All expectations are not helpful because an expectation is a hope, an expectation is a wish, an expectation is an assumption that this exists. What it takes away is any responsibility in creating it, developing it and building. Hey everyone, welcome back to On It Purpose, the No One Health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every one of you that come back every week to listen, learn and grow.
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Now in this episode, we're talking about the eight false expectations you shouldn't have in a relationship and you're sitting there going, Jay, what are they? What are those eight expectations I shouldn't have? Right? Mostly our conversations around relationships start with, well, what do you expect from a relationship?
What are the things that you think are important that your partner should have? What are the expectations that a person should have before a relationship? That's a very normal conversation. It's been happening for years and years and people will say to you, what's your list of expectations?
If you have a list of expectations, then you'll find the right person. Right? How many of you have sat there? Be honest, raise your hand.
No one's looking apart from you in your reflection in the mirror on the phone right now. Raise your hand. Be honest. How many of you have ever written down what you want from a relationship?
And I remember reading those funny columns and magazines that were lying around my parents' home when I was younger, where people said they wanted someone with a good sense of humor. They wanted someone who was flexible. They wanted someone who was confident. They wanted someone who was ambitious.
They wanted someone who had time for the family. And I'm like, yeah, none of those things actually work at the same time, right? But we've all been trained to have a list of expectations. And our hope is that if we walk into a room with a list of expectations, we will find someone who matches those expectations.
Now, it's important to have a list of values. It's important to have a list of focuses. It's important to have a list of criteria to look out for. That's an important thing to have.
But a list of expectations can actually be very, very misleading, right? Very, very misleading. And today I want to discuss what those eight false expectations are that we have from a relationship that actually make us go down the wrong path, actually make relationships extremely difficult. And the first expectation is that we should create a list of expectations that we will find.
That is the first false expectation that your expectation list will actually help you find the right person. The challenge with an expectation list is that it's often idealistic. It's often not human. It often doesn't allow for error.
It doesn't allow for a background in a past. It doesn't allow for trauma. It doesn't allow for uncovering new challenges. It doesn't allow for someone healing and growing, which is so much what a relationship is a part of, right?
The role of a relationship is so much more about growth and development and healing than it is about having fun and enjoyment. And what I mean by that, it's something that I was speaking about in the episode with Will Smith when I said that relationships are more about education and enlightenment than they are enjoyment. And the education and enlightenment is the enjoyment. When you figure out your partner, when you learn about them, when you grow together, now you're actually enjoying.
Now you're actually having a full experience. When you have a limited understanding of what someone or something is able to do, you have a very limited sense of joy and often more frustration. When you have a complete understanding of something that allows you to experience it fully, right? It allows you to truly have a deep immersive experience when you allow yourself to truly understand someone more deeply.
So the first false expectation is thinking that your expectations are going to be met. And I have something I call the 3G model, which is what you need to focus on instead of setting expectations. So not only do I believe these are false expectations, I actually believe all expectations are not helpful, because an expectation is a hope. An expectation is a wish.
An expectation is an assumption that this exists. What it takes away is any responsibility in creating it, developing it and building it. I'll give you an example. You may have an expectation that the perfect house in the world is out there, and you go out and you find a house, and then you realize it's not near the schools you want to send your kids to, or you find the house where the garden is not quite perfect, or you find the house, but actually the last tenants destroyed the floors.
Whatever it is, you can tell that I got really personal in that last one. Whatever it is, the point is that an expectation doesn't help you focus on creating, building, or developing. It's all about finding, wishing, and hoping. And what that means is that your probability for failure increases.
Your probability for failure goes through the roof with expectations. As opposed to if you focused on creating, building and developing, you're less likely to fail because you get to influence the outcome. So the three G's are as follows. The first one is instead of setting an expectation, set a goal.
Set a goal that I want to create a relationship like this, and this is what it's going to take, right? Set a goal for the type of relationship. I often speak to Radi, and I'll say to her, well, this is the type of relationship I want to create with you. Are you in with me?
And that sets a goal, it sets a mood, it sets a pace, that now we both know what we're working towards. As opposed to an expectation is expecting that someone's already going to have it, already going to be able to deliver, and already going to have it covered as opposed to the idea that we're going to get there together. After understanding your goal of the relationship, you want to set your growth. Okay, well, we want to get to that goal.
