Healthy Living DIY

Expectation crusher #3: Expecting behavior the person isn't capable of. The old adage, "Don't try to teach a pig to sing. It frustrates you and annoys the pig." applies here.

At some level, most of us get this most of the time:

• We don't expect our 2-year-old to be toilet trained.


• We don't expect the cat to verbally inform us of his urinary tract infection.


• We don't expect the doctor to heal us of a disease with no known medical cure.


• We don't expect one therapy session to restore a problem that took years to develop.


• We don't expect a teenager to use logic that his brain hasn't developed yet.

We don't expect those things, right?

Expectation crusher #4: Doing the same thing and expecting different results. We know better than this, too. But that doesn't mean we don't try it anyway. After all, it might have just been a fluke that the computer crashed the last time you performed that function.

There are a couple of reasons why we get caught up in this one despite the fact that we theoretically should know better.

1. Some people live from a context that change is painful. Therefore, those people try to avoid it at all costs. Even if if means getting results in life they don't like. The key for people in this situation is to either change their context about change (we'll explore that another day) or to recognize that the undesirable result is painful, too, so change may just be the lesser of two evils.

2. Sometimes, we're simply short up for ideas and don't immediately know what else to try. So we try the same thing again.

Think about it, though. Sometimes even a small change can make a big difference. What if you're a man getting ready for work at your office job. You walk out to the kitchen and your wife screams, "Oh no! You're not going to work looking like that, are you?" You figure you'd better try again, so you go back to the closet.

Shirt, tie, jacket or sweater, pants, shoes. Those are your options. You don't really have enough information to know what the problem is. But you'd better try something different. What's easiest? How about a different tie?

You walk back out the kitchen and now life is good. Wasn't so hard, was it?

Of course you're not going to do this example exactly as I gave it. It's a metaphor. Whatever area you're working in, though, just change one thing. It might be enough. If not, change something else. Keep going until you get the results you want, in this case a smile from your lovely fashion consultant!

One more expectation crusher tomorrow. It's a big one. Stay tuned!