Adjusting your expectations is the key to your peace. Here’s how to do it in three, simple steps.
This year, I realized I was tired of feeling let down.
I was tired of being frustrated by a partner’s consistent unwillingness to communicate. I was tired of feeling disappointed by a family member’s chronic anger. I was tired of feeling habitually unseen in a few one-sided friendships.
At first, my disappointment was simply anger: “I can’t believe they still aren’t meeting my simple needs after all this time—and after hundreds of conversations.”
But after a while, I realized that my disappointment was, in some ways, a two way street. In order for someone to consistently let me down, I first needed to have held them up to an expectation they consistently weren’t meeting.
Yes, their behavior was the problem—but my expectations of them were the problem, too.
Adjusting our expectations to reflect the reality of how others treat us is the key to stop being let down, start feeling at peace, and begin setting the boundaries we need to feel protected, respected, and well. In this article, we’ll explore the three practical steps you can take to adjust your expectations in your relationships today.
(Learn how you can use boundaries to sustain your relationships through difference, disagreement, and mismatch at my on-demand workshop, Using Boundaries to Sustain Complicated Relationships.)
Adjusting Your Expectations is the Key to Your Peace
In order to effectively advocate for ourselves, we need to adjust our expectations of others to accurately reflect the reality of how they act; who they are; and what degree of emotional maturity they have.
Unfortunately, many of us have unrealistic expectations—based not on evidence, but wishful thinking alone— that others will suddenly change, which keeps us trapped in cycles of false hope.
Maybe you hold out hope that, after a lifetime of silent treatments, erratic moods, or dismissiveness, your parents will finally develop the emotional maturity required to see you and love you fully.
Maybe you hold out hope that, after years of limited affection, your partner will finally be the emotionally expressive, physically attentive person you’ve always wished they would be.
Maybe you hold out hope that, despite thousands of one-sided conversations, your friend will finally get curious about you and your life.
False hope traps us in disheartening and painful cycles. We constantly want more from others, and we’re constantly disappointed when they don’t rise to the occasion. We secretly wish that this time will be different, even though they’ve shown us, time and time again, that it won’t. We make the same requests repeatedly, ignoring the evidence that they’re not—and haven’t been—changing.
(If you need a refresher on the difference between requests and boundaries—and when to use which—watch my on-demand workshop, Boundaries 101 for the Recovering People-Pleaser, here.)
False hope is emotionally exhausting and energetically expensive. When people don’t meet our hope-fueled expectations, we feel crushing disappointment. We get our hopes up and watch them burn down, growing more resentful with every revolution of the cycle. And our reasonable needs for affirmation, reciprocity, affection, kindness, and respect go chronically unmet.
When we expect others to change sometime in a nebulous and distant future, we aren’t dealing with reality—and as a result, we don’t protect ourselves the way we need to. Our job is to assess whether the situation, as it is now, meets our needs—and if not, to set boundaries accordingly.
3 Steps to Adjusting Your Expectations
Adjusting our expectations of others gives us peace, clarity, and a path forward. Here are three steps we can take to align our expectations with reality.
Step 1: Look At The Evidence
Consider the behavior or trait you’re constantly hoping the other person will change. Perhaps it’s your partner’s unavailability; your parent’s emotional immaturity or anger; your family member’s addiction; or your friend’s self-centeredness.
Then, consider: In the history of your relationship with this person:
How often do they do the upsetting behavior?
When, if ever, have they demonstrated both a willingness to change and a concrete, actionable change in their behavior?
When, if ever, have they demonstrated sustained change over time?
If they’ve promised to change with their words, have they backed up their promise with actions? Have those actions been intrinsically motivated, without incessant reminders and guilt trips from you?
If they’ve apologized: Has their apology yielded changed behavior, or just more upsetting interactions followed by more apologies?
As the saying goes, “The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.” Taking a long, hard look at the evidence helps us temper our wishes with reality. Oftentimes, when we answer these questions, the data shows that the treatment we’ve been wishing for has inconsistently, rarely, or never been shown us before.
Step 2: Allow Yourself to Grieve
Adjusting our expectations of others includes giving ourselves permission to grieve the relationship we wish we had with them. (The pain of this grief is, in large part, why we try to avoid adjusting our expectations at all.)
