We get what we expect, not what we want

Share

Years ago, my wife and I attended an annual New Year’s party at her agent’s home. Every year, all of the guests wrote down what we expected to happen that year. Not our goals, our expectations.

The agent collected our scribbles in a basket and before we wrote our current expectations, we read what we had written the previous year. We could share with the group if we wanted to, or not.

The idea is that we don’t get what we want (our goals), we get what we expect. Goals are aspirational; expectations are objective.

I believe this is true. Our subconscious mind is a servo-mechanism, after all. It accepts our beliefs (expectations) as reality and works to create that reality.

I never quite got the hang of it, however. Every year, I wrote down what I wanted to happen, in the guise of what I expected. And every year, I missed the mark by a long shot. But this was my fault. I didn’t put a lot of thought into the exercise.

Maybe I was afraid my wife’s agent would secretly sneak a peak at what we had written so I wrote down something acceptable.

Anyway, if it is true that we get what we expect and not what we want, how does this help us? How do we access our deepest beliefs, and how do we use them to get what we want?

You got me.

Hypnosis? Meditation? Prayer?

All I know is that as we write down our goals for the year, we should give some thought to our expectations. That way, instead of choosing random goals that we hope will magically come true, we will choose goals that come true because they are the natural progression of our current reality.

If it turns out that our goals and are current reality are miles apart, and we’re honest with ourselves about that, after we write our goals, we will write down a list of things we need to work on in order to close that gap.

Need a simple marketing plan that really works? Get this

Share