Wants and Expectations might seem pretty similar on the surface, but there is a difference between them… like with satisfaction, it all comes back to your mindset. For example, let’s say you go to a new restaurant. You know nothing about it except for the smells coming from the kitchen and the name on the door, but you want a hamburger.
On the other hand, what if you walked into the same burger place you’ve been to a thousand times and have the intention of ordering your favorite hamburger, made just the way you like it?
In the first scenario, you didn’t know if the restaurant served burgers, you didn’t know if the place even had the type of hamburger you liked! You just knew you wanted a burger, but outside circumstances were going to determine if you received the burger. The second scenario had one thing different, you knew the hamburger was there, you just had to order it.
There was no want, no doubt, no worry… you just had to walk to the counter and place the same order, and barring some act of God, you were going to get the burger. You expected it, and we can’t want what we expect.
Expectation is as easy as breathing, we all know that as humans, if we breathe in and out we stay alive. We don’t even need to think about breathing because it is something that our bodies do naturally. We don’t ‘want’ to breathe or worry that one day the oxygen isn’t going to fulfill our needs. Instead, we know we will get what we need if we perform the action.
Expectations are all well and good, but where does this tie into satisfaction?
Turning Wants Into Expectations Can Lead To Satisfaction Troubles
Whenever you were younger, did you ever hear adults tell you that something was a ‘privilege and not a right?’ Most of the time it might have had to do with electronics or some other reward, where you could have the reward as long as you followed certain rules, otherwise it would be taken away.
Well, as adults, we seem to have the same lesson taught to us, only this time it has to deal with wants and expectations. Whenever we turn wants into expectations, particularly unrealistic expectations, we can lose out on being satisfied. For example, let’s take a promotion at your job as an example.
Whatever your job might be, you might not be satisfied with it. You might want to make more money, get a promotion, do more important work and less busy work, or really show your boss that you are the best employee this company has ever had. These are things you want. You want more money, to be promoted, to do better work, to do well in the eyes of your boss, and these wants are good.
They can motivate you to go above and beyond, communicate more, step into the shoes of a leader, and allow you to think more deeply about the work you do. The problem is whenever these wants turn into expectations. There’s a difference between wanting more money and expecting it, or wanting to have your name called for a promotion and expecting that promotion.
Because whenever we don’t get what we want, we might be bummed and might use the disappointment to try better. When we don’t get what we expect, the emotions often turn to anger and resentment, like everything we should have got snatched away. So instead of trying to better ourselves and try harder, we feel anger towards the people or situation that took away what we deserve and what was rightfully ours.
Losing Satisfaction From Lost Experiences
Having our expectations denied can make us focus on the lack that we are experiencing, which ties us to the expectation. If you lose out on a promotion that you were expecting for instance, you might find that you are angry, you start being resentful towards your job and boss, and you might start doing things that will keep the promotion out of your grasp.
This will certainly damage how satisfied we feel, because we are constantly focusing on the lack that we have. So how do you avoid this? How do you avoid making everything an expectation and getting tied to the outcome? Well, there are two things you can do. The first is to let go of the outcome, and the second is to search for proof.
Letting out and having outcome independence is something most self development books will talk about in greater detail, but the main point is to focus on the journey and what you can control, and not on what you can’t. For example, in the case of a promotion, you can’t control who your boss will pick or what they will look for, but you can focus on being a good employee and showcasing promotable qualities.
If you are promoted, great, but if you aren’t then you are at least being a good employee, which will have its own benefits for you down the line. With this, your satisfaction doesn’t hinge on something you can’t control, but rather the satisfaction of what you can control- such as a job well done.
Or you can look for proof that validates your expectation. Going back to the hamburger example, you went to the restaurant that sells hamburgers and ordered the same burger that you have had several times over. You know the restaurant in question stocks your favorite, and you don’t need to worry about it. You have proof.
Look for that same proof with your wants. If you know that a certain action or series of actions has gotten other people promotions or extra raises or benefits, then try to take those same actions and replicate the results. They might not always work out, but if they do, then you have the proof needed to make a want an expectation.