Expectations - FUSE

The last component of Fuse is expectation. And this is one of my favorites because we've all gone through this. Now. These are strong beliefs that we have about someone behaving in a certain way. We think somebody should do or act in a certain way. And we don't realize that many times our expectations are informed by the way we would do something. So we think the way we would do it is the way other people should have done it. And then we set ourselves up for failure, and we set them up for failure. And then at that point, all the other aspects, the fuse, the filter, the unconscious triggers, and the style, our hind are activated. Because if you expected somebody to do it and that person didn't do it, you filter that as, oh my gosh, this person totally failed. And then you react to that feeling of failure. And then you act, you implement your style in a certain way. So then all these four components cannot really be separated because there's an overlap and they affect each other. So expectations. Let me give you an example, because I think this will help you understand very well. So imagine that you write a super long text message. You take forever to write a message to your spouse or to your boyfriend or to your parents or to somebody that you're having some sort of struggle with. And you take forever and you think about it and use the right words and you implement your communication techniques. And then it's finally time to send it 45 minutes later, and you shoot it. You send it and guess what the respond is five minutes later? An emoji or thank you or K. Because sometimes they won't even write okay. And then you're like, oh, my gosh, they didn't even care. I took 45 minutes writing all this. I became vulnerable. I feel so stupid. You know, I did all these things and they don't care. The other person doesn't care. Because if not, they would have written a message just as long and they would have taken forever, and they would have put a little more effort into it. But what we don't realize is that maybe that person wrote the emoji or the okay or the thank you because he was in the middle of a meeting and he didn't want you to feel that he didn't get the message or didn't care. So he responded that until he had a chance to write more or less, or maybe that person has a different style and they're not good with words, so they were going to tell you in person how much they appreciate it or so many other things could explain why that was a response. And that does not mean what you interpreted, what you filtered. So when we expect somebody else to act the way we would have reacted, we're failing in realizing that we're all individuals that are unique and different and we have a different fuse. And part of the fuse is we act differently. So our expectations may not be appropriate. A lot of relationships fail because of unmet expectations. So we need to try to explore and see what are the things that we expect the important people in our lives to do. For example, the other day I have an assistant and I had asked her to do certain things to help me, and those were recurrent assignments, but she just started with me, so I didn't get have the opportunity because I was so busy to tell her, remember that we need to do this this month because it's going to be recurring as we had spoken about before. And this is what I expect from you, and this is what I would love for you to do in order to help me. And she wasn't doing the things that I wanted her to do. So I stopped and I thought, okay, if she's not fulfilling my expectations, then maybe I haven't been cleared about what I would like for her to do. So let me have a conversation and let me make sure that I express to her clearly and that she understands what I'm wanting her to do. I sat with her and I explained everything and she has not failed ever since. Which tells me that the problem wasn't the other person not doing the things that I wanted her to do, but rather me not having expressed correctly or taught that person what I wanted and expected from her. So expectations are important. It's impossible not to have expectations. The problem comes when they're not reasonable or when we assume those expectations. Oh, he's known me for 20 years, he should know better. He should know that this bothers me and that I want him to do this or that. No, it's not mind reading day. It never is. So you need to speak up and you need to always assume responsibility for unmet expectations. So if the other person writes an emoji or an okay in response to your text message or your assistant is not doing what she's supposed to be doing recurrently, then you have to ask yourself, how have I not guided that person well? Or how have I not explained to that person what I need or want? Now, in the case of my assistant, it's okay for me to expect her to do something because I'm paying her for that work. In the case of my spouse maybe replying, okay, or with an emoji. I have to consider that he's different to me and that I chose him knowing that he has a different style, that he has a different filter, that he has different unconscious triggers, and even his expectations are different from mine. So we have to consider all those things. And not always are we going to get what we want, how we wanted. That's when we meet in our middle ground, and that's when we have to come to agreements and use our fuse to be able to have conversations that are going to allow us to simplify and to figure out how to resolve a certain situation. One of the most vivid examples that I can think of and can be applied to a relationship of spouses, of friends or family members is, if it would have been me, I would have done this. So if you've come up with that phrase, you're probably setting yourself up for failure through unmet expectations. And a typical example that I share is this couple that she was at home and the husband was on the road, and he stopped at McDonald's and he came home and bought food for himself and for the kids, but he didn't buy anything for her. And she was like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe he didn't even call me to ask me what I wanted, or he didn't bring me food. If it would have been me, I would have brought him food or I would have called him. But then when she confronted the husband saying that he didn't consider her and he didn't think about her when he was buying food, he told her, but you're in a diet and you don't even like McDonald's. I feel like if I would have called you to ask you, you would have been like, seriously, like, you don't know me by now. Like, why are you asking me? You know, I don't like McDonald's. And you usually just have a peanut butter jelly sandwich. So I figured that's what you were gonna do today, because the alternative, you don't like. So if you see how we filter information differently and we react to it differently, you can understand how when we assume that certain people should act a certain way, we're really not setting them up for success, but rather the opposite. So let's think about what expectations we have that are not being met. And let's reason to see if it's because the other person's failing or because we haven't been clear about what we want from that person and what we expect that person to do or say so. Expectations are really important to pay attention to and it's the last component of Fuse. But we also have to pay attention to the other three because everything overlaps and everything is connected to each other. And very soon you're going to be able to filter information in a different way because you're going to clean your filter. We're going to get those unconscious triggers and make them conscious so that we can be aware of them and develop tools that are going to help us cope with particular circumstances that trigger us. And then we're going to learn about our style and that of the people around us so that we can communicate more effectively. And finally we're going to study our expectations and we're going to make sure that we educate people so that we can have reasonable expectations from them. And that's Fuse for you guys. I hope you have a better communication and you can actually start the conversations and be successful in your relationships.