If You Replace Expectations With Gratitude

Expect nothing and get a lollipop — you're happy. Expect a chocolate factory and get a lollipop — you're crushed. Same lollipop, different expectations.

If you replace expectations with gratitude, your whole life changes for the better.

For a lot of people (myself included), the new year starts with setting new goals for the next 12 months.

In upcoming posts I’ll go into more detail about how I set goals and how I move toward them.

But the one thing I really try not to do is form any expectations.

I don’t build my life around expecting the war to end in 2024, I don’t expect the people around me to behave a certain way, I don’t look for justice among people, and I don’t expect wise and correct decisions from our government. I don’t believe anyone owes me anything in this life.

In general, I expect very little and hope for very little on this earth.

That’s why most of the things that happen in my life make me glad and pleasantly surprise me. When you expect nothing and someone gives you a lollipop, you’re happy. But when you were expecting a chocolate factory as a gift and you get a lollipop, you feel crushed and miserable.

The lollipop is exactly the same. The expectations create the entire difference in how it feels.

The height of our unrealistic expectations is the height of our emotional fall.

So in my own life I try to replace expectations with gratitude for what I already have.

When you’re focused on what’s working and on what’s good in your life, you feel happy and content. When you think about how things could have been and analyse everything you don’t have yet, you feel awful and depressed.

Emotional intelligence directs our attention wherever we want it to go.

So the moment sincere gratitude for what God is already giving us takes the place of expectations, life becomes a very happy thing.

And what are you expecting from 2024?