Do you expect the best or worse from life? Most of us have learned to expect the worse. We expect the worse as a way to protect ourselves from disappointment. We don't want to get our hopes up for the best, only to come crushing down in defeat if the worse happens after all. It is just seems easier to expect the worse and hope for the best. If the best happens, then we receive a pleasant surprise. If the worse happens, then we were right in our predictions.
Our life experiences may have taught us to expect the worse. We assume that if we didn't get what we wanted in the past, then the future will be more of the same. We believe that the past defines the future.
I used to expect the worse. I had a long history of not getting what I wanted, so I just assumed that the future would be just like the past. When I learned that our thoughts and expectations create the future, I knew that I had to learn how to expect the best. Our life experiences are a carbon copy of our thoughts and expectations. I also had to learn that the past isn't connected to the present or future. What I experience at this moment may look like the past, but it doesn't have to have the same outcome. I couldn't use the past to predict what would happen in the future any more. Each moment is a new beginning. Each experience deserves its own unique interpretation rather than being weighed down with baggage from the past.
Now I'm hopeful about the future, regardless of what is happening at the present moment. I simply expect the best to happen. I know and trust that everything happens for a reason. I may temporarily be disappointed, but I know that it is unwise to dwell too long on disappointment. I benefit from every disappointment just as much as I benefit from every success. When I don't get what I want, I understand that there is a reason why. Instead of pouting, I look to find the helpful lessons and answers from each disappointment. A helpful lesson enables me to expand how I live my life, my definition of myself and how I relate to others that helps me to ultimately get more from life. Helpful lessons don't cause us to shrink and get less from ourselves or life.
In your life, pay attention to your expectations. In the morning, do you expect a good or bad day? Do you expect your troubles to work out in a way that supports and benefits you? If you are expecting the worse, challenge yourself to find any reason, no matter how small, to be hopeful for a better outcome. Keep building and expanding on your reasons to expect the best, no matter how bleak or uncertain the present moment.
Remember that your expectations are creating your experiences. Focus on shifting your expectations to mirror what you want to happen. It won't work if you expect the best some of the time and the worst, most of the time. The challenge is to learn how to expect the best most of the time. Whenever doubt creeps in, immediately work on shifting toward better expectations. Don't try to figure out how you will get what you want since that feeds into doubt. Understand that you will not know all the unexpected resources that will appear in your life to help you to get what you want ahead of time.
If you can learn to expect to receive what you want, you raise the odds of that experience happening to you. Learn to be hopeful, even when the present moment seems like more what you don't want. Most of us were taught to experience life only through what we can see and experience with our senses and emotions on the physical or visible level. Expecting the best challenges us to shift away from the visible and trust in what is invisible--our thoughts and expectations. Challenge yourself to expect the best always. Trust that everything will work out, even when the picture looks hopeless and gloomy. Trust that the answers will come to you. Trust that you can make the impossible become possible, even if you don't know how yet. Everything will work out. It always does as long as we stay hopeful through our thoughts and expectations.
Affirmations: I expect the best. I expect to receive what I want most from life.
Copyright©2006 Jeannine Robinson All Rights Reserved