

Disappointment can be a big obstacle for confidently promoting yourself. This is why clinical psychologist Dr. David Brandt suggests that you think of each of your positive expectations as a continuum of possibilities, ranging from the realistically possible to the realistically impossible.

To deal with your present pain from past disappointments, you need to dissect the original expectation, separating the “wish” part from your belief of its actually occurring. Then you need to determine how much control or influence you really had over the situation.

You’re likely to discover that there was a lot of magical thinking involved in your expectations. Magical thinking is a form of self-sabotage which can condemn you to chronic disappointment and hamper your effectiveness as a confident self-promoter.

Despite Alexander Pope writing, “Blessed is the man who expects nothing for he shall never be disappointed,” don't chuck your expectations. Expectations are not only important but also absolutely necessary to achievement. You can’t see and have success without them.

The secret is to handling disappointment is to make your expectations positive, realistic, action-oriented, and visualizable.