Romantic Relationships and Positive Expectations

Expectations

Expectations are important to everyone’s life and they’re a natural part of who we are.

Expectations are what we dream in; they keep us motivated, and like a compass in the dark, they guide us through unknown territory.

Expectations are also fantasies, depicting how we view the future and what we want out of it. And, believe it or not, most of our frustrations stem from our expectations being wrong.


For example, picture your boss telling you at the beginning work that you get to go home three hours early. Then, right before you leave your boss says he’s sorry and asks you to stay for another two hours to help finish a few things. How would this make you feel?

Now, picture your boss instead telling you at the beginning of the day that you get to go home an hour early. How will this make you feel?

Both of these examples give you the same one-hour off but one will make you a lot happier than the other.

So why is there such a difference between these two situations when the outcome is the same? You see, when we expect something and it happens we unconsciously reinforce a belief that our expectations can tell the future. The more our expectations come true the more we reinforce this idea.

The problem with thinking this way is that our expectations have nothing to do with the future because expectations are based completely on past experiences. They tell us what we think will happen and what we want to happen. When our expectations are wrong and we have a reinforced belief that they should be right we get frustrated. The real problem in this situation is our expectations.

Going back to the example above, we can see that being told you get three hours off will give you the expectation that you get three hours off. In reality you only got one hour off. This is frustrating because your expectations were wrong. They were wrong because your boss decided reality, not your expectations. Because your boss caused your expectations to be wrong it’s easy to blame him for your frustration.

Now imagine that the boss didn’t say anything that morning and you had to work the whole day. This will give you another hour of work but won’t cause you any frustration because it met your expectations.

This example shows that it’s not the time off that really matters it’s the expectations.

Next time you get frustrated with something think about your expectations. If we can control and understand our expectations we will be much happier.

Relationships

A healthy relationship with another person is one of the best things you can have in life. It’s what puts a smile on my face every morning as I get out of bed. And, the reason I can’t wait to get back home each day.

Relationships are built on a foundation strengthened by love, respect and open communication.

When our relationships head the right direction (our expectations are correct) it can be nirvana but when they don’t (misguided expectations) disaster can hit. So why does this happen? While there are many reasons to pick from, the underlying reason is usually misguided expectations.

When we go into a situation with our lover we usually have expectations of how things will turn out and what to expect. Little expectation differences are always going to happen but it’s the long term ones that are the most important to prevent. For example: where should we live? Should we have kids? How many?

Long-term expectations are the easiest to misinterpret because they’re always changing. As we change so do our partners. If a situation arises and we both have expectations that are based on the past there is going to be frustration and problems. This can cause us to blame our partners for our misguided expectations.

The problem isn’t that we have changed, but rather, that the expectations haven’t. So, how can we know what to expect from our partners when all of our expectations are based on the past? The simple answer is we can’t.

Change is inevitable but by knowing the changes as they come we can avoid many unnecessary obstacles and strengthen our relationship.

There are really only two ways to know what changes your partner is going through. We can wait for a problem to arrive to update our expectations, or we can be preventative and have our partners tell us.

The most important thing to think about here is making this a positive, open learning experience. Here’s a simple way to get our expectations more in tune with reality.

• Each person will brainstorm everything they want in their life and write it down. Think at least five to ten years into the future. The list should include dreams, aspirations, where you want to live, kids…… Don’t worry about having the same system or ranking process. It will add a little more excitement and anticipation. Also, let the process have some time. It may take a week or more to come up with a good list you feel is complete.
• After you’ve both completed your lists, pick a time to come together and talk. You’ll need a couple of hours, preferably in a place with no distractions.
• Now each person will take a turn talking about how they made their list and what it contains. This is a good time to practice just listening. Interrupt only when you need some clarity.
• Next, make a list of the things you both wanted and the things you differed on. They will come in handy later.
• Now, after everything is out in the open and both of you feel content with what you’ve said you’ll want to start positive. You can do this by picking a few of your similarities to talk about first. This will start everything on a positive uplifting tone. Don’t talk about all of you’re commonalities in the beginning, save some for the end so you’ll also finish on a positive note.
• Next, talk about all of the things that you differ on and why. It’s really important to be open and positive at this point because this is how you update expectations.
• Last, talk about the rest of the ideas and plans you have in common. The commonalities are the positive ideas you’ll want to center yourself on. The rest will need time and more thought to work over.
• Repeat at least once a year.