What are we both going to have to do? What are we both going to have to grow? What are we both going to have to learn in order to achieve that goal? So now again, you're not expecting that the other person has amazing communication skills.
You're not expecting that the other person really understands how to be emotionally intelligent. You're both saying, well, that's what we're going to learn. That's what we have to develop. Now, of course, there is something here that both people are willing to do this.
But what I've always found is that in a relationship one person has to tread the path first, and they have to patiently wait and see if the other person will tread the path to follow them. And it's never the person that forces the follower. It's never the person that pressurizes the follower. It's never the person that stresses out the follower that wins.
It's the person that improves and grows because they know that's the right thing to do. That's the thing that they believe they need to do for their sanity and themselves. And then if the other person joins and that's amazing and if they don't, then they have an opportunity to say, well, maybe this isn't the right relationship. And it's all about how long you're willing to be patient and wait for a person to grow because sometimes it will take forever.
Sometimes it will never happen and their growth is not up to you. But setting a growth plan instead of an expectation is the right way to approach any relationship, whether you're in one or whether you want to be in one setting an expectation is not going to help you find the right person. Setting a plan of growth is going to help you find and be with the right person. And the third way of replacing expectations is replacing expectations with gratitude.
Gratitude for who you are, what you've learned, what you've already achieved. It's so important because so many of us have expectations. And even when those expectations are met, we forget that at one point, that was all we wanted. At one point, we forget that that expectation that we currently have, something that we expected has now been met, but we forget that it's been met.
Even at one point, that was your dream. That's what you aimed for. So gratitude is a great replacement for an expectation because it truly allows you to live from a place of being centered and grounded. It allows you to move from a place of feeling aligned.
And that's really what it is. You can either respond from your unalignment or respond from your alignment to life and gratitude brings you back to an alignment. If you want to respond to someone, you either react based on your lack of alignment or you respond based on your alignment. Now, those are the three Gs, goals, growth and gratitude to replace expectations as a way of operating.
This second expectation that we have of our partner is a big one. And this applies to anyone who feels like they're in a good relationship. It's kind of going in the right direction. But you're like, ah, they're not, you know, they're not perfect.
You know, I keep getting attention from people that are that seem nicer. This second expectation we have that is a false expectation is the expectation that our partner should be perfect, that our partner should be God. We want our partners to be our God. Take a moment to just let that settle in.
Take a moment to really let that land. We want our partners to be our God. We want our partners to be perfect. We expect them.
And I know you're sitting there going, Jay, I don't expect perfect. I just want them to improve this, this, this, this, this, this. You've just explained perfection, right? If you look at the probability of that, you've just explained perfection.
Your partner is at about 83, you want them to be at a 97. And worse, you believe that someone out there is a 99, you just haven't met them yet. No, I'm not saying to settle. And I'm not saying to accept less than you deserve.
And I'm not saying to stay somewhere you don't want to stay. But I am saying that there is a difference between a good relationship, a great relationship, and the expectation of a God-like relationship. Our partners are not God. They will let us down.
They will not be perfect. They will make mistakes. And if we're not willing to work with them through those moments, if we're not willing to elevate at those moments, we're really going to struggle in any relationship. This is one of the reasons why so many people cheat or so many people leave their partner in search for another, because they believe the next relationship will be the God-like relationship.
The next relationship will be the perfect relationship. We don't realize we just carry our trauma and baggage from this one into the next one. They're carrying their one into the next one. And now we're just dealing with more baggage and more trauma.
And we don't realize that what we're experiencing in a relationship is our self. Listen this carefully. In any relationship you are experiencing that relationship through yourself. It is an experience of you.
What triggers you, triggers you because of your triggers that have been created through your trauma. What upsets you, what makes you so insecure has come from something. Now, I'm not saying that your partner has no responsibility or isn't someone who should take responsibility. What I'm saying is that your experience, even if you were with the most trustworthy person, if you had an insecurity trigger, that would still be the case, no matter who you were with.
That's what I'm trying to help you understand, that whether you're with someone who's imperfect or perfect, if you have an insecurity, you will feel that with anyone. But expecting our partner to be God comes from that desire to love, to a door, to worship, which no person is worthy of. And the challenge is that we have this strong expectation. We want to find someone that perfectly holds us, helps us, supports us, believes in us, understands us.
