By Ronnie Toofan
The other day I watched Obama’s 2015 White House Correspondent’s Dinner Speech. In the video, Keegan-Michael Key of Comedy Central’s series Key & Peele acted as the president’s anger translator to make sure he got his points across, loud and clear. It was hilarious.
Sometimes, I wish I could have my own anger/emotional translator, or someone who would speak up for me and explain all the things I want to say so that I could expect others to fully understand what I really mean. But I guess that’s one thing that we can’t really have in this life. We have to learn to be responsible and cautious of our own expectations in order to avoid all the different kinds of trouble we could get ourselves into.
Today I’ve came up with a list of harmful expectations that you have to stay away from in order to get yourself going in the right direction and make your life better.
Expecting Others to Understand You All the Time
You cannot dictate to others what they should think or whether they should agree with you or not. You cannot control other people’s feelings. You can’t tell them what to feel, when to get mad, hurt, disappointed or frustrated especially after you have done or said something really stupid.
However, you can control yourself, your reactions, your emotions, your decisions and whatever comes out of your mouth. So, instead of expecting others to always agree with your opinion or thinking that your answer is the only solution to everything, learn to listen to what other people have to say, take time to see things from their perspective and also learn to communicate what’s on your mind without being offensive.
Dr. Jennice Vilhauer has some useful suggestions on how you can express yourself effectively to avoid unnecessary fights:
• Don’t assume that expressing your emotions will cause conflict.
• Put your emotions out there without justifying your feelings.
• Express what you WANT before what you DON’T want.
Blaming your partner and judging her actions right away without giving her a chance to explain her side, and telling her your needs in such a demanding way will just result in arguments and create distance and disconnection in your relationship. To avoid this, you should change the way you express your emotions. It may seem really difficult but it’s certainly well worth the effort.
Expecting Success to Just Fall Into Your Lap
You shouldn’t leave everything to chance; you have to work hard to make things happen. You have to give 100% commitment in attaining your dreams to make sure they won’t fall by the wayside.
For example, you decide to start your own blog site as a side-hustle to grow your income. Though you can really write great content, you can’t just rely on that alone and expect it to become visible online immediately. Your content, no matter how amazing, won’t sell by itself.
According to writer Abdullahi Muhammed, you have to invest substantial amount of time, money and effort to step up your marketing game.
Producing great content alone is not enough to help you achieve your marketing goals. You have to put the extra time and effort into it to get the results that you want.
Expecting Change Without Changing
Insanity, as defined by Albert Einstein, is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. To put it simply, you can’t expect to see change without doing something differently.
If you want to be in good shape, for instance, you have to make the necessary adjustments with your eating habits and physical activities. You can’t, of course, expect yourself to be healthy without revamping your lifestyle.
To help you see significant progress in your weight loss battle, check this out – “4 Secret Weapons That Will Help You Lose Weight.”
Writer Sam Becker shares non-traditional tools that you should combine with focused diet and dialed-in exercise routine.
Expecting Others to Love You More Than You Love Yourself
It’s funny how some people beg or demand love, respect and attention that they don’t seem to give themselves. I think that one of the golden rules of life that you need to take to heart is to treat yourself the way you want others to treat you. You have to embrace yourself and learn to be comfortable with who you are first before you can expect others to love you.
In the piece “The Marriage Trap: How to Deal With Society Pressuring You to Get Married,” writer Kalee Brown explains the importance of understanding self-love first before deciding whether or not to get married.
I like it when he said, “If you’re assuming that your love for an individual will fix all your problems, you have a problem.”
In my opinion, self-awareness or self-love is an essential ingredient to fully love another. When you know yourself and when you have a deeper understanding of your basic needs as a man and as partner, you’ll be capable of choosing the person you want to share the rest of your life with and you will not end up having unrealistic expectations for yourself and for your significant other, resulting in a happier and everlasting union.