“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”

One of the big changes I have made over the past year relates to my expectations of the future. I have discovered that how I view the future often shapes my present state of mind. More importantly, I have pinpointed an ingredient that has been crucial for turning my great expectations into reality.

The Importance of Great Expectations

When I write about great expectations, I am not referring to the Charles Dickens novel (and I dare not mention the movie featuring Gwyneth Paltrow… oops too late!). Expectations are simply what we regard as being likely or probable to occur. Great expectations, then, refer to a belief that great things will occur in the future.

I guess I have been lucky in that for most of my life I have felt my future held a lot of promise. Things were seriously tested, however, when I found out I was going to be a dad. Regular readers of this blog will realize that this event was a major turning point in my life. What you may not realize, though, was that it took a month or two for me to see this news as a good thing. There is no other way to say it: the pregnancy was an accident and initially I was not happy!

In retrospect, I think the reason I had so much trouble digesting the news was that it turned how I saw the future upside down. I had always imagined being at least 30 when taking on the responsibility of being a father. I envisioned that by this age I would be well traveled and be financially stable, among other things.

Whilst I didn’t realize it initially, becoming a dad would be the greatest event of my life. And my initial concerns regarding travel and finances would be turned upside down. A baby will limit our travel? Pfft…. we have just relocated from Australia to Canada. We will struggle financially? Pfft…. we are as well off as ever and I have never been as motivated to be financially successful now that I see myself as a provider for my family.

I give this personal example because I believe it illustrates how expectations of the future influence our present state of mind. When I first found out the big news, the future I saw as I peered in the crystal ball was not the one I wanted and, as a result, I was unhappy and even angry. The prospect of being young parents carried with it expectations of being tied down and financially crippled. After a month or two, when I finally chose to become excited about the news, everything changed. All of a sudden the crystal ball revealed a bright future with new opportunities. And these great expectations of the future brought with them happiness and peace.

Making It Happen!

Having great expectations of the future is the easy part…… it is making them happen that provides the real challenge! Although I consider a belief in a promising future to be important to a present state of happiness, this happiness is likely to be short-lived if you don’t find yourself making progress towards this future. So how do we turn great expectations into reality?

I believe one of the biggest roadblocks that people set up to making it happen is relying on other people or waiting on certain events to take place first. To illustrate what I mean, here are some common things that people tell themselves that I consider to be roadblocks:

• I will be financially well off when my parents give me a helping hand.
• I will be more loving to my partner when they show more love to me.
• I will be rich when I win the lottery.
• I will put more effort into my work when my boss gives me a promotion.

Each of the above have outcomes that I consider worthy of pursuing: wealth, career success, and a loving relationship with our chosen partner. There are, of course, many more desirable outcomes in life but I have chosen just a small sample that I know I have fallen victim to. If you reflect on each of these, you will notice that the onus for achieving the outcome is put onto someone else doing something or a certain event taking place.

In one of my early articles, Is That Lottery Ticket Keeping You Poor?, I wrote about why I have stopped buying lottery tickets (except for the very rare occasion). Its not that I necessarily have a problem with lottery tickets, but I hate how for many people winning the lottery has become their only hope of attaining wealth. By not buying lottery tickets, but continuing to hold onto my goal of becoming wealthy, I have put the onus on me to make it happen.

This leads me to what I consider to be one of the key ingredients in turning great expectations into reality:

Take personal responsibility to create the future you envision.

You shouldn’t expect another person to care as much about your aspirations or feelings as much as you do. They might, but don’t rely on it. In addition, don’t let an event that you may have limited to no control over hold up your dreams. Take personal responsibility for creating the future you want - I can attest that this has made all the difference in my life over the past year.

An Important Note About Having Great Expectations

In this article I have made a connection between how we think of the future and our present state of happiness. I want to make it clear that having great expectations of the future does not equal living for tomorrow. I believe living for tomorrow, or “destination addiction” as I have seen it referred to, is a recipe for unhappiness as people just end up chasing “next”, “more”, and “there”.

Tags: Happiness, Meaning & Purpose, Personal Growth //