Capacity Versus Expectation

I have shared this Neuro Success ™ strategy with hundreds over the years. It literally changed my life and continues the ripple of revelation and transformation to date. I hope it brings understanding and breakthrough to you too, or someone you share it with. Expectations are an interesting bunch: they have the power to either support or totally sabotage our success. Allow me to explain…   Let’s say people’s capacity, i.e., all their humanly possible behaviours, sit within the circle. At any given moment, that’s all they have. Our expectations are represented by an “X”. When we place our expectations of a person within their capacity, they are able to be met.   The challenge is when we place our expectations of a person’s behaviour outside of their capacity! We are GUARANTEED to be disappointed and let down. Here’s the super important part: What you think (or expect of) a person’s capacity should be, may not be what it actually is at that given moment!  That’s simply your expectations placed upon them. Super important part 2: CAPACITY IS FLUID. At any given moment, capacity can change, either expanding or shrinking. (How we support or suppress an individual are contributing factors to this.) My capacity today at peak health will be different to tomorrow if I have come down with a raging flu. However — let’s say I intrepidly continue to work throughout the day even though I feel lousy — my work output may be less than half of that the day before. BUT I will have still given 100 percent of my capacity for that day. Can we ask for any more than that? Many times, I’ve heard people comment, “If I were him/her, I would have…” I often reply: “No you wouldn’t. You would have just done exactly the same thing they did, because you would have lived a life in their shoes. You would have the very same experiences and beliefs, the very same wounds, bruises and triumphs of life, causing you to create those exact neural programs. You, therefore, would have exactly the same capacity as them and you would have done exactly what they did, because that’s all you would be capable of!” For many years, I placed expectations on people outside of their capacity.  I was constantly disappointed and frustrated because my expectations were unmet.  This caused me to believe the lie that they didn’t care about me/their work, which hurt and frustrated me even more. It wasn’t until I had an epiphany of capacity and expectation that it allowed me to see that these individuals had given 100 percent of what they had. I realised I was judging others incorrectly and unfairly. I may have wanted more but it was unreasonable of me to expect them to give more than what they had. In time, their capacity may grow and they may be able to give more; but for now, I choose to be grateful that they have honoured me by giving 100 percent of what they had. Interestingly, once I stopped judging them, they were free to comfortably be themselves around me and were able to give more than ever before! This revelation grew my capacity. I hope it has grown yours too!