I’ve always believed that expectations are a dangerous thing. They have the capacity to create tunnel vision and blind you to very good things that you miss because you are so focused on the expected outcome.

For example, I own a small business in which I sell camping hammocks and donate a meal to the homeless for each hammock that I sell. Let’s say I have a goal to sell 150 hammocks in a month. That is my expectation. I work hard every day to get those hammocks sold, but the end of the month rolls around and I’ve only sold 100 hammocks. If the only thing I’m looking at is what I was expecting, then I see myself as a failure and I am disappointed with the results. However, if I can step back and see that I sold 100 hammocks, that’s 100 more than 0, which means I still made a good amount of money and I also fed 100 homeless people! That’s AWESOME! But it is so easy to miss that if we are too focused on what our expectations were.

By no means am I saying that you shouldn’t have goals. Goals motivate us to work hard and perform our best. But after you set a goal and work hard to achieve that goal, focus on what you achieved instead of where you fell short! If I hadn’t set the goal of 150, maybe I don’t sell anywhere near to the 100.

I’m sure every single person reading this post can think of a time in their life when they expected a certain outcome and it didn’t come. Disappoint surely followed. It takes a whole lot of practice to train our minds to see the good in situations like this because for some reason, our minds are seemingly wired to see the thorns before the roses. This too can be a helpful tool if you utilize it in a healthy way. Here’s a little saying to help with this:

“Flaws fix the future if perfection paints the past”

We have moments of flaws and moments of perfection in everything we do. Our thoughts of the past and present control our emotional well being. If we can see the good we’ve gone through and the good we are currently experiencing, we will be able to be content and happy with where we are at in life. It’s ok to look at flaws and shortcomings, but we need to do so in an analytical way that will help us take action on future endeavors to improve and become better.

When we don’t allow ourselves to be blinded by expectations, a mistake becomes an opportunity to improve instead of a step towards condemnation. Life is 10 percent experience, and 90 percent reaction. That can be really difficult to hear if you’re in a difficult place, but I believe it with all my heart.

So if you do not like where you’re at, figure out why. Focus on what you are in control of and be happy with everything else, because it’s more than likely not going to be what you expected.