When it comes to expectations, my preference is to aim low and then be happy when I meet or exceed them. I know that approach doesn’t work for everyone, so I wanted to explore when it may or may not work. I think it might help to break the expectation/doing/result process into steps.
This process is by no means scientific; it’s really just me pulling something out of my ass.
- Identifying something to do
- Evaluating the desire to do it
- Anticipating the reward that will result from doing it
- Anticipating the effort/resources/spoons that will be necessary to do it
- Making a decision whether to do it or not
- Setting your expectations and navigating any psychological messiness that may arise
- Find motivation to take action
- Take action (which is limited by capacity)
- Evaluate reward
- Evaluate outcome vs. expectations
Making a decision
The first 5 steps are about making a decision about what you want to do.
I see step 2 (evaluating the desire to do a thing) as related to but distinct from motivation. If we’re talking about potentially going from A to B, I see desire as caring about B being a place to get to, and motivation as the oomph to actually move you from A to B. Evaluating desire is where I see apathy coming into play; if I don’t give a rat’s ass about place B, that’s a different thing from wanting to get to B but not having the motivation to make it happen.
Steps 3 and 4 involve a combination of self-awareness and making guesses about the future when it comes to reward and capacity, which we’ll get to shortly.
At step 5, you might just decide fuck it, you can’t be bothered, and just move on. How willing you are to say fuck it probably has a lot to do with what you expect of yourself more generally as well as what you think others expect of you. The inner critic might not be interested in accepting fuck it as an option.
Setting expectations
Okay, so you’ve made the decision that you do want to move from point A to point B, and now it’s time to figure out what you expect from yourself on that journey and where you expect to end up. All kinds of psychological messiness could get in the way here, including perfectionism, procrastination, and other forms of self-sabotage.
The reality gap is the difference between our expectations and reality. The bigger the reality gap, the more we suffer. We can’t necessarily control reality, but we can adjust our expectations. When expectations are set so high that there’s guaranteed to be a substantial gap between reality and those expectations, that’s likely to sign you up for a big dollop o’ suffering.
Motivation
The APA Dictionary of Psychology defines motivation as: “the impetus that gives purpose or direction to behavior and operates in humans at a conscious or unconscious level… Motives are frequently divided into (a) physiological, primary, or organic motives, such as hunger, thirst, and need for sleep; and (b) personal, social, or secondary motives, such as affiliation, competition, and individual interests and goals.”
Motivation can be intrinsic (i.e. we’re motivated to do something for our own sake) or extrinsic (we’re motivated to do it for other people’s sake). Intrinsic motivation is likely to give you a stronger boost, but extrinsic motivation may be more accessible.
Motivation doesn’t necessarily have to precede action; sometimes it comes after acting, and other times it doesn’t come at all. But if you wait until you feel motivated before doing things, you may just end up waiting forever.
Capacity
Illness can do a lot to limit capacity. Whether your mental illness is acting up, you’ve got a migraine, or you’re having a chronic pain flare, your capacity in the present may be significantly less than your capacity when you’re doing your best.
I see a few factors coming into play when anticipating capacity. One is self-awareness; maybe you’ve learned from past experience that on migraine days, you need to hide out in a dark hole and do absolutely nothing. Another is where you are on the spectrum of resistance to acceptance. Acceptance can mean knowing that depression limits your energy and finding workarounds to help you conserve energy, while resistance can mean not wanting to let depression limit what you can do. The inner critic may have a lot to say about whether or not you give yourself permission to limit your expectations.
If you’re regularly overestimating your capacity, you’re probably setting your expectations higher than what you’re able to achieve. On the other hand, if you’re regularly low-balling your capacity, you may end up doing less than you’re actually capable of.
Reward
The neurotransmitter dopamine and the region of the brain called the nucleus accumbens play a role in the reward system, although they’re not the only kids in town. This system involves multiple phases: appetitive (reward-seeking) and consummative (reward-experiencing), and then learning based on those experiences.
Anhedonia (reduced ability to experience pleasure) can be a symptom of mental illnesses like depression, bipolar, schizophrenia, and schizoaffective disorder. It can affect both reward-seeking and reward-experiencing, and the longer it goes on, the more you become conditioned not to expect much of a reward in the future. If I didn’t care much about getting to point B in the first place, and then when I got there it was meh, I’m going to be even less likely to give a rat’s ass about moving from point A to point B in the future.
Evaluating outcome vs. expecations
You may evaluate the same outcome positively or negatively depending on expectations. If you got 80% on a test but expected 90%, you’ll probably be disappointed. On the other hand, if you got 80% but only expected 70%, you’ll probably be happy.
If you expected perfection, unless you got 100% on that test, you’re guaranteed to be disappointed. Let’s say the test was on technical aspects of blogging, and in your mind, 85% would be the bare minimum to be a “real” blogger. With your 80%, it’s hello, impostor syndrome.
Where do things get messy?
What might work best for a given person probably depends on what their rate-limiting step is. In chemistry, that’s the step that does the most to slow the entire reaction down.
For me, the rate-limiting step is capacity. Depression slows down my brain and my body, and that limits what I can do. I’ve gotten to a place of acceptance around that, and I’m generally pretty good at evaluating where I’m at with capacity.
The other major factor for me is anhedonia fucking with the whole reward thing. When I’m at point A, I don’t give a rat’s ass about point B. Then if I get to point B, I still don’t give a rat’s ass about it. If I have a reason to do something (e.g. the guinea pigs need their cage cleaned), I can drum up the motivation to make it happen. Motivation is generally not a rate-limiting step for me. Psychological messiness can play a role, but if I’m sick enough that my head is really messy, that’s affecting my capacity too, and that still tends to be the rate-limiting step.
