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Motivation
How to Improve Mental Health by Managing Expectations
3 ways to think differently about goals.
Posted July 6, 2024 Reviewed by Kaja Perina
Key points
- It can be helpful to learn to accept things that cannot be changed.
- Rather than lamenting a disappointing outcome, we can focus on “What’s next?”
- Success can be defined by how well we work towards the achievement of a goal.
Falling short of expectations can lead people to become anxious, depressed, lose motivation, or to develop feelings of decreased self-worth or helplessness. My work with patients demonstrates many examples of such situations:
- A student receives bad grades despite studying hard. The student concludes that they are not smart and will not amount to anything in life.
- An athlete’s team loses a championship game because of the athlete’s error. The athlete therefore becomes despondent and considers quitting their sport all together.
- A person is rejected by their friend group. That person concludes that the reason is that something is seriously wrong with their personality and becomes depressed because they feel they cannot change themselves.
- One partner in a romantic relationship feels that they cannot sexually satisfy their loved one. This leads them to ruminate about the idea that the relationship is doomed to failure.
- A parent is disappointed because their child’s behavior is poor. The parent becomes unhappy because they believe that the child’s issues are related to their own inadequate parenting.
In each of these cases, negative self-judgement leads to poorer mental health. Thus, it is important to emphasize that such harmful self-judgement should be avoided. Instead, there are solutions that can be employed to help people avoid or get past their disappointment when they fail to achieve their goals.
Buddha’s Solution
The Buddha (circa 500 BC) taught that the cause of all suffering was desire. In each case described above, a particular outcome was desired: A good grade, a championship, a good relationship, or a child’s good behavior. The thought process that occurred when the desired expectation was not achieved led to mental suffering.
Thus, one way to avoid such suffering is to learn how to let go of desire. This may be a daunting task, especially in a world in which we build our life foundation by attempting to meet and even exceed our own expectations, and the expectations of others who care about us.
Serenity Prayer
Theologian-Philosopher Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) taught us the prayer, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”
In this light, a student or athlete who falls short of their goals, might change their focus away from their disappointment and ask themselves how they can change their academic or athletic preparation so that they will do better during future situations.
On the other hand, people may have minimal influence on outcomes that are dependent on the reactions of others. Thus, if we are honest with ourselves about our own behaviors, and feel that we have behaved properly, it behooves us to serenely accept that sometimes things do not go our way.
A quote from Desiderata, a poem by writer Max Ehrmann (1872-1945), can be helpful in accepting disappointing outcomes: “Whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.” In other words, events occur as they are meant to be. Thus, a helpful strategy is to accept rather than lament what has occurred, and to turn your attention to “What’s Next?”
For instance, after a sports season is concluded, we can look forward to the next season. Or, if we lose a friend, we can look forward to forming new friendships.
Change Focus from Expectations to the Process
Clergyman Lynn H. Hough (1877-1971) said, “Life is a journey and not a destination.” Poet Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) provides further elaboration regarding this concept: “To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.”
The gist of both ideas is that we ought to focus on the process of living, rather than an ultimate goal. In other words, we can change our expectations from that of a particular outcome, to expecting and encouraging ourselves to improve throughout our life journey. Thus,
- A student might focus on aiming to study as well as possible (which does not necessarily mean studying as hard as possible, but rather studying effectively.)
- An athlete might focus on working out, practicing, and aiming to improve every week. The athlete might also learn to appreciate that learning how to deal well with adversity is an essential part of becoming an elite athlete.
- Someone looking for friendship can recognize and appreciate that learning how to deal with rejection is part of the process of making friends.
- People within a romantic relationship can focus on enjoying each other’s company rather than achievement of complete sexual satisfaction.
- A parent can look for ways to better communicate with their child and give them a proper amount of support, with the understanding that it is their child’s job to succeed.
Takeaway
Having a goal can be useful in giving us a direction to follow in life. However, our success is not defined by achievement of the goal, but rather by how well we worked towards it.
If the goal changes at some point this is perfectly fine, if we learned and grew as part of the process of reaching for the initial goal.
One proof that meeting a goal does not fulfill life’s purpose is that as soon as a goal is achieved, most successful people immediately set another goal, to help them continue to improve in their life journey.
