Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

What if everything is going to be perfect? What if…

Changing your expectations can change your life

Dalla Johnson
Healthy Mind, Healthy Life
3 min readDec 18, 2020

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Stress and worry often occupy all the space between our ears. Chewing bottom lips, we fret and imagine every negative possibility. It seems (at the moment) like the only reasonable response to lack of resources, health issues, family concerns, catastrophic news, or some other unholy mess that’s befallen us. We grapple with trying to understand what’s going on while trying to organize possible solutions. In the middle, we worry. But what if…

Much of my career included a lot of travel. Travel includes delays. My last trip through the Charlotte Douglas airport intersected with a rain delay of over six hours. Bleary-eyed, unable to face working, I turned to YouTube to distract myself. I decided to research videos on Albert Einstein. I learned that Einstein believed that our lives are created by our expectations. That nugget twinged in my head through the long night of travel and many nights since. I began to look at what I expected…more struggle. And wondered — what if I expect differently? What if…

I’ve been a world-class worrier. It’s a skill that REALLY worked for me. I used my talents to imagine every negative possibility, then lined up possible solutions A-Z, then AA-ZZ, and so on. I pre-planned solutions for any possible worry. It got exhausting; the shine wore off, the moon shifted, or something changed — because worrying created other worries. I realized that constant headaches, upset stomachs, lost researching time for possibilities that would never affect me, and information hoarding talents were negatively impacting my life. And I began to question. What if….

It wasn’t a skill I could let go of without a good struggle, though. The negative vibrations I offered myself through worrying were a bit addictive. My old habit was like my oldest friend. Letting go of worry seemed like a betrayal to the old parts of myself that had benefited. But a small, defiant part of myself rallied other pieces of consciousness to start a collective uprising. The question got louder in my head. What if…

What if every time I caught myself worrying, I asked myself: what if everything was going to be perfect? What if everything turned out ok?

For me, it was a revolutionary shift. I incorporated this new process into my life after challenging my expectations. I used my life results to find old beliefs behind those expectations. I felt the old feelings behind those beliefs to honor and release them. I asked myself: how old do I feel? I thought back to those moments when I felt like the beliefs were formed. In short, I did THE work. I began to see the beliefs shift and my expectations change. But it all started with asking myself — what if? I’ve shared this with friends who are doing the same shift and I invite you to join us. Every time you catch yourself worrying, just ask yourself: What if everything worked out perfectly? What if this worked out better than I could ever imagine? What if this was a stepping stone into the life I truly want? What if…

I hear the skeptics in the peanut section already, saying this is a Pollyanna-ish approach. I hear you and ask you — what are YOU expecting? Look at what you’re getting now. Is this working for you? If so, don’t change a thing. If not, consider Einstein’s approach. Expect differently. What if?…

Please don’t use this tool to beat yourself up over the time you’ve spent worrying in the past. That was the old us. The current us can shift and change…and give ourselves grace. If you’re not able to function without punishing yourself for what you didn’t know when you didn’t know it, please get help. Talk to a kind friend who will listen. Download a therapy app or set up an appointment with a professional. Be kind to yourself. And ask yourself, what if this worked out perfectly?

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Dalla Johnson
Healthy Mind, Healthy Life

I began my creative writing journey early, but lost my way and wandered into corporate marketing writing. I’m just restarting my writer’s journey now. Join me!