Rather than set expectations , we should aim to establish clear-cut  goals . Though these may sound similar, they vary in terms of how a person generally approaches not meeting a goal vs. not having their expectations met. When you set goals, you're doing so knowing full well that you may not achieve them. And even if you don't, you recognize that you can try again by retooling your strategy, or changing said goals altogether. When you set expectations of yourself or other people, you're already anticipating a certain outcome. If that outcome doesn't live up to what you had in mind, you're bound to feel upset and defeated. While being confident and "expecting" to achieve a goal isn't necessarily a bad thing, we need to remain humble and open to the possibility that things may not go exactly as planned, often through no fault of our own. For example, you might get psyched about landing what seems like the perfect job, but fall a little short...

They say people always want what they can't have. But there are times when not getting what we want can wind up being a blessing in disguise. For example, I've gotten turned down for jobs, only to learn a year or so later that the company went out of business. I've also been dumped or rejected by women who have gone on to cheat on their husbands or had kids at a very young age, with the father no longer in the picture. It can be very upsetting when we are unable to get what we want, prompting us to question why such things happen to good people. But little do we know that an even better opportunity lies in the horizon. Once it arrives, we breath a sigh of relief at knowing that the first one fell through. Such a scenario played out a few years ago while my wife and I went condo hunting. We couldn't get financing for the first property we made an offer for because the high number of delinquent owners at the property made our bank flinch. At the time, we were ...