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 do not 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 did not 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 in my personal life, so I just assumed that the future would be just like the past. When I learned that my 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 is not connected to the present or future. What I experience at this moment may look like the past, but it does not have to have the same outcome. I could not 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 am hopeful about the future, regardless of what is happening at the present moment. I simply expect everything to work out for my highest good, even if the present moment is scary and confusing. 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 do not get what I want, I understand that there is a reason why, which is always for my benefit. 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 guide us to figuring out how to get more from life and how to give ourselves more freely to living full, happy lives instead of shrinking away from living fully and getting more out of 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. If you tell yourself that you expect the best while expecting the worst deep down, then you will likely get what you do not want. We have to believe that we can really get what we want in our thoughts, feelings and spoken word.
Any doubt can undermine our efforts. The challenge is to learn how to expect the best most of the time until we can expect the best all the time. Whenever doubt creeps in, immediately work on shifting toward better expectations. Resist trying to figure out how you will get what you want since getting down in "how" 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. You simply have to trust that the answers of how will unfold before you.
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 uncertain. 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 do not 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©2009 Jeannine Robinson All Rights Reserved