And I'm not saying you shouldn't have someone who understands you, believes in you, and all of that. But just don't expect someone to be perfect because you could push away a really great thing in the pursuit of wanting them to be God. So replace that expectation of wanting someone to be God, for wanting to be great yourself and helping that person become great, the great version of themselves that they see, not the potential that you see. And this is where this God paradox comes in to a relationship is the idea that you have to help someone become as great as they want to be, not as great as you see them.
And often we project. We project what we believe they can be onto them when actually they need to help us understand where they want to be and who they want to be and where they want to go. So allow yourself to not project godliness onto them or greatness onto them that they don't want to be, allow yourself to understand them so deeply that they grow in the direction that they want to grow in, without any sense of pressure. The third expectation is expecting your partner to make you happy.
It's almost like a happiness machine you want to put in a little quarter or a dollar or a penny or a pound of studs using all US currency terms. I've been living here for five years, I guess that's normal. But you have this habit of like, you think, oh, I put a coin in happiness, right? It's like that instant gratification and make me happy almost like a toy.
I press this button and you say the right thing, right? And you may say, Jay, that sounds crazy. I don't feel like that. But we do, we look at our partners and almost like the first one is make me happy, make me happy.
Or why don't you make me happy, right? That's often how we approach our partners. This is a false expectation. Your partner cannot make you happy.
You make yourself happy. You have that choice. You have that power. Your partner cannot make you happy.
So having that expectation puts so much pressure on someone. Do you think that you're the only person that can make your partner happy? And by the way, that also creates issues. When you think that your partner's happiness is dependent on you, how much pressure do you feel?
How much weight do you think you're carrying? When you think that your partner's happiness is dependent on you, how hard is that to carry? And we carry that, and then we make them carry that. Now, we're both carrying the pressure of making each other happy.
We've only known each other for three months, right? You're putting the pressure of making each other happy on each other, when actually we should have the responsibility for our own happiness, and then to share that happiness with others. And by the way, I promise you, it is a lot easier to make yourself happier than to make someone else happier. And when you are happy, it is much easier to help someone in an unhappy place than it is when you're unhappy too.
So it all makes sense. It all lines up. So I really want you to consider that. Like, are you sitting there going, Oh my gosh, my partner's happiness is dependent on me and you're stressing yourself out.
And you're putting yourself under so much pain. And that false dependence that you've created on yourself is the ability for you. So let go of that desire that your partner's going to make you happy, or that you're the only person that can make your partner happy and start focusing on developing your own sense of happiness, your own choice, your own sense of love, your own sense of passion in your life, because that's a position of strength, right? A tree can only give shade to others after it's grown itself.
Otherwise, it's just trying to compete for the sun, right? Think about that. Trees are competing in the direction of the sun when they're trying to grow, but when a tree is really high and grown and strong, it can give shade to so many. Think about that.
The fourth thing that we expect from our partners, and you know this one all too well, is for them to know what you're thinking and feeling all the time. We expect that our partners can read our minds and that reading our minds is almost a sign of love that if they can remember, if they can intuitively get a signal from us from that mystical power of our minds, then they are the one, right? We have this thing of like, Oh, if they can sense what I'm feeling right now, then we must be connected. We feel that connection means knowing intuitively.
We make connection parallel with reading my mind, right? If you can read my mind, we are in love. And if I can read your mind, then we are in love and we have something real. And I don't know where that idea comes from, actually, I want to look into that.
Like, I wonder where that idea comes from. Like, why do we have this deep desire to feel that our partner, you know, like, just can read our mind at any given time, the gift we want, how we want to celebrate our birthday, what we want to do for our anniversary, what we want for dinner tonight, all of that kind of stuff. And again, instead of that, we can help our partners know what we're thinking and feeling. So saying things like, hey, when we're going through an argument, I just really need time to process.
If I don't talk, I promise you it's not personal. It's just something I need to deal with. Hey, when I come back from work after a long day, the last thing I want to do is talk about work. So don't ask me about work.
Let's talk about something else. Oh, by the way, you know, when it comes down to my birthday, I get really nervous because my birthday was never a big thing growing up and it's a time of anxiety for me. So I just want you to know that. So if I'm acting right around my birthday, it's because of that.
