 That's right. Your expectations are killing you. Expectations are some of the leading causes of anxiety, depression, and anger. So in this video, we're going to talk about your expectations as well as some solutions on managing them so you can improve your mental health. So make sure that you stay tuned. What is up, everybody? This is Chris from the Rewired Soul, where we talk about the problem, but focus on the solution. And yes, today we are talking about expectations. And expectations are just killing us. They are doing so much harm. But the problem is that most of us don't even realize the expectations that we're putting on people, places, situations, and all these other things. So this can be a driving force that hurts our mental health. So again, as always, if this video, if you find anything of value in this video, please, please, please share it so we can help some more people. All right? But anyways, I want to get this video started off by saying one of my favorite quotes. I want to teach one of my favorite quotes to you. All right? Pay attention. Rewind this thing if you have to and come back. Write this quote down. Put it on your mirror. Look at it every single day. The quote says this, my expectations are inversely proportional to my serenity. All right? So what that is saying is when my expectations go up, my serenity goes down. Okay? Your serenity, your happiness, your peace, your calm, your sanity. Okay? The higher the expectations go, the lower that serenity is going to be. So what does that mean? The higher your serenity is means the lower your expectations are. But let me make it very clear as you will find throughout this video, I am not saying that I want you to be a pessimist. I'm not saying expect the worst from everything and every situation. That'd be crazy, especially because I just did a video, which I will link up in the info card. I just did a video about changing your perspective and becoming an optimist instead of a pessimist. But one of the ways we do this is by having very realistic manageable expectations. So the goal of this whole thing, if I were to look at this kind of like on a scale, right? So plus 10 is extremely high expectations and negative 10 is like a pessimist, like everything's going to be awful. Okay? One of the words or part of the language we use in meditation is this thing called equanimity, right? And the way I kind of picture that on this scale is bringing it right back to the center. Okay? Having like very little expectations, the closer we can get our expectations towards that center line, the happier we'll all be. So let me just throw out a few examples for you real quick about expectations being inversely proportional to your serenity. Okay? So one of the first examples that is extremely relevant right now is Bitcoin. Bitcoin, Bitcoin, Bitcoin, Bitcoin, Bitcoin. I have had so many people message me just completely just broken, right? Because their expectations for Bitcoin was way up here. And this is something that they were setting themselves up for failure by having these huge, huge expectations time and time again, like, man, I don't even know about Bitcoin. But I do know that people are constantly saying, do not invest any money that you are not willing to lose. And so many people are like, no, man, this thing's going to be huge. This is going to be the best. I'm going to cash out and be a millionaire. But as the market starts to plummet a little bit, people start losing their minds. So their expectations inversely proportional to their serenity. Here's another one, jobs, looking for a new job. I see people set themselves up for failure constantly. These high expectations, low serenity, they find a job, great job. They like the job. They want to do this job. And on top of it, great pay. And they're like, you know what? I'm going to land that job. I'm going to get that job. They get one interview, two interviews. And in the meantime, this whole time, they're not putting in any other applications. Why would you put in other applications? You're going to nail this job. Your dream job, the one that you love. But I've seen so many people where even one or two interviews later, they get a call back saying that they didn't get the position. And they just plummet and spiral into this depression because their expectations were way up here. The next one is loaning money. Loaning money. Let me tell you this. Because I found this balance with my expectations and my serenity, here's the rule of thumb that I use. I never loan money expecting to get it back. That has helped me so much because A, it gives me a good guideline. I don't loan any money that I can't live without. But like it gets rid of any anger or resentment that might come from a friend or a family member not paying me back. So if I can't afford to lose that money, I do not loan the money. But a lot of people set themselves up for failure because they keep loaning money to friends or family members and expecting to get it back. And some of you right now are like, yeah, of course, I expect to get my money back. But we got to understand we have to look at our internal locus of control. The things that we're in control of, right? I have no control over whether or not somebody pays me back. So to place my expectation on people is going to set myself up for failure. Like, hi, I don't know if you've met me yet, but I'm Chris. I'm a drug addict. I had a lot of people expecting me to pay them back, but I'm a drug addict. I don't pay people back. By the way, quick disclaimer, that was five and a half years ago. Luckily, I haven't had to borrow any money at a long time. Anyways, the last quick example I want to give you is new relationships, new relationships. That is the killer of serenity because so many people, they jump into this relationship. Oh my God, he's so sweet and nice and we have so much in common and oh my God, we're going to get married, we're going to have kids, we're going to, we're going to buy a house and we're going to go on vacation and all these things. Like, you just start planning all these things. You have such high expectations of this brand new relationship. Now, I'm not saying you go into this relationship expecting that you're going to break up, but notice how your expectations are rising in that, right? Like, one of the best things you can do is take it one day at a time and quit projecting so far out in the future. Like, I hate to say it, but you might meet the man of your dreams or the woman of your dreams and they get hit by a bus tomorrow. Like, I'm just throwing that out there. We have to start managing these expectations. So one of the big ones, one of the big ones, when we're talking about expectations versus serenity, the expectations that we put on ourselves, okay? So