Tag: expectations

Real generosity

Posted on by philipdodson

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Generosity has become a very popular buzz word, a little like authenticity. It has cynically become a must-do strategy.

Generosity is not giving someone a wonderful gift and sitting back awaiting the thank you card.

Generosity is not giving someone a lovely compliment and expecting her to reciprocate, leaving only disappointment when it is not forthcoming.

Generosity is not offering to build someone’s new website and then expecting that person to do our accounts for free.

If you feel that you’re always giving and then people are taking advantage of you, then you are not actually giving, you are not being generous, you are almost underhandedly selling, as your gift has a ‘price’ attached to it. In your head, you have ‘given’ with an expected almost conditional reciprocation.

True generosity, often time being the best example, is where you give unconditionally and you give because it brings you pleasure, brings you joy and you have done it with no motive other than that.

So next time you feel that you are giving and not getting anything in return, perhaps question if you had an expectation of a return.

If you expect nothing, it is impossible to be disappointed. More often true giving brings amazing surprises some point in the future and often totally unexpected.

Give for the love of life and for the pleasure it can bring you.

Share your gifts without conditions set in your head or implied to others.

That’s being generous.

Most things work out

Posted on by philipdodson

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Most things in life tend to work out. OK so not all of them, as perhaps we imagined or expected them.

That is perhaps where we need to start our thinking.

Instead of fearing the outcome, perhaps we could start by adjusting our expectations.

We have this mindset that makes us look at the gloomiest outcome first, it is a default thing in most of us, encouraged by society and dominated inside our heads by our limbic brain that wants to avoid any potential ridicule or humiliation.

So typically we think something won’t work out and the only way it could work out is perfectly or really well. Otherwise, we won’t start.

Perfection or really well is the wrong expectation of the outcome of doing something.

Perfection is boring and actually impossible to achieve as if you ever reached it, something more perfect could always be found with the mindset of only perfect will do. Even really well is not always possible.

Now that doesn’t mean we should not believe that we can achieve our goals, but it is the goals that we need to assess differently.

It is better to start and do something than to never start. Just ship it anyway, just start and expect something, but don’t expect super awesome, because that’s when most of us believe that it won’t happen and we don’t start.

Like every single thing in life, starting something is a habit and the easier you make it to build a habit, the easier it is to keep doing and thus, the habit will form.

Habits are like a muscle, the more you exercise them, the stronger they get and the more habits you can build.

Believe most things work out and prove it by starting simple easy things and build the habit. Each time we will create better, we will learn how to improve, slowly step-by-step, who knows we might even exceed our previous overstated expectations simply because we started and we improved. Not over thought, feared and never even started.