To enhance wellbeing, one of the prevalent pieces of advice you will come across is to lower your expectations. I couldn’t disagree more vehemently!

I do, however, understand the principle. Lowering expectations can greatly diminish disappointment.  Many a melancholic friend has said they deliberately don’t look forward to birthdays and Christmas and holidays so that they don’t get disappointed. To me, that’s to give up on hope and creative imagination. Instead of lowering our expectations, wouldn’t it be better to revise them, renegotiate them, recalibrate them, and even reinvent them?

As Stephanie Nicks wrote, and Lynn Anderson sang:

I beg your pardon

I never promised you a rose garden

Along with the sunshine

There’s gotta be a little rain sometime 

Oldie but Goldie’s blog on dreams and illusions sings from a similar page.

https://www.moodscope.com/blog/dreams-and-illusions/

Unrealistic dreams become illusions; unrealistic expectations pave the way to melancholy!  Therefore, let’s invest some imagination in reinventing our expectations realistically with a little bit of a s-t-r-e-t-c-h for good luck!  I was told years ago it is better to aim for the stars and hit the moon than to aim for the moon and miss.  Frankly, I think it is better to prepare well, aim for the moon, and land on the moon – with a landing that goes way better than expected!

My current mental-health counsellor happens to be an expert in nutrition. He’s attending a conference this weekend on the benefits of an almost zero carbohydrate diet.  I’m looking forward to our next session with great expectations because he’s also having a meal out with the main speakers. His assertion is that changing food ‘fuel’ changes your mood. I positively expect to learn much… and to pay it forwards in a forthcoming blog!

Would you mind sharing some of your realistic, positive expectations for the next 90 days?

Cheers!

Lex

A Moodscope member

[Oh, by the way, the title of this blog comes from Bruce Hornsby and the Range’s iconic hit: “The Way It Is.”  This song is about challenging unjust expectations and history bears testament to the fact that reinventing expectations often works!]