Got expectations?
Expectations. Attachment to a result. Should should should--they should have been different, it should have happened by now, they are bad, that situation is bad, they are to blame...
The first time someone told me that it wasn’t helpful to rigidly hold to expectations, I missed the point completely. The conversation came up because someone hadn’t done something they had said they would do, and it had happened a few times, and I was Mega Pissed, which means that I was using expletives.
“It sounds like you're attached to expectations,” Andy said. “Of course I have expectations,” I said. “When someone says they’re going to do something, they should do it.”“Yeah,” he said. “That’s attaching to your expectations. You’re attached to the result.”
We went a few rounds on this one. What in the world was wrong with being attached to a result? Someone said they would do something. They hadn’t done it. I was pissed. This was normal, right? Human? Understandable? “It's understandable that you feel frustrated about it,” he said to all of those questions. “But it doesn’t sound like it’s working for you, to attach to expectations.”Still missing his point, I said something like, “Yeah, it’s not working for me. They made me mad.” To which he repeated himself, and then we went in circles. My line of thinking was: I’m mad because this person did this thing and put me out and they're supposed to be different. Having expectations is not the problem. The problem is that this person did this thing. I had a series of micro-movements around this (which is to say that I understood in small steps and bits) before I finally understood what he (and the fifteen other people who had said something along those lines during my lifetime) were getting at:
When I attach to my expectations--when I am attached to a specific result and get all spun out when people/circumstances outside my control don't adhere to those expectations--then I’m setting myself up to suffer.
Having expectations/attachment to a result sets me up to suffer because:
It takes me out of the present moment--I’m poised to future-trip over what “should” happen and put my focus on looking to see if it’s all going to happen in that way that I've attached to, or I’m poised rehash what “should have” happened, which puts me in the past and emphasizes what did happen over creating a more positive solution to a problem, in the here and now.
When I’m in a space of rehashing what “should have” happened, I’m in victim mode around it, emphasizing what went wrong instead of what I could create to go right.
Attachments to outcome are totally grounded in Stories (internal narratives) about the way “it should be.” Getting attached to the way it “should have been” closes me off from seeing how “it could now be.”
Perhaps most importantly: When I hold expectations, the responsibility for my happiness is constantly being externalized--if someone does what they say they’re going to do, I’m happy, but if they don’t, I’m not. If a politician is a fair leader, I am good, but if they are not, I'm tossed off in my rage. Living in such a way where I allow my attachment to expectations to dictate my happiness? Not fun. It's stressful.
To release attachment expectations, or put differently to "not get attached to an outcome," is not the same thing as denying any feeling of disappointment when someone doesn't follow through or when they are unkind or unfair. Those emotions come up, sometimes.
Releasing attachment around expectations is not the same as saying there are no expectations whatsoever, or no accountability. It's not a binary either-or. You can have expectations within an organization, or expectations of your leaders, or expectations that your partner will help with the kids. You can have conversations about accountability. It's rigidly attaching to those expectations to the point where people who don't meet them end up costing you your own peace, that is problematic.
Releasing attachment to outcome, or noticing expectations and letting go of them, puts us in a position to stop reacting, and start responding. This was the big a-ha! for me: Having the attachment to an outcome--holding the stress of, "If this doesn't happen the way I need it to, I'm furious"--does not make the outcome you desire any more likely.Releasing a tight attachment to expectations frees up our energy so that we can ask ourselves: who do I actually want to BE, here? What is it I want to respond with, rather than reacting? What else is possible here, that I can take responsibility for or put into action? What's the tough conversation that needs to be had, from a place of everyone acknowledging what happened and shifting into what else is possible? What's the boundary that I want to put in place, with the people who keep showing up in ways that lack accountability? When we get into that kind of curiosity, we aren't stuck in our expectations, any longer: we're creating something better, moving forward.