I think keeping expectations low works well for me because of that combination of factors. Now it’s your turn—which steps cause you the most problems? Do you tend to set your expectations on the high or low side?
I could probably stand to revisit things. I tend to have high expectations, and it gets me in trouble more often than not.
I would imagine with me it would be more of a mixture of expectations.
High expectations and ongoing illness symptoms sounds like a tough combination to manage.
They are. I am working on so much at a given time, but this really needs to be a priority. 🙂
Insightful
😊
It depends on the situation. I guess I had too high of expectations re dating, romance marriage. I lowered and lowered them until I decided eff this, why bother? Sometimes I still have too high of expectations re social events. There’s always some annoying factor! I need to work on lowering them there…
I am so with you on the eff this, why bother…
This is a good topic. I struggle with high expectations because I can’t meet them, but on the flip side, if the expectations are too low, I don’t even see the point of bothering with them, and I still won’t meet them. I felt like this a lot with Shabbat and Passover during the pandemic
Is that starting to get easier with the pandemic easing into the background?
With Jewish stuff, yes to an extent. With other stuff, not necessarily.
I am low expectations. That way if it doesn’t happen, it won’t hurt me much, if it does hurt me.
I have had low expectations for a number of years now, after disappointments.
Yeah, disappointment can sure be hard.
I aim for low as well, anything else then is an added benefit.
I like that.
😊
I, like you, set my expectations low. Life is difficult enough without setting myself up for disappointment. In fact, I try not to set expectations but rather small, achievable goals. That way I remain a super hero in my own mind 🤓 lol.
Woohoo! 🙌
I always plan for the best, but also try to execute without having too many expectations. Less disappointment that way. When things don’t go as planned – which happens a lot – I try to have multiple backup plans, so there’s always something to fall back on. Especially truewin my work.
Sounds like a good approach.
I tend to set low expectations of myself lately. I don’t like failing, and I self sabotage quite a bit. Since I seem to be declining a lot physically lately that also has played a role.
But I know setting my standards for myself too low will also set me up to fail and not try, which is why a few weeks ago in therapy we talked about adjusting my “good enough” line.
That makes sense.
I love this post, Ashley! As a congenital optimist, I almost always set my expectations high and then sign up for suffering. My hardest is in the middle part when it doesn’t go as smoothly as I anticipated. But life has taught me to weather that storm so that I manage to get to the end. As you pointed out so succinctly, I’m probably suffering more than I need to but it gets me to sign up for a lot of things so as long as I know myself well-enough to identify the right point B’s, it works. 🙂 Thanks for a thought-provoking post!
That’s awesome that you’re able to push through those storms.
Interesting article because I’ve had reasons to be thinking about the expectations that I’ve been setting for myself. My expectations are generally low but now I am seeing where I need to set some higher expectations or targets and see where I land. Perfection was never my style but I am going to try it for some short term goals that I have.
I hope that works out well!
Thank you
I am not sure where my expectation level is. Some days I have no expectations whatsoever. I just feel like whatever happens happens. Don’t expect much, no disappointment.
Then there are those days where my expectations run high, bam, disappointment city.
So, I stick to no expectations, no surprises that way!
I like it!
This is very accurate for me, thanks for sharing! I have high expectations and tend to set my goal to high, as I’m setting myself up to fail (a pattern I’m trying to break away from).
I’ll share your post on my site as I found it very informative and suited to my other posts!
Have a lovely day 🌸
Thank you! 😊 Hope you have a great day too! 🌼
Thanks! 😊
I love your steps! I need to work on this, thanks for the advice!
❤️
Love the post! I am a combination of setting low and high expectations. With regard to work, paid work, I set very low expectations these days. With respect to all the home activities like managing the household and providing support for husband and daughter, I set medium to fairly high expectations. This seems to work for me as I believe the old hippocampus has been damaged such that “work” is very difficult to attain. I am happy keeping myself in the home/private domain rather than trying to compete in the working world.
Me too.
Which steps cause you the most problems? Um, the biggest problem these days is the spoons (energy) to do tasks I found easy to accomplish even a month ago. Ill health exacerbates lack of motivation due to pain or anger and physically plays out (ex: taking out my trash can, which is maybe 15 or 20 steps to the curb and a walk back) causes me so much physical pain now that I can barely do it). I took a cane with me today because at least I won’t fall down with one, which almost happened last week.
Do you tend to set your expectations on the high or low side? I’ve had a very low expectation threshold since I was seven or maybe eight years of age. I kept repeatedly being disappointed or denied things “they” said I could earn (like a ride in the car). I feel (and this is probably way off plumb) that this constant disappointment led to my severe distrust of “authority” figures now, it cost me self esteem (life long gift that kept on giving), and autonomy and feeling trust in myself (if I misjudged someone and they let me down? Whose fault is that? Well MINE of course. It’s very unhealthy thinking. I’m learning to have better self-esteem, but I’ll NEVER put the bar too high on expectations. Because I still find that if I trust someone to do something they say they will, they’ll usually disappoint me.
There are exceptions of course, I know a couple of people who come through on their promises or agree to do something for a gimpy old lady like me, regardless. There are good people out there, I’ve just been perhaps unlucky not to meet more of them.
It’s pretty hard to unlearn lessons that you’ve been taught over and over again in early life that people aren’t trustworthy.