Kim and I were out shopping the other day when we spotted mascara called, “Better Than Sex.” I can’t remember which one of us sheepishly looked at the other and said, “We might as well try it,” but I think it was me. Now that’s a pretty great expectation, wouldn’t you say? And how can you NOT try it? Unfortunately I had to let Kim know the next day that it really wasn’t, better than sex I mean. How could we have thought it was? Or course we didn’t, but we got seduced by the suggestion and the expectation.

Expectations seem to have this amazing power in our lives, over our decisions, our thoughts and our outcomes. When I walk on the tennis court, see my opponent and think, "Holy cow she hits really hard. There’s no way I’m going to get the ball back." Well, there’s usually no way I can get it back. But if I say, "She hits hard but you can handle it. You hit hard too!" Then I do so much better. Now we all know that right? If we talk to ourselves in a positive way the outcomes are better.

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But where else can we use positivity to craft our expectations so we give ourselves more grace and a fuller experience? I remember when my older daughter was in the terrible twos and I pleaded with the pediatrician for some wisdom. He told me, “Don’t go out expecting she WON’T have a tantrum, expect that she will and be ready for it!” He explained that I should make a plan. If I was in the grocery store, for example, would I leave the cart and head to the car or just ignore her blaring wails because she wanted my shirt to be pink and it was blue? Changing my expectation to me handling the situation calmly made me handle the situation calmly!

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Right now I’m having a flurry of complicated expectations about my last child graduating from high school. When I fly down a path of imagining how she will react and what I will do, laced with what horrible things could happen to her, I try to stop myself. I’m trying to expect instead that it will be a wonderful phase of growth for all of us. And you know what? I’m encouraging myself almost as much as I did when I invested in that mascara. I’m expecting the best and looking forward to it!

For years my personal mantra has been “it’s all unfolding perfectly!” At first I would repeat it with a tremendous feeling of willing it to be true. But over time I have come to realize that expecting things to turn out well has trained my brain to look for something positive in every potentially difficult situation.

Scientists use the term expectation bias (EB) to describe what occurs when “an individual's expectations about an outcome influence perceptions of one's own or others' behavior.” Basically what this means is that we project our expectations on to others as well as our overall experience, which ultimately influences how we perceive the outcome.

In addition, we also deploy what’s known as a confirmation bias. This is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports our existing beliefs or expectations. Therefore, we are actively seeking information that enables us to say “see, I KNEW it would turn out badly!”

Yet, according to Emiliana Simon-Thomas, science director of the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley, pessimistic thoughts or expectations put us in a position where we’re more vulnerable to experiencing unpleasant or negative outcomes. And these predictions that things will turn out poorly tend to lead to feelings of anxiety.

Research shows that we tend to:

• Overestimate the likelihood that bad things will happen
• Exaggerate how bad things will be
• Underestimate our ability to deal with things if they don’t go well
• Ignore other factors in the situation, which suggest that things will not be as bad as we are predicting.

Experts say that the best way to address biased expectations is to challenge them ‘head on.’  This means remembering that our thoughts and expectations are often opinions rather than facts. They can be questioned, and should not be just blindly accepted. We can challenge our biased expectations by:

• dissecting them
• evaluating how accurate or likely they are,
• examining what evidence they are based on,
• and looking for any positive things we may be ignoring.

Social science tells us that we believe negative expectations will help us deal with disappointments before they occur, but in actuality they simply intensify the disappointment and keep us from fully experiencing the present moment. So practice letting go of negative expectations and living in the moment. And feel free to borrow my mantra any time you need it!