Releasing false hope can be extremely painful. It brings us face-to-face with the fact that the people we love can’t, or simply won’t, meet us in the ways we need.
This grief, though crushing, is necessary on the path to acceptance. (We discuss how to cope with this grief in my on-demand talk, Nobody Said It Was Easy: Where Boundaries, Control, Grief, and Freedom Collide).
We must release our vice grip on false expectations in order to make space for the reality of what is. In truth, holding onto false expectations never really made our lives better; we never had what we wanted or needed, and our moods and hopes rode a miserable roller coaster of highs and lows.
Equipped with the clarity that comes from accepting what is, we can move into charting a course forward.
Step 3: Chart a Course Forward
Once we’ve adjusted our expectations, there are two paths we can take:
One Path Forward: Setting Boundaries
Unlike requests—which ask others to change—boundaries are about what we will or will not tolerate. Boundaries require us to say: “I accept that this situation is not, and hasn’t been, meeting my needs. I also accept that they are not changing. This being true, how close and connected to this person am I willing to be?”
Our answer to this question is where our boundary lies, and it usually takes the form of time, distance, space, increased privacy, or an emotional boundary. Perhaps, through this exercise, we realize that in order to protect our wellbeing and needs:
We’re not willing to spend as much time with the angry parent.
We’re not willing to hang out as often with the self-centered friend.
We’re not willing to discuss certain topics with the people who have shown us they’re not capable of having a calm and respectful exchange.
We’re not willing to keep enabling or saving others from the consequences of their own bad choices.
Another Path Forward: Radical Acceptance
It’s also possible that, after we’ve looked at the evidence and given ourselves permission to grieve, we decide to radically accept the other person as they are and set no additional boundary.
On its face, this might sound like exactly what we did before, but in fact, it’s subtly—and powerfully—different. Before, our “acceptance” was actually fueled by a secret hope for change, and it entailed soaring hopes and crushing disappointments.
This time, steeped in radical acceptance, we don’t have these unrealistic expectations; we wholly accept that this is how they are, and this is how they will be.
This acceptance, ironically enough, might enable us to appreciate them for the things they can do, or the ways they do love us, instead of resenting them for the things they can’t do or the ways they don’t love us.
Perhaps you radically accept that your parents may never fully understand or celebrate the lifestyle you’ve chosen—and by letting yourself accept this, you find that you’re able to appreciate them for the other ways they do show you care and affection.
Perhaps you radically accept that your friend isn’t capable of a truly reciprocal exchange—and by letting yourself accept this, you find that you’re able to appreciate their other qualities, like their humor, charismatic energy, or the shared activities you do together.
Perhaps you radically accept that your husband simply isn’t capable of deep, emotional heart-to-hearts—and by letting yourself accept this, you find that you’re able to appreciate the other ways in which you connect, like physical affection, laughing together, or joint hobbies.
When choosing radical acceptance, the key is to make sure you’re being incredibly honest with yourself—you have to ensure you’ve fully surrendered the hope for change, and are truly and fully accepting how things are now. This, believe it or not, is a power move. Before, you felt powerless—completely without agency—dragged along by the other person’s whims and actions. But now, you are choosing—with complete awareness and honesty—this connection as it is. You are not a victim of their actions; you are making an autonomous, self-aware, and intentional choice.
But isn’t it true that some people do change?
People can, and do, change—sometimes radically! Especially after seeking therapy or engaging in healing work, some people may fundamentally alter their values or lifestyle. Some people may break old, dysfunctional patterns and engage more openly and lovingly in their relationships.
Adjusting your expectations doesn’t mean that you’re not open to the possibility of change; it just means that you’re not going to wait around—vulnerable, exposed, and needs unmet—for change to happen.
You can set your boundaries according to your needs now, and if, in the future, they change in a way that delights or satisfies you, you can always loosen those boundaries or set new guidelines for the relationship.
Till then, remember that your obligation is to yourself. Holding out hope when the evidence says otherwise is a recipe for resentment and disappointment, and ultimately, you owe yourself the gift of engaging with reality as it is.
Adjusting expectations is one of eight boundary-setting strategies we explore in my on-demand workshop, Using Boundaries to Sustain Complicated Relationships. Watch it today here.