Expectation vs. Reality
What fills the gap for you between the two?
Disappointment? Frustration? Anger?
For example: How do you respond at work when your colleague’s work product turns out differently from what you expected? In life outside work, what feeling fills the space when the experience you have is not what you imagined? Do you lower your expectations in the hope that you can eliminate or reduce your disappointment? Do you resolve to micromanage similar situations in the hope that you can control their outcomes? Or do you take a look at the situation and ask yourself what response will be most productive? To help manage the expectation/reality gap, you could, for example, ask yourself some questions:
How aware were you of your expectations?
How reasonable and realistic were your expectations in all the circumstances?
If your expectations involved others, how clearly did you communicate them to everyone else involved?
How sure are you that anyone else involved understood them?
What may have changed about the situation between setting your expectations and the outcome?
How fair is your view of reality? Is there a different way of looking at things?
What can you appreciate about the situation now?
How can you manage a similar situation in the future to avoid a repeat experience?
These questions won’t change what happened (between creating your expectation and the outcome) but they can help change how you see and respond to what happened. They can shift your perspective and how you see “reality.” And that can change which emotions fill the gap!
