Thinking Out Loud | The Power of Expectation

Happy Thursday ya’ll!

Hope things are well in your corner. Ever since I awakened this morning all sorts of thoughts have (thankfully) been buzzing around in my head. That means I’m alive right? My thoughts came to a climax and I couldn’t contain them anymore. Soon I was at the computer typing away. 🙂 While this post may not be deep and lengthy I just had to get my thoughts out on “paper.” So why not write AND share my simple little thoughts with you!

So much thanks to Amanda @ Running with Spoons for hosting Thinking Out Loud Thursday.

What are your expectations? For this year? This month? This week? Or even this very day? What do you expect to do and accomplish? How do you expect to feel?

A few days ago I shared my expectation for September. It’s my goal of incorporating 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 into my daily life through God’s power. Of course, when I shared this with you a few days ago I was completely “gung-ho” for lack of a better expression. I was excited for a new and adventurous month and craving more of God’s restoring power in my life.

However, as you may have noticed, feelings don’t last long. They come and go like butterflies flitting about the sky. (Not so sure if that’s the best analogy:))

So as they customarily don’t in my case, my emotions deserted me. All of the positive ones, that is. My energy, my excitement, my zeal for living Biblically in the coming month slowly morphed into strong feelings of inadequacy, irresolution, and discouragement.

As my feelings plummeted, so did my expectations. Thoughts like, Maybe this is too hard and I just don’t have the energy anymore began to float through my head.

Like a hot air balloon slowly losing air I began my steady mental descent until it hit me: My feelings are just that–feelings! They don’t have to control me. I’m allowing them to rob me of positive expectations and that will ultimately lead to nowhere good. STOP!!!!

And that’s where the concept of the power of expectations began to present itself strongly in my thinking.

You see, if I expect to fail, then sooner-or-later I will fail. This may sound crazy at first but it’s true because when we expect to fail, we neglect to position ourselves for success. We tend to focus on the negative until it totally consumes us and we eventually lost the desire to succeed.

But uh-uh and no way baby! This was not going to happen to me today. I realized that now was the time to flip my expectations right side up and continue to expect good things for my month, my week, my day and my moment regardless of my feelings.

Because the very nature of feelings is transient and flighty. Sure, we have them for a reason but that reason is NOT to dictate our actions or to change our expectations.

Remember that question I asked you earlier on in this post?

What are your expectations? 

If they’re good, don’t you dare let them be snuffed out by negative emotions. Remember that the way we think powerfully influences the way we act. When we expect to succeed we will!

So expect great things today and move forward! Because life is too important to be dictated to by negative emotions. I’m talking to you too Jade! 😉

Happy Thursday!

-J

What are your expectations? Have you found that your feelings are quite transient? Have you ever allowed your feelings to dictate your actions? What are some tools you use to combat negative emotions? Are you expecting great things today? (Talk to me! I promise I won’t bite ;))