Life is interesting, so are people. Yet you may often discover that things aren’t as they seem? Our great expectations may need some examining.
Have you ever had someone say to you that they are disappointed with their progress in life, their lack of success? Have you been disappointed in your own progress or achievements? Are you disappointed in where you’re at right now?
What can be surprising is when someone you considered was doing well, or seemed to have it all, makes an admission that they feel a failure or inadequate somehow. It can be so completely contradictory to the impression about their life that you were getting. You had great expectations of them as the role model for success, one for you to copy.
Until that moment you had assumed that their life, and maybe even everyone else’s life, was more successful, more productive, more admirable or more whatever, than your own. So how is it that what you were seeing turned out to be not how things actually are for them?
Look again. What did you not see? This view of others, and of yourself, like many expectations, can seem kind of misguided once you start to explore it a bit deeper. And you may not be the only one with this skewed view when looking at others and comparing yourself with them. The idea that everyone except you is having an amazing, effortless, happy, fulfilling, successful life is a powerful misconception many have.
How can so many of us human beings be so off the mark? It’s not unusual to attend presentations by experts, who have mastered an area of knowledge or skill, like growing the best orchids, or making money on the internet, or copywriting, or share trading, or interior decorating, or presenting on stage, and finding yourself short on ability or achievement by comparison with them.
Compare the best with the best
Often you are comparing their most developed area with your own least developed area. It’s not about being right or wrong, it’s often just a fact that they have more knowledge and experience and expertise in a specific area than you have.
The next bit is worth looking at again too. Listening to experts presenting a condensed summary of their journey to success and the steps they took can lead to an almost inescapable conclusion that everyone can be successful in the same way, by following their steps. And, of course, if you want what they have achieved then it makes sense to be guided by them.
Why would you assume otherwise? What is often minimized is what it really takes in terms of stepping up, over and over, till you get there – making the outcome your single focus for as long as it takes, disregarding all else in your life. Not to mention their personality, past history, pre-existing training and skills, their preferences, their connections and their attitudes. None of these are created or developed in an hour or two.
Overnight success is rarely overnight
Writers, actors, artists and musicians have at times been acclaimed as an overnight success, after struggling to get there for years and years. Even when they admit it took twenty years to become a success, it’s only what is happening in the limelight that is obvious to us as admirers.
So, can you be a “fair witness” of yourself and others, see without enhancing or diminishing, acknowledge and accept what is as is? When you stop judging yourself as a success or failure, just recognize where you are at right now and where you want to be, you can then focus on how to get there from here.
Role models are a valuable example, but you are unique so are not meant to be a rubber stamp of another person, no matter how much you admire them and what they have achieved.
What’s the Secret?
The trick is to integrate what you know for yourself and what you learn from others, into your own unique expression to move forward, towards what you want to gain or achieve or contribute, to align with your great expectations.
Use the Brain Integration Technique to get started in developing your unique, original, harmonized, blend of resources, experience, knowledge, insight, support and skills to do what you want to do in your life.
If you get stuck, bogged down, or lose your way, I’ll show you another technique next time that will get you unstuck.
Wishing you much success
Cheers
Anna McRobert
anna@annamcrobert.com.au