(Tired of failed New Year's Resolutions? I offer the following thoughts. It’s real to me and I hope it helps other.)
Big problems often have easy solutions. For example, need to lose 30 lbs, just eat less and exercise more. Big credit card problems, just shop less, earn and save more. Simple cause & effect. So why is that we don’t fix our big problems?
The answer is because we don’t really understand the root of the problem and as a result we try to fix the cause before we see the connection to our expectations. Therefore, our efforts just lead to frustration and failure. For a more permanent result first examine your expectations.
From personal experience, I think the root of many of our biggest problems is our expectations. I’m not saying that a person who is constantly fighting with their spouse doesn’t have problems with their marriage nor am I saying that someone who is 30 lbs overweight doesn’t have a problem with what they eat and a lack of physical activity. Clearly our behaviors are the cause of problems. What I’m saying is that those problems can’t be permanently fixed by just changing behaviors without adjusting the expectations that lead to the causes of the problem in the first place.
One can take direct steps to solve the problem, for example starting a diet to lose weight, but if one doesn’t fix the underlying expectations that lead to the behavior, the problem will only resurface. So someone with a marital problem or a weight problem, or some other chronic problem in their life might find that the problem is more effectively resolved by altering their expectations. Here is why.
An expectation is somewhat like a goal, with its own mental gravitational pull. Goals are deemed powerful because of how they can be inserted into our subconscious, which works like our own personal agent on a mission to help us achieve our goal. If you’ve learned about goal setting then you know it requires strong and repetitive affirmations to imprint goals in our mind in order for goal setting to work. While I believe in the power of goal setting, I think expectations are possibly even more powerful. When you have an “expectation” it’s kind of like you have a mental hole in your life that has to be filled. A goal is a hope, whereas as an expectation is a belief. Beliefs make us who we are and control how we act.
The nice thing about goals is that we make (decide on) them. We choose whether or not to set a presumably positive goal. A classic example is a “New Year’s Resolution.” On the other hand, our expectations are more insidious – they are formed over time often without a conscious awareness of their harmful impact. So, while a goal can easily be changed, once an expectation is set it cannot be easily changed. Our goals can be ignored or we can just give up on them, and make new ones. Not so with expectations! It takes a lot to form an expectation and it takes nearly as much to remove them. Therefore, if an expectation leads to negative and undesirable problems it is extremely difficult to change.
Because expectations are generally formed over very many years, they are not ordinarily changed overnight. So while we can make a New Year’s Day resolution to change some behavior overnight, it just doesn’t work that way with expectations. It takes concentrated effort over a greater period of time to reshape our expectations. But it can be done!! And, there are people and tools to help us do so in less time! And, like a New Year’s resolution, one can certainly decide overnight to take the first steps towards doing so!!
Also, it’s difficult sometimes to make the connection between the problem expectation and the problem itself. The association isn’t always apparent since an expectation can surface in a wide range of possible problems.
In conclusion, if we have a big problem we may be able to fix it more easily if we start by examining our expectations and filling the holes in our lives! What are the holes in your life? Find those, fill those, and then you can fix your big problems. I’m getting my shovel!!