Now that you’ve updated your expectations, you’ll be able to build a stronger foundation on the similarities, work on the differences and avoid unnecessary surprises. Reflection is the key. You can’t expect anyone to know what you want unless you know first.

The one thing you can expect from any relationship is change. Embrace it with communication.

-Brett
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Making Lists

Lists help us stay on track, make our days easier, and provide us a sense of accomplishment - If they’re done right.

Lists can benefit us because they force us to choose between what’s necessary and what’s not. All too often we find ourselves wrapped up in little things, sometimes to the point that we don’t finish the big ones that are most important. This leaves us exhausted at the end of the day and wondering why nothing got done.


By creating a list and identifying what’s important you always know what you have to do next. Then when little things come up, as they always do, you have a place to add them too so you can continue working on what’s important. You’ll get to the little things later.

Steps to making lists that work:

· Start before the beginning of the week by writing down all of the projects and homework that are due and need to be worked on that week. (It’s best to complete this on Sunday night before the week starts.) Next, add the due dates next to each one. Having a weekly list of what to do and when will help narrow down what you put on your daily list.

· Each morning as you’re eating breakfast get out your list of things to do that week. Decide what absolutely needs to be done that day and write it at the top of your daily list. Try to divide your weekly tasks evenly throughout the week so you don’t get burnt out by Tuesday. If you think you have time to do a little more that day add other projects that need to be started but not necessarily finished. Doing a little each day will add up, especially when it comes to big projects.

Dividing up your week and deciding what needs to be done each morning will give you a stopping point each day; a point where you can put everything down and not feel guilty.

· Remember to keep the most important thing at the top of your list. Organizing the importance of daily tasks is very important. It gives you a path to follow so you can’t get distracted from what’s important. If you get to the end of a day and haven’t finished everything, at least you finished what was most important. What ever else is left can be added to tomorrows list.
· Don’t add little unnecessary things to your list. Adding things like laundry or cleaning will only make you not want to keep up with list making. It’ll give you more things to do than is possible in 24 hours. You only want to have really important things on your list like study for Biology or start working on the 10 page paper that’s due soon.

Decide if you still want to do the little things when you’ve completed the important ones. This way you feel prosperous and stay motivated. And, you’ll often find that by putting off little things you actually never do them because they weren’t important after all.

· Keep your list short and achievable. Keeping it short will make it easy to complete and allow you some wiggle room. Also, don’t add time blocks to your daily tasks. Timing your tasks increases frustration when things take longer than they should and they always will. Just work on each task until they’re done, take a small break and move on.

· Put it somewhere where you’ll see it. Put your list where you can easily access it or where it’s in plain view. If it’s easy to get at you’re more likely to stick by it.

· The most important part of making lists is knowing when to quit. When you’ve completed the tasks on your list, stop. You’ve divided up your workload among the days of the week so when you’re done you’re done. Go do something you love. Play like a kid, have fun.

And remember, it’s easy to stay motivated when there’s an end in sight.

-Brett

Picture taken from http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/

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Taking Breaks

The Benefits of Breaks

Taking breaks helps rejuvenate you mind and body. It’ll help you understand what you’re trying to learn and most important of all, breaks help you relax.

It has been shown that our brains can process on average 7+-2 things at one time (George Miller, 1956). This isn’t very much, so anything extra can substantially lower our ability to process what we’re working on.

