What the #1 mistake we make in all relationships and how to avoid it?

Posted on August 28, 2015 by Giedrius Reklaitis, One of Thousands of Performance Coaches on Noomii.

EXPECTATIONS
You may already know that feelings don’t just happen to us. Our thoughts are what change our states and chemical balance in our body to feel one way or another. Some thoughts occur more often than others, and uncontrolled over time, become so true to our minds that we form beliefs and start judging the whole reality based on them. As beliefs grow stronger, we develop expectations on what will happen and how things should be.

We start forming expectations for other people. This automated conditioning comes from all of the information we receive in our lives. How people act around us, what we see on TV, what we read in books, how we are raised as children: all this and more contribute to how we filter reality and form expectations. But, everyone is different. Each of us has our own expectations, our own filters. When we are not consciously aware of this, we start expecting how others should behave and look, how they should perform at work, what tasks they should take on at home, or how they should treat us and others.

PAIN
Living this way causes us unnecessary pain when people do not live up to our expectations. We may feel disappointed in another person, upset by their actions and stressed out about the results. In some cases, we may even feel betrayed if the case was about something sensitive, such as a big project or close relationship. These feelings are not constructive and they do not lead to productive actions or results. They drain our energy, shrink creativity, and diminish our excitement.

Having expectations affects our business, career, and relationships in a negative way. We don’t like living up to somebody else’s expectations. Think of someone telling you “I expected you to…” It’s definitely not motivating! Knowing this, let’s see what happens when we replace expectations with agreements.

SOLUTION
Making agreements requires us to communicate our thoughts to other people and negotiate terms that are beneficial to all parties. It requires us to open up, be vulnerable, and share our expectations, our beliefs, our thoughts, and our wishes. It requires us to ask and seek for confirmation. Agreements connect us at deep levels, and in this disconnected world, we often forget how much it matters to us to connect with other people.

We enjoy making agreements when the terms work for us and the other party. Making agreements lets us feel understood, accepted, connected, cared for, and valued. These are powerful and uplifting feelings that only make us stronger. They form tight bonds in business and personal relationships. Making agreements is a courageous act and skill of great leaders. On the other hand, having expectations is just a cowardly approach to putting all of the responsibility on others, and then blaming them when expectations are not met.

EXAMPLES:

At Work
Let’s take our colleague Jimmy as an example. Jimmy is often late in turning in his work. When we assign tasks and give due dates, we expect Jimmy to complete the tasks on time, but he often does not, and we become disappointed in his performance.

What do we do to resolve this? We make an agreement with Jimmy. We explain that the due date must be met on time, every time. We explain that he is a valuable member of our organization, and that the tasks assigned are important for the company, team, and customers. We explain that the due dates are carefully crafted to make sure our projects are finished on time and that the clients are satisfied.

If Jimmy says that he can’t finish on time, that’s great! Now we know ahead of time that our expectations can’t be met and we just saved ourselves from disappointment and stress. Now we have to find out why Jimmy cannot finish on time and what we can do to help him. Does he need more time or resources? By resolving the obstacles, we come into an agreement with Jimmy and now have realistic deadlines set and a much better relationship with each other.

At Home
Now let’s take a look at relationships at home and how expectations affect them. Let’s take for example Lance and Edna who are dating. Lance is a very honest and open person. He shares the most intimate details of his life with other people. Since Edna is a part of Lance’s life, her details are often shared as well.

Edna expects Lance to keep some things private, and she gets upset and feels betrayed when details of her life are shared with others. At some point she cannot take it anymore and lashes out. She wants to tell Lance that it hurts her when he is so open with others, but instead, she yells things she doesn’t really mean at him, which she will later regret. For Lance, this is all news. He was not aware of Edna’s expectations. He was just being himself.

If Edna explained to Lance how important it was to her to keep certain things private, and asked him to agree on not sharing specific things, she would have prevented the argument. This is a very basic example, but knowing this, think about situations in your life when you end up frustrated, disappointed, and upset of other people’s actions. The next time you’re faced with a situation that you do not like, either at work or at home, think of what agreement you can form with someone to change the situation. Do not continue to expect something and let that drag you down. Make an agreement with others and see what happens.

IMPORTANT TO KNOW:
When making agreements, remember to NOT expect people to keep their agreements. Make an additional agreement to keep agreements when they are made. It is a critical step, but one that we often forget.