Expectation Management

One of the biggest stress causer is – When you have an expectation from someone and that person does not meet your expectation. This can be your family, friends, colleagues or anyone. It is important to understand that everyone has their own perspective of a given situation which can be very different from yours.

Let me explain with an example shared by Mrs. Shivani. A wife wakes up earlier than usual and makes a tasty breakfast for her husband. The husband has the breakfast, says bye to the wife and heads off to office. This causes so much frustration to the wife. She expected her husband to say "Thank you for an excellent breakfast". However, the husband had a critical task at office and he was preoccupied. He did not pay attention to what he was eating. But the wife doesn’t know this. She just feels the husband is indifferent and doesn’t appreciate her for what she deserves. All through the day, the wife keeps on building this frustration. She calls one of her friends and explains the situation. That friend adds salt to injury and says - "How can your husband be so mean and thankless..". This adds to be frustration and stress. The husband comes home after a long day and greets his wife like any normal day. The wife was expecting that at least now he should say thank you.. Finally she asks him "How was the breakfast?". He says casually that it was ok. That’s the last nail on the coffin and the wife goes ballistic. The poor husband has no clue what's happening...

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Hope you guys got the message. The easiest way to improve your life is – Do not have any expectation from anyone. Accept the behaviors of others and appreciate their perspective and their situation.

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When you do a favor to someone, do not expect anything in return. Tell yourself that you are doing this for your own happiness. In the above case, the wife made the tasty breakfast out of her love for her husband. If he says "Thank you" or not, it doesn’t matter. She did this for her happiness and not for the "Thank you".

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This is very easy to say and it takes weeks or months to perfect this art. But trust me, once you do that your life will be much more beautiful, much less stressful and you will be much more successful in everything you do!!!