Expectations vs. Attachments: How to Reframe Your Mindset for Confidence and Success
There’s an adage that never seems to get any older – “you should expect the worst, and hope for the best.”
But why? Why would you want to be expecting the worst and merely hoping for the best?
What does belief in that saying involve? And what might that leave you susceptible to when you use it (say it to yourself) for things uncertain?
In this article, we’re going to take an interesting stance on picking apart this method of thinking. I will share my viewpoint on how to reframe this entire ideology to help you set up a better frame of mind — a mindset for success. Because to me, “expecting the worst and hoping for the best” does not seem to set oneself up for success.
Likewise, in this article, I intend to show you, the reader, that expectations should be set at a high bar and never falter. Regardless of how uncertain you are about situations, events, plans, goals, etc. that you are heading into/finding yourself in. I also want you to understand that attachments that relate to your expectations, should be categorized in special ways, and how to navigate a mental framework that sets you up for WINNING in life.
Do You Not Want More Opportunities To Create / Manifest?
When thinking with the mindset of expecting the worst, what you’re asking your mind to do, is subconsciously degrade your entire being. You’re downplaying and grossly underestimating what you’re capable of. You’re also, at that moment, spending time in the future (which is not even real).
Let’s play this out for an example:
You have a big business meeting coming up that is important. You’re intelligent and looking at ways to prepare for this meeting. You’ve imagined many scenarios in your head, some great – successful, some not so great – very bad indeed.
Before you head into that meeting, you say to yourself, “well, I’m going to expect the worst and hope for the best.” Here, what you’ve done, is allowed all those negative thoughts/scenarios you were thinking, to very well happen, and perhaps they do, but you want to hope for the positive thoughts/scenarios that you went through in your head (hoping for the best).
What you’ve done (and quite likely), is you’ve given more energy to the negative scenario, and gave little energy to the hoping it would go well (a positive scenario you thought of previously). In turn, the meeting goes remotely well, but not exactly what you hoped for. So, what results is not the worst you expected/thought, and not the best you hoped for (also thought). Overall, you come out of this meeting, still very unsure of yourself, and yet you’re a wee bit happy because the worst didn’t happen.
Okay, so let’s break it down even more.
For starters, your mental energy was stifled by:
All the scenarios considered
You hoping for the best
You spent too much time on the worst scenarios
You went into the meeting without a proper mental frame of mind that was geared towards success
You spent way too much time in the future state.
The result = You threw yourself and it, out the window before stepping into the meeting when you mentally said that phrase. Plain and simple – you did not WIN this situation. You rode along with the idea that you’re not in control of your life - your fate.
Having spent time thinking and visualizing the expectations of the worst scenarios, you deviated your time spent on best-case scenario expectations because you lacked the confidence that it would or could happen for you. The way you wished it to be. That left you with mere hope, and hope comes from insecurity.
This brings me to my next point in the breakdown of the adage we’re going to destroy together here.
Lack of Confidence = Lack of Results
It’s a tried-and-true statement that when one is confident, one leads oneself into success (whatever you picture that to be), but success is an outcome of a confident being…period, full-stop.
When one hopes – it leads to a created space of insecurity because in hoping you don’t fully know, or believe that it can be done. You want it to be done – the result positive, but you’re not fully sure, which leaves a space for something else to occur as a result. This space is usually hanging out in the future, which does not exist.
Don’t get me wrong here, I’m not saying that if you’re 100% confident, you’re going to get the results you want every single time, all the time. As that would mean you’d know the future in some context, to a degree. That’s not the case I’m making. The case I am making is multifaceted, and this action of hoping and a feeling of a lack of confidence is only part of the entire equation, and an important part to boot.
What I can say, though, is that with confidence, you’re more likely to achieve the results you want, rather than not. Hoping is a feeling of insecurity and potential scarcity – which you should learn to not play with or go near. And that, in being confident, you will not always get the results you want, but what comes after, is that you remain confident and you learn quickly. For the next time this, event or opportunity presents itself, you’d come at it differently – with more confidence and remaining in the present moment.
Confidence as a Keystone for Success
Confidence, as opposed to hope, is positioned as a decisive factor in achieving desired results. Hope, rooted in insecurity, creates mental uncertainty that undermines self-assurance.
This leads to the next concept – which is reframing your entire mindset towards expectations, losing the need to hope for things and staying centered – detached from outcomes.
Reframe Your Mindset – Build a Strong Mental Foundation
I personally believe, that you should expect the best ALWAYS, prepare for what might be possible lesser outcomes, and do not be attached to the result, whether it’s good or bad, full stop.
Reread that…then reread it again!
You’re probably saying, well that’s incredibly difficult, Spence.
And I’d respond, you’re ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!
This is a difficult frame of mind to:
Comprehend
Implement
This is why this is an extraordinary way of thinking, that we are not taught in schools or even from our parents. This is not the norm, I assure you. And if the norm represents a life without your influence of control in what happens, then that is not a life you should be seeking. I encourage you to step outside the norm and win in life.
A Win-Win Approach for Life
We are now going to expect the best of everything we do. We are going to go into situations with confidence because we know it can be done, otherwise why should we do it? Whatever happens, whatever occurs as a result, we’ll not be attached to the outcomes because ultimately, we’d know that it is part of our growth and evolution as a human being and a spiritual being. You can have confidence in that, I promise you!
That leaves us with one more thing to implement into this reframing. To remain open-minded about our observations towards the outcome, how we approached the situation, and how we went through the process of the situation that produced the result.
This means you have to leave the judgements you make of others and yourself at the door. Likewise, you have to leave the emotions at the door too. Because from your judgements, will come the emotions. Emotions follow as reactions to events, and we all know that emotions can blur the truth and keep you in your own self-created prison, which then breeds insecurity (do you see the self-sustaining feedback loop?).
Curiosity as a Growth Catalyst
Observing outcomes with curiosity instead of judgement leads to faster learning and continuous improvement. This approach transforms every result into a growth opportunity, fostering resilience and adaptability.
When you can start to live in this frame of mind – expect the best, be confident in your strategy and carry it out fully. With the results that are produced, you look at them in a way a kid would look at something for the first time. With curiosity. You’ll start noticing that your life will drastically change for the better. You’ll start noticing your ability to learn and grow and become that which you desire – inside and out. Furthermore, you’ll start to see events turning out the way you expected them to, but if not, you’ll come away quite quickly at how to improve the next similar situation.
In this way, life is working with you and for you, and you are working with life for yourself. You’ll notice how things seem to be more in your control, which ultimately leads you to be more interested and involved with yourself in creating and manifesting the life you want.
Isn’t that what you’ve wanted all along?
Then here is your starting point…