And for you to be able to inform me upon or of any of these things, you have to be aware of that. You have to be conscious. You have to be self-aware enough to help them understand that. But that's what's needed.
Instead of having the expectation that you should know what I'm thinking and feeling, let's set the plan to say, hey, I actually am going to communicate to you what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling. And I want you to grow with me. I want you to learn from me. I want to help you learn about me and understand me better.
Right? And just think about how much more successful your relationship would be if you approached it that way. Just genuinely think about it from everybody. Think about it right now.
How much more successful would your relationship be if instead of trying to get them to read your mind and know what you're thinking, you actually help them understand what you're thinking at different times. You actually did the hard work. And that's it, right? That's the idea of we want someone else to do the hard work and we don't want to do the hard work ourselves.
We don't want to do the hard work of understanding ourselves. So we want someone else to do the hard work of understanding us. And the truth is we need to focus on understanding ourselves and articulating that effectively. So that was the fourth expectation that we have that we need to switch.
The fifth is we expect them to know how to do things that we usually do that we've never explained. I speak to so many parents who say, oh my gosh, my kids, they just don't know how to do any housework. They don't help around the house. And my first question is, well, when did you teach them?
And I say, what do you mean, I always let them focus on their studies and I always let them focus on their work. I was like, yeah, but you've never taught them how to do that. I remember my mom taught me how to iron my own clothes when I was 12 years old. And until this day, iron my own clothes, I take a lot of pride in it.
I don't like wearing anything without it being ironed. I don't like wearing anything with a with a crease in it. And so I remember that my mom taught me how to do that at 12. My mom also taught me how to wash the dishes and clean the tabletop and the surfaces at that age.
And so I got very comfortable doing those things. And so if we're not teaching someone how to do something, we can't just expect them to do it. You know, rather than I go through this all the time, and I've never learned how to cook, it's not a skill of mine. And I manage certain things in the home that rally doesn't manage.
And we've realized that breaking up our responsibility actually really helps. But the problem is when you expect the partner to fill in your gap, but they've never had that experience. They've never had that experience before. And so if you have an expectation of your partner to do something around the house that you're good at, make sure that you've taught them how to do it.
Make sure you've shared it with them. And you may find it really simple. You may think it's the easiest thing in the world. But I promise you, that doesn't make it easy.
You may think it's the most basic skill. You may think it's the most obvious skill that someone should be good at. But that does not make it obvious. There are certain things that I find so difficult, like cooking, that rally find so easy.
And there are certain things like scheduling, organizing, managing, that I find so easy and rally find so difficult. And so you have to start to recognize that if we want to grow with someone, you can't set them up for failure. And often we set our partners up for failure. We know they can't do something.
We're like, let's see if they care enough about me to learn it. And we realize it's not about whether they care enough about you. It's about whether they have the skill or not. And if someone's helped them or not.
And so don't set your partner up for failure. We have to realize that if you're going to spend the rest of it, this really helps me. I just want to take a pause to talk about this point. This has always helped me.
If I really want to spend the rest of my life with this person, why do I want to see them fail? Why do I want to see them make mistakes? Why do I want to set them up for failure? So I can say, I told you so look, I'm better than you in this relationship.
Why am I turning this relationship into a competition? So you can't expect people to do things. You've never explained to them. And I think we all explain stuff with our parents where they just expect for you to know about mortgages and finances.
And you're just like, but you never taught me. And they're like, well, that's what you learn when you grow up. And you're thinking, yeah, but we never went through this, right? Wasn't on the curriculum.
All right, the sixth expectation that we have is that we expect our partner to always have it together. Today, we want our partners to be more emotional and more vulnerable and more open. But we also expect them to have it all together all the time. And when they don't have it all together, we get insecure because now we realize that we've been holding it together, and we haven't been allowed to drop our guard.
We haven't allowed ourselves because we were too scared that we weren't allowed. And because we thought we weren't allowed, we thought they weren't allowed. And now when they're being vulnerable and open and sharing their feelings, I remember when the first time Riley cried to me. And she she's so good at having it all together often.
And I really had to check myself, but if I want to be there for my partner, I have to understand this, I have to listen to this, I have to hear her out. I can't expect it to have it all together all the time. And I shouldn't expect myself to have it together all the time. But we expect our partners to be resilient, stoic.
