You May Know What You Want, But What Do You Expect?

Why Your Desire Will Trip You Up - Every Time

By Joshua Wayne, MA


When you begin working with your expectations rather than your desires:

➢    Your plan won’t get derailed
➢    You won’t be setting yourself up for failure
➢    You won’t keep resurrecting the same frustrations over and over again

Now, it’s possible that your expectations already match what you desire.  If this is the case then good for you!  You will find yourself making great progress with relative ease.

If they are not matched, however, then you first have to honestly look at where your expectations lie.  So the first thing to do is get yourself in a clear, calm state of mind.  Go take a quick brisk walk or just take some deep breaths to focus your mind.  Turn off the phone and television and just sit with yourself for a minute, and fill in the blanks to the following question:

What I want is _______; what I truly expect is _______.

Be brutally honest.  It doesn’t matter what the answer is.  You have to start where you’re honestly at.  Instead of setting yourself up for failure, break down your desire into smaller increments of expectation.  If you realize that your expectation is to only lose 3 pounds instead of 30, that’s okay.  Start there!  Make this your goal for now.  It’s still a very good goal.  
When you have achieved it, celebrate that success and decide what is next.  Perhaps you will then find that you genuinely expect to lose 5 more pounds- or even 10.  The more you succeed, the more you will expect of yourself. Success breeds success.

What if you realize that ultimately you truly expect to fail?  If you find yourself in a situation where your expectation is endless self-sabotage and more of the same, don’t worry.  Hope is not lost!  You need to learn new skills that will strengthen your relationship to yourself, your body and food.  As you practice these skills, stronger, healthier expectations will form.  So stay tuned, because I will be introducing these tools in future articles that will be sent out to the Tip Of The Day email list and also the list you join when you sign up for PEERtrainer.


To Your Health and Happiness,

Joshua Wayne, MA

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  Joshua Wayne, MA is a Personal Development Coach and trained psychotherapist with an emphasis on weight loss motivation and mind/body wellness.

In his private practice Joshua has helped his clients achieve their weight loss goals, shape their life direction and resolve a wide range of family problems from relationship difficulties to out of control teenagers.

Joshua has a Masters Degree in Counseling.  He has also been intensely interested in and studying personal development, fitness and spirituality for close to 20 years.  Joshua also heads up the PEERtrainer 12 Week "Point Of No Return" Coaching Program.