Expectation defined as a strong belief that something will happen or be the case. Sometimes our expectations can be realistic or not. As human beings, we all have expectations one way or the other, in our finances, our academics, our relationships, etc. It sums up why we do whatever we do. And what determines the frequency of our mood swings is how the graph of expectations fluctuates.
Expectations and Depression
Some people can be affected seriously by this, they have lots of expectations and at some point in their lives everything was on target and at one point it turns around and rejection upon rejection and slowly they lower the bar of their expectations and pushes some of them to a point that they don’t expect anything from life again i.e they get depressed.
One of the things I learned last year is that having expectations is a gamble as is every other thing that we do and that the bar of our expectations should vary with the number of things that you know. The lower the bar, the lower the effect of your disappointments or Ls, the higher the bar, the higher the effect of your disappointment or joy and at times you are surprised at the turn out of something because it wasn’t what you expected.
Knowns and Unknowns
You see in life, there are two important concepts, the things you know — knowns, and the things you don’t know — unknowns. There are things that you know you know, we call them the known knowns and there are things you know you don’t know, the known unknowns. There are things that you don’t know you know, the unknown knowns and there are things you don’t know you don’t know the unknown unknowns.
Understanding this is very crucial with the way you relate with anybody even yourself and this would help model your expectations. For example, when I apply for a job, there is always a job summary this helps me check my bank of “knowns” and map them to the JD that way I can predict to a good percentage what would happen and how I would react to it. This doesn’t prevent an L or something but it makes life easier to live. You can cut down on your unrealistic expectations and focus more on the realistic ones.
This would help you make better choices in Life. This where I point out why it is important to keep track of your progress whether weekly or monthly, as it helps you to identify your unknown knowns and this will keep you from making “ I didn’t know I could do this” regrets. Put in enough time to learn your known unknowns too, take a course or two, ask for help from friends and your mentors. The journey is shorter by half if you walk with people.
So before you take another shot at expecting something, try and check your knowns and your unknowns and use this to determine if it is worth taking the shot or not.