Things like stress or having too much to do will only make our efforts less efficient. They take your focus away and instead of putting 100% of your focus on studying you have stress taking up 50%. Now you’re more stressed so studying will take you twice as long. This can only result in more stress and further loss of efficiency. If you see a 300 pound snowball full of candy rolling fast down a hill, at first it might seem like a good idea to get a piece, but after some thinking you'll see..........

Working harder when your stressed may seem like a good idea at the time but it’s not worth it. There’s a better way.

Breaks slow thinking down so you can refocuses your attention on the present. In the moment thinking will increase your ability to retain and understand information. This will decrease the time needed to study because you’ll be able to focus all of your attention on understanding.

It’s a good to take breaks every hour. Staying focused on any one thing for more than that will give you diminishing returns. But, by taking a break you relax, get extra stuff out of your mind and can focus so your time counts.

Take at least ten minutes for each break to get everything off your mind. Each break will take a little time; don’t cut it short. The benefits will always outweigh the ten minutes you could have stayed studying. If you’re really stressed or can’t seem to retain what you’re reading take a longer break or shorten the time between them. If you can’t understand what your doing there's no sense continuing. Relax, your grades will thank you.

Practice. This may seem crazy but if your stressed you’ll need the practice to be able to relax. Start by sitting alone for 10 minutes and trying to put everything out of your mind. This will be harder than you think. Every once in a while things will come up. Forcing them out will just keep you stressed so just try not to pay attention to them and they’ll go away. Keep trying this throughout your day and with a little practice it'll be easy.

Your practice will pay off when you need it the most.

-Brett Read more ...

Reflection

The most important thing you can do for yourself in college: reflect often. Reflection involves taking time to contemplate the past so you can improve on what worked and change what didn’t. By thinking over what we do on a daily or weekly basis we can become more efficient and spend the time saved on things we love.
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The time spent reflecting is a good time to get to know you a little better. It’s a good time to think about your major, job, partner, and what you really want out of life. Do I really want to be a biologist, I sure love writing? Is college going to get me…….? Why am I here?

I’ve met too many people who were about to graduate that didn’t want to do what they majored in. Wow, right? They picked their major years ago and were complacently stressing through the motions without ever stopping to think if that’s what they still wanted to do. Had they’d spent just a few hours (like 5) reflecting after their first and second year of college they could have spent those last years doing what they were passionate about. We need to be constantly updating our goals and expectations. And besides, the average college student changes their major 4 times before graduating. So don’t rush, you have plenty of time.

Remember, everything we believe and do in our lives stems from our experiences. As we gain new ones we hone in on who we are and what we want. We spend our whole lives doing this and if we want to stay happy our direction has to change with our experiences. And, reflecting is the only way to get in touch with those changes and understand them. Just a few minutes a week can save you years in setbacks.


Other ways reflection can help in college.

When it comes to getting good grades reflection is the key. All of us have had a class that we didn’t do well in or a test that we studied for and it didn’t turn out the way we wanted it to. But, how many of us have taken the time to think about why this happened?

How to use reflection to reduce time spent studying and increase you grades:

College professors are all different and not required to have taken any classes on how to teach. So, there’s no telling what they’re thinking when they create tests.

How do we do better? After you get your first test back look it over to see where the information came from. Most teachers will assign readings and repeat some if not all of that information in class.So how do we overcome this and do better?

Now, see how many questions came only from the book. You see, most teachers assign reading but haven’t actually read the book in years. These teachers test directly from the lectures, so, The half hour you spend looking over your test can save you hours of book studying for the next exams. Try it out.

Don’t stop reading the book. Texts help by showing you another way to think about the material and they reinforce what was said in class.

You don’t have to choose between a life and college. Reflecting will help you learn your own ways of working smarter and becoming more efficient.

To start practicing, find a quiet peaceful place without distractions, free your mind and start with the most important question. What do I want out of life? You have to know where you’re going before you can decide how to get there.

Once you know what you want think about what you’re doing to get there.

Reflecting at least once a week will help with all aspects of college and life.

-Brett

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