How Expectations Can Send You Into A Tailspin
A heavy lesson I learned as a caregiver to a loved one.
You put a lot of work into something. You create an expectation in your mind of what the outcome will be. And then it all goes completely sideways.
I remind myself often: Focus On The Moment Of Now. It is such an important framework for a quality life that I’ve included it as one of the 17 principles for living well in my latest ebook. (principle #10 in the book)
But in recent days, I failed to focus on the now. And it all came from unrealistic expectations.
Right now, I’m writing this as I sit in a rehab center with my elderly grandma. She fell in her independent living apartment and partially fractured her femur.
The last few days have been a complete fire drill.
We rushed her to the hospital in the ambulance. Many hours in the ER. Speaking with various hip and knee doctors, waiting for the news on whether an emergency surgery would be required (the final answer was no, as it was a less severe fracture). Numerous nights in the hospital until she was discharged and transported to a rehabilitation facility.
The brain is a funny organ. When in the scorching blaze of the fire, it can kick into an overdrive unlike anything else. But other challenges come when the adrenaline starts to wear off.
After the immediate wave of fight-or-flight adrenaline passed over me, I started to feel really sad. I felt sad for my grandma and the long road ahead to recovery.
Headaches, general fatigue, inability to sleep, feeling like crap. It hit me like a tsunami. My focus was lacking, my judgment was clouded. I was so messed up I poured coffee into a mug upside down.
After some days of processing, I realized these feelings all came from my unrealistic expectations and fantasies I had created in my mind about the situation.
My grandma has been faced with numerous orthopedic issues for quite some time. As her secondary caregiver, I’ve aided in taking her to constant doctor appointments, physical therapy appointments, and preparing food and smoothies to ensure she is receiving quality nutrition. It’s all out of love, but at the same time, it’s impossible not to project an improved future-state outcome from these actions.
And that’s where I allowed my mind to get myself into trouble.
All of that effort, blood, sweat and tears. Progress was being made. And now all progress had been completely erased. I felt hopeless.
“Expectation is the root of all heartache” — William Shakespeare
The danger of unmet expectations
The thing with expectations is that when you create them and they aren’t met, you can quickly feel a sense of anxiety, inadequacy, impatience, and hopelessness.
This is called reward-prediction error in neuroscience. It’s the difference between what you actually receive and what you expected to receive.
In my case in recent days, I’ve felt anxious and hopeless.
I had allowed my expectations of my grandma and her health progress to get too inflated. The reward-prediction error that came from seeing my grandma in severe pain with a fractured femur hit me like a ton of bricks.
My Reward-Prediction Error
Steady improvement of my grandma’s physical health. More independence. Greater quality of life. Less work for myself.
Rapid reversal of my grandma’s physical health. No independence for the foreseeable future. Reduced short-term quality of life. More work for myself.
I had always known this was a possibility. This wasn’t the first fall or first health event that could’ve turned out like this (or much worse).
But to a certain degree, deep down, I still was holding on to this unrealistic and hopeful expectation that my grandma’s condition would continue to improve in a linear fashion.
And selfishly, this expectation was also connected to my own personal interests, as improvement in her health would mean less time and effort that would be required of me to help her as a caregiver. It would mean more time I could devote to my career and projects, and more quality time I could spend with her in a non-caregiver function.
My feeling of hopelessness, sadness and anxiety all came from this expectation. And from a neuroscientific perspective, I probably felt so terrible due to a drop in that came from my disappointment in the outcome.
The Goldilocks zone of expectations
Various disciplines use this concept of the Goldilocks Zone (or Goldilocks principle), from astronomy to nutritional science. The basic principle is the same: Too little or too much of something produces poor outcomes.
- In the case of astronomy, the distance of a planet from its sun cannot be too close or too far to produce life. It needs to be the right distance, like Earth is from our sun.
- In nutritional science, too much or too little of a given vitamin and mineral can be detrimental to health outcomes.
- In development psychology, it refers to an infant’s gravitation towards events that are neither too simple nor complex.
For expectations, the Goldilocks Zone functions as follows:
- Too low of expectations can leave you with a gloomy view of the world.
- Too high of expectations can leave you severely disappointed, with waves of anxiety and hopelessness following in its wake due to reward-prediction error.
There is no question that having no expectations makes acceptance of what is so much easier. This is why in Buddhism, expectations are seen as the result of a “ ,” a mind grasping on to an illusion of control in a world that is infinitely complex.
But having no expectations isn’t realistic. It’s near impossible to prevent expectations from growing in your subconscious. And expectations are an important tool that we can leverage to motivate us towards some goal in the external world.
The key lies in questioning your assumptions and the expectations you’ve formed.
Question your expectations to avoid the pain of disappointment
When you find yourself creating a whole set of expectations about a given situation or person, stop yourself and ask:
- Are you setting yourself up for severe disappointment?
- Are you turning a blind eye to the possible sub-optimal outcomes, imagining they don’t exist?
If the answer to either is yes, be diligent to moderate these expectations. Label your fears. Recognize you can’t control the outcomes with anywhere near 100% certainty. All you can control is your actions and your mindset.
Work to replace your outcome-based thinking with intention. Train your mind to be independent of the outcome, whether it’s about your work, a relationship, a caregiving situation like I’ve described, or another person.
Your willingness to let go of expectations is ultimately a choice within your control.
If you do so, you’ll enjoy yourself more thoroughly while saving yourself the hardship of severe disappointment. You’ll live more in the present, opening yourself to the beauty of life.
I’m actively struggling with this moderation of my expectations as we speak. But when you find yourself in a seemingly unfortunate circumstance, take a few breaths and focus on finding — the good in it and what it can teach you. This is the path to lifelong growth.
Resources
1) 📝 Article: The Tryanny of Expectations from Dharma Wisdom
2) 📖 Book: Expectation Hangover by Christine Hassler
3) 🎥 Video: Reward-Prediction Error from Andrew Huberman Lab
4) 🎥 Video: On Being Mindful of Expectations from Cameron Rosin on Instagram
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Originally published at https://wellelifestyle.com.