And the problem with that is they're now holding it in. And that's why 10 years down the line, they come out and share something huge with you. And you're shocked. You're surprised.
Where did this come from? I didn't realize you were going through this. Why didn't you tell me? But when they did try and tell you, you were like, yeah, yeah, suck it up.
You know, get it all together. Like, don't worry about it. It's not a big deal. That's the crazy thing.
We want people to be honest with us. But when they're honest with us, we're like, oh, you're not being honest in the way I want you to be honest with me. Have you ever had that thing about that for a moment? It's literally such a mind mess.
You're like, please be honest with me. But when someone's honest with you, you're like, oh, no, not like that, right? Honestly means someone being transparent and saying exactly what they feel, even if it doesn't sound like something you want to hear. So don't expect your partner to have it all together.
Instead, allow your partner to have an honest, transparent relationship with you where you build a plan of action to improve. And then you do the same with them. Don't force them into wearing a mask when they're trying to be really transparent with you. Okay, expectation number seven, oh, this is a big one.
I mean, nearly there, we've only got two more to go. So there's the penultimate one. We have the expectation that our partner wants their same thing. And we see them not wanting the same thing as a sign that we're not meant to be.
Now me and Radi, we want the same thing and a lot of things, luckily, like interior design and homes and things like that. And in certain areas of our life, we don't want like, I love change and I love moving and traveling and she likes being in one place and nesting and building a home. So we have lots of differences. But the problem is when we see our differences as disrespect in a relationship, you can't see your differences as disrespect.
You have to see them as just what they are differences. They are just differences of opinion, different backgrounds, different experiences, different upbringing, expecting your partner to want the same thing is not always going to work. Creating something together is better than wanting the same thing. Create something together, build something together, but sitting there going, well, why don't you want the same thing as me?
I thought we were in love is is a completely fiction based statement. There's no fact in that statement. You can't say, I thought we were so in love. I thought we wanted the same thing.
Wanting the same thing doesn't mean you're in love, but we see it as that. So if someone doesn't want to get married when we want to get married, we think that they don't love us. If someone doesn't want to move when we want to move, that means they don't love us. That's not the truth.
They just have a different pace. I move quickly and make decisions quickly. Radi takes time. So we're talking about moving home.
If we're talking about even when we're moving country, I know he takes Radi longer to get around to it. And she needs certain things and levers to move in her mind to help her get there. So I can either help her get there without force or pressure, or I can expect her to get there. Notice the difference between expecting and respecting.
When you expect something from someone, you stop respecting them, because when you expect it, you expect that they should do it at the drop of a hat. Wow, this podcast, I hope it's so powerful for you right now. I feel like there are so many things that I'm discussing that are really, really powerful for me. I hope they're powerful for you.
And now is number eight. It's expecting our partner to understand us immediately all the time. We expect our partners to understand this as soon as we speak. We want them to auto-fill, right?
Like Google autocomplete, sorry, is what I'm thinking about. Google autocomplete our sentences. We want them to understand this immediately. There's this instant that we need.
We need you to get me immediately. I've explained it once. You should already know. You should know exactly what I'm saying and what I'm thinking and what I believe and right now you should get it.
You might have been thinking about it for months or maybe even a year. You may have had an idea that you've let simmer and build and brew. And now you've shared it and you want someone to be at the level you're at. How does that make sense?
How does that make any sense? So instead of that expectation, you want to switch that expectation to again, focusing on articulating yourself as deeply as your partner needs. If your partner needs more explanation, more clarification, more detail, more color, give it to them. Don't see it as a sign of a lack of love.
And if they close off, when you're sharing something really deep, if they close off, don't make it personal, don't make it defensive. Say, hey, how can I help you understand this better? Hey, how can I understand what insecurity you're going through right now? So these are the eight expectations we falsely have in relationships and the eight upgrades that we need to make.
I really hope that you apply this in your relationship. I promise you, any one of these will be a game changer. If you love this episode, make sure that you leave a review on the app. It means the world to podcasts.
And again, thank you for being part of the on purpose community. I'll see you soon. Let's get real. Most people either don't like their jobs, feel unfulfilled in their jobs or realize their day jobs are no longer stable.
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