many of us are really good at beating ourselves up and one of them is, is because we expect perfection from ourselves. So what happens is, is that it's very hard for us to cut ourselves a break. Like, if we're being honest right now, nobody's perfect. So why are you going to place this unrealistic expectation on yourself to be perfect when literally nobody is? You know, like, even though you're on Instagram and you see the people with the perfect house, perfect car, perfect family, all these other things, perfect body, right? There are things that you are not seeing. So perfection is a very, very unrealistic expectation that you are placing on yourself that you need to start managing. And going back to my beautiful little line graph here, like, bring that expectation back to the middle. You know what that middle line is? That middle line right there is that you're human. You're human. You're gonna slip. You're gonna fall. You're gonna fail. You're gonna screw up. You know what I mean? When you understand that as your expectation, you'll start to see that you're a lot happier. And this last one, here's a little surprise for you. I was actually talking to one of my friends. One of my friends, her name is Nikki. And she just started watching my videos and she's like, Oh my God, these videos are kind of good, right? And I was talking to her about some of the video ideas I have coming up. And she was really excited for this topic. So I said, Here, Nikki, because you're my girl, because what you're one of my best friends, how about you send me a specific example about how your expectations set you up for failure. And she's like, Okay, Chris, I'll do it. So I'm about to read the text message she sent me. I'm going to talk about it and provide a solution because I know a lot of you deal with it too. But need you to do me a favor real quick, hit the pause button, comment down below and say, Nikki, keep watching the videos and share them with people to help them. All right, you're back. Okay, let's do this. So Nikki's text message said this, and I know that a lot of you can relate to it. Like I'll sit down, count all my bills, see that I'll have everything paid off in June. So I get all serious about budgets. And I look forward constantly to when things will quote unquote get better. And then I'll find some new medical bill that hasn't been paid or some thing. And then I'm angry because I did everything right, made my spreadsheets did my budgets, cut unnecessary costs, and then boom, some out of nowhere bill I didn't know of. And now I feel defeated yet again, like all these great efforts I'm making mean literally jack squat. That's not exactly just financial, but it's wrecking of how I thought I had some plan. And the plan blew up. All right, so if you can relate to that, like please let Nikki know to if you didn't do the thing I just said, like pause it and say, yo, girl, I can relate. Because that's what I want to do. This is a community like so many of us are dealing with the same stuff. So I get it. I've been there too. Now, one of the one of the things is here is that this this false idea of control. Okay, it's funny too. But Nikki, if you're watching, touch the screen, touch the screen, right? One of the reasons I said that to her was back when we were working together. And like myself, and maybe that's why me and Nikki get along, we're both control freaks. There's so many things that are outside of our control. And one of the things is we're expecting that we can control every single situation and every single outcome. And for me personally, that was setting me up for failure. Because I did these same things I planned I did everything right and then I just boom felt defeated. So a few things now I'm going to be completely honest with you. Okay, if you can relate to this, I'm gonna be completely honest with you. Something that we got to do is start setting up savings. That's what we got to do. We have to expect the worst. I think ideally what they say and I'm not a financial guru is you should have enough money saved to pay your bills for three months, rents, food, power, cable bill, whatever for three months that should be your savings, right? Now I get it the economy sucks. And a lot of people can't do that. But like I just recently started putting money into my savings, because what we have to do we have to be ready for when these things happen. So when we set ourselves up like that, that that bill that comes out of nowhere or that thing that we forgot about when this expense hits us, like we're prepared for us. So it's not like this like soul crushing blow. Okay, but my next piece of advice, which is not just for finances, but it's for everything. This has been my saving grace. And I am telling you, okay, so for all those examples I just gave you all the examples I gave you in this video, here's what I do that has saved my butt. Okay. And it's this have a plan A, B, C, D and an E. Okay, have backup plans out the wazoo. This will help you so much with managing your expectations. So when you're going into any situation, any situation, like, Oh, I'm going to get that job, or Oh, the friend is going to pay me back. When you are making a habit of making backup plans, when things don't go the way that you expected them to, like you, you know that you're okay, because you already prepared for that. The problem is, is that so many of us get this blind optimism. And we go into these situations with no backup plans. So when they fall apart, we are just destroyed. Okay. So that's why we got to make these backup plans. That will help when your expectations, because expectations are going to come, but it's going to help when your expectations are a little bit too high, and things don't quite go your way. Okay. But anyways, anyways, like I said at the beginning of this video, if you took anything of value from this video, please do me a favor and share. I'm just trying to get the message out there that people can improve their mental health, especially when it comes to things that they can control or manage like their expectations. So go ahead and share it, share it on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, email it to your mom or grandma, or like your cousin, do whatever you got to do. Okay. But anyways, if you liked this video, please give it a thumbs up. And if you are new here, I'm always making videos to help you out with your mental health. So make sure you click or tap on that subscribe button right below. All right. If you got some time, feel free to click or tap on one of those thumbnails right there. Check out some other videos on this channel. Okay. But anyways, thanks so much for watching. Your expectations are inversely proportional to your serenity. And I'll see you next time.