Out of all what you could call the “unpleasant emotions” that I feel, frustration is by far the most frequent.
Frustration at the actions, words, and behaviours of others.
I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.
But I came to a powerful realisation a number of years ago.
That helps me “pull back” this frustration when it starts to happen.
And that realisation is that frustration (along with irritation, anger, annoyance and all similar emotions) comes from “unmet expectations”.
If things happen as we expect……….
If people behave how we think they ‘should’………
If things go the way we want them to……….
Then we’re normally ok.
If the reality matches our expectations, then the reality doesn’t need to be amazing for us to be, at least, content.
I’m sure we’ll all know people who have less of some aspect of something that’s important to us, than us……….
And are perfectly happy.
And will know people who have more of that aspect………..
Who aren’t.
It’s target vs performance.
Expectation vs reality.
And realising that is powerful.
It helps us realise that one of two things can change.
Reality.
Or expectations.
Or maybe, a mixture of the two.
Changing the reality is the obvious bit.
It’s probably what we’ve tried to do most of the time.
Questioning our expectations is often the bit we miss out.
We feel it’s a “lowering of standards”.
But if our expectations have not even been fully defined by us………..
Let alone verbalized to the relevant people………..
Let alone agreed to by them………..
Then, surely, we’re just setting ourselves up for some of those “unpleasant emotions”.
Expectations (as opposed to agreements) can be seen as ‘premediated resentments’ (you might want to re-read that one a few times – blew my mind the first time I heard it).
Defining those expectations, verbalizing them to the people involved and getting their buy in……….
Makes it much more likely they won’t be unmet.
And, if they’re just not going to be met at all, could we question if they were the right expectations for us?
Much love,
Jon ‘Great’ Hall
P.S. Just telling people to eat better and do some more exercise isn’t what we’re all about. You know this already. Helping people deal with the challenges that stop them doing this is what we do. And you can take the next step with that by entering your details at www.myrise.co.uk/apply.
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RISE in Macclesfield was established in 2012 and specialise in Group Personal Training weight loss programmes for those that don’t like the gym and find diets boring and restrictive!
