Handling Unmet Expectations

What feelings come up when you hear the word expectation? 

Do you feel hopeful and joyful? Or do you feel dread and heaviness? (Or maybe a bit of both!)

Expectations even in “normal” times are challenging. Add in the chaos and stress of a pandemic and expectations can feel overwhelming.

The word expectation comes from the Latin word expectationem, meaning “an awaiting” or “to await, look out for.” 

It can also indicate:

* a mental picture of the future 

* a strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future

* the degree of probability that something will occur 

* in the case of uncertainty, what is considered the most likely to happen 

* a belief that someone will or should achieve something or should have particular qualities or behavior 

Missionaries and Their Expectations

For missionaries going to the field, we expect things to be different from our home culture. We expect language learning to be challenging. We expect the food to be different. We probably expect that our kids (if we have any) will struggle at first. We expect our extended family to miss us. We expect to learn new things. 

We probably also expect to accomplish certain goals or impact a certain group of people. We might expect that our team would be like a surrogate family and we would make good friends with nationals. We expect our kids to adapt well and love their new adopted culture. We probably expect our agency and sending churches to support us and love us well. 

For missionaries (or any expat), unmet expectations can be sneakiest in re-entry. When we return to our home culture, sometimes—whether voiced or not, whether consciously or not—we expect that we will know how to fit into this society. We expect to know how to engage in the American church—we did before, right? We expect to love shopping in a giant grocery store with millions of options. We expect people will want to hear our stories of living and serving overseas. We expect to slip back into friendships easily. 

We’ve done difficult, challenging things overseas so coming back “home” should be easy, right? 

But the reality is, expectations can totally catch you off guard and leave you wondering what in the world just knocked the wind out of you. Or they can be like a field of landmines that you don’t know are there until you’ve stepped on one!

The Emotional Impact of Unmet Expectations

Unmet expectations can have a huge impact on our well-being, especially our emotions. It’s helpful to name those emotions. Unmet expectations about the past create regret, grief, sorrow, shame and sadness. Projected unmet expectations about the future create depression, anxiety, feelings of inadequacy, impatience and hopelessness.

Unhealthy Ways We Often Cope with Unmet Expectations

* Distraction: Putting more on your to-do list, crowding out contemplative time, filling your life with busyness, drowning yourself in work or being obsessive about a hobby or working out. 

* Numbing the pain: Drinking or eating in unhealthy ways, working long hours, spending money on things you don’t need, watching TV, escaping with drugs, spending long hours on social media or internet surfing, or over-exercising. 

* Being “strong”: Don’t feel the feelings caused by the issue, put on a mask to look strong, power through it. 

* Pep talks: Using things like positive affirmations without acknowledging the feelings you’re feeling.

* The “next big thing”: Fixating on a new job, city, house, relationship, or car that you think will make everything better or at least keep you from thinking about your losses.

* Spiritual bypass: Repressing your negative thoughts, immediately looking for the lesson or “blessing.”

Healthier Ways to Cope with Unmet Expectations

* Let go of past unmet expectations…as fast as possible. The longer you hold onto the disappointment and rehash the event in your mind, the harder it gets to move forward. As soon as you can, accept what happened and move on. Learn from it and determine do it differently next time. If you find yourself fixating on it, tell yourself, “Let it go!” 

* Pray for insight into better expectations. The Holy Spirit can help us discern what is true and right and can help us be more gracious with others and ourselves. He guides us into truth and righteousness. 

* Practice gratitude. Stop for a minute and think about things you can be thankful for rather than what isn’t meeting your expectations. Take it a step further and physically write down five things (big or small) each day that you are grateful for. It can have an enormous impact on your attitude and put expectations into perspective. 

* Learn from the experience. Many people see unmet expectations as “failure.” Failure reframed can be seen an opportunity to learn and improve. Determine the lesson in whatever happened, and apply that lesson. 

* Figure out how to better verbally express your expectations. An unexpressed expectation is just a wish. And once you verbally express that, it becomes a thing you can hold, examine, discuss, revise, and agree upon. Then it is an expectation. (We'll talk about “The Anatomy of Helathy Expectations” in a future article.) 

* Hold your expectations loosely. A part of healthy living— emotionally, mentally, and spiritually—is learning to see your expectations rightly. You can try to get rid of them, which wouldn’t be possible or even necessarily desirable. Or you can try to see them currently as potential, not reality—and hold them loosely. 

* Show grace. When others disappoint you, it’s because you expected more of them. They likely expected more of themselves, too. So give them grace, and move on. And when you feel disappointed in yourself, do the same. We all make mistakes. We all fail. Don’t beat yourself up for whatever happened. Accept that it happened; you can’t change that fact. And then go do it better next time. 

* Shine the light on it and let go of shame. If you have not met someone else’s appropriate expectations, as soon as possible, tell someone about the experience. This opens the way to release any shame you might be feeling. The longer you keep it in the dark, the more opportunity shame has to grow. So share…and laugh about it, if possible. This also cultivates an environment where others can talk openly about their disappointments and their gaffes. 

* Trust that God is in control and will work all things together for the good. It doesn’t mean that everything we do or that happens to us is good, but He can masterfully weave all the things, all of our experiences into a beautiful tapestry.

In future posts, we'll look at identifying what expectations you perceive are put on you and what expectations you project onto others. We'll also walk through the Anatomy of Healthy Expectations, a tool to help you formulate fair and reasonable expectations and prevent, or at least mitigate, the pain and disappointment from unmet expectations.

What else would you like to know about handling expectations?

"Healthy Ways to Cope" is adapted in part from https://ninaamir.com/7-powerful-ways-deal-disappointment-unmet-expectations