It is quite common to easily sucked into realm of negativity just by one bad experience.
Perhaps the second experience was not as bad, but subconsciously we find all reasons to justify how bad it was. Then comes the third, fourth, and so on. Before we knew it, we’re caught in a world of “doomsday” when everything just doesn’t seem to work for us.
Recognising this is critical before we further shove ourselves into depression cave.
Managing expectation is the the first and foremost. In fact, you are already expecting something out of this post from the moment you started reading it. Else, why does it matter? No doubt having expectation is common alongside ambitions. Truth to be told, with expectation comes satisfaction as much as disappointment. Unfortunately, life doesn’t always come our way. Still, there is always a way to stay positive.
Ambitions must be kept alive – embrace challenges with open arms, but yet be kind to ourselves by managing expectations within our means, capacity, and reasonable milestones. We’ll never know; surprises that come out of no expectation could be more rewarding than we thought.
One key characteristic of an ambition is that it is far-reaching. Far-reaching goals take time to accomplish, not overnight. That’s why they feed us so much pride and satisfaction when we finally achieve them. A build-up of milestones can get us there, slowly but surely.
Having said that, while milestones can help us in dissecting goals into smaller achievable objectives, it is imperative not to overwhelm these objectives.
Every little victory is also a victory – just that it consumes a lot of patience, time, and effort before we could finally see the rainbow.
Victories, despite big or small are seeds to our motivation gradually. Likewise, victories will not be possible if expectation’s bar is set too high beyond reasonable, leading to frequent let-down despite deep commitment.
Being demanding, especially to ourselves is great. It sets standard. At the same time, there is no harm in leaving some room for unknown possibilities, flexible outcomes, or shall we say … “little surprises“? Life is too short to keep occupying ourselves with list of standards to achieve. Go easy on ourselves and take a breather: expecting nothing can be a good thing.
Photo by: @framesoflifeblog