Workouts for the Mind
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July 31 - Expections - Reality = Happiness

July 31 - Expections - Reality = Happiness

Expectations - Reality = Happiness!?

August 01, 2024

Workouts for the MYND

After a refreshing summer getaway to Nantucket where I indulged in the sunshine, ocean views, and all-you-can-eat ice cream, I felt inspired to write about more than just the simple joys of Vitamin D and beachside leisure⛱️🌊🧐Instead, I’d like to discuss the role expectations play in our lives and minds! Yep, this is heavier than you might expect from one who just took a quick trip to the beach, but stay with me…. I promise that you can EXPECT light at the end of this seemingly random tunnel 👩‍🔬

Summer is ripe with expectations….Fun in the sun, quick trips to the beach, trash books, amazing sandwiches, a break from the corporate tan (aka no tan!) with some nice color, joy, memories of childhood and so much more!

Summer is also ripe with disappointments: Sand in your tuna sandwich, seagulls eating said sandwich right out of your hands, rainy days, forgotten musty towels, no bathrooms available, overcrowded beaches with too-expensive parking, way-too-busy weekends and more.

So what are expectations, and why do they matter for disappointments and more importantly….your mental fitness?

Expectations are defined as a strong feeling or belief that something will occur.

According to folks at MIT, they matter because “when we are uncertain about something we automatically rely on our prior experiences to optimize behavior.” This is known as ‘Bayesian integration’ or the phenomenon where “if you can’t quite tell what something is, but from your prior experience you have some expectation of what it ought to be, then you will use that information to guide your judgment.”

So given our world is ripe with uncertainty, expectations are being formed left and right - every single day – and summer is no exception. Many of us have incredibly fond and special memories of ourselves as kids: frolicking without a care in the world, lots of popsicles, camp for some, pools for others with less memory of the hard moments. So we reach for these each summer vacation, summer Fridays, summer weddings with the highest of expectations to “get us through the work week.” Summer used to be everyone’s favorite holiday in 1960, but now spring is in the lead. Why?

We’re stuck indoors, working on the weekends, rushing kids and ourselves around to even more activities than normal and accidentally seeing on social what other people are up to in Portofino, Italy or Porto, Portugal, creating a vacuum of Bayesian integration where:

(High) Expectations – (Busy) Reality = (Lower than expected) Level of summer satisfaction (aka happiness).

The idea is simple… if you let this evolutionarily adaptive mental shortcut determine the way you show up to everything - especially summer - it’s very possible your level of satisfaction may be lower than it needs to be.

Enter, a Mental Fitness practice.

If you’re finding your summer, workdays, a birthday party or even your friendships are less awesome than you’re expecting, ask yourself:

Are my expectations clear?
Are my expectations realistic?
Are my expectations based on current information or old information?

If they’re good, then make sure that you’re paying attention to the second part of the equation— “reality” by asking yourself:

Is there anything I can do to share these expectations to make reality slightly more possible?
Are my expectations aligned with my reality (not aligned with my favorite influencer’s, childhood memory, or that of the staff at Succession or Gossip Girl)?

And that, my friends, is just one set of questions you can use to adjust your mindset when you’re finding yourself dissatisfied with summer, pissed about your performance playing soccer for the first time in 5 years, your colleagues mistake, or really anything.

Adjust your expectations, ensure your reality belongs to you, and notice how your feelings shift.

If you’re looking to set up your expectations for a killer day, every day, join the waitlist for our MYNDY Mental Fitness routine builder launching in September.

With Heart,

Lissy and The MYNDY Team

Join The Waitlist!

INSPIRATION

(Why we share this: This is a spark of info + research that gets you excited to practice Mental Fitness)

And if expectations and reality are set and you’re still unhappy…..Find 1 minute of Sir Michael Cain’s epic inspiration HERE.

PERSPIRATION (Why we share this: These are fun + small exercises to work out your MYND for impact)

Let’s work that mind: What do you see in the image below?

CELEBRATION

(Why we share this: This is a way to celebrate your MYND and the MYNDY community)

Team USA medals for the first time ever in women’s rugby sevens (and the first rugby medal for the US since 1924, when the men won gold). They grabbed the bronze medal after beating Australia 14-12 in the final seconds of the game!
A Chilean athlete just made her Olympic debut at 58 years old! After a long break from table tennis and a major life shift from China to Chile, Zhiying Zeng made an incredible comeback, securing her spot on the Chilean Olympic team and winning over fans with her inspiring story.
Celine Dion returns to stage to sing “L’Hymne à l’amour” at the base of the Eiffel Tower during the Olympic opening ceremony! This marks her first performance after she announced her diagnosis of “stiff-person syndrome” in 2022.

Today’s Quiz Answer:

Did you spot the sleeping woman?

Source: https://www.jagranjosh.com/general-knowledge/optical-illusion-spot-a-woman-sleeping-1696510081-1

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