Is a healthy dose of hope and expectation enough to secure the future you want?

We all know what the words ‘hope’ and ‘expectation’ mean. Many of us use them as part of our daily vocabulary without really even thinking about it.

“I hope this works out for me.”

“I expect it will all work out, eventually”.

Fyodor Dostoevsky famously said, “to live without hope is to cease to live”. And I firmly agree with it. Hope is about being able to see light, even in the darkest of moments. It’s the spark that starts the fire, unleashes your full power, and pushes you to achieve whatever you set your mind to. But hope is a partner to your actions, not merely a futile, passing thought.

Expectation - when approached correctly - can also be a powerful tool. It can be valuable when manifesting and empowers you to kick into action. But there’s emphasis on the ‘when approached correctly’ here. Because it’s also possible to approach your expectations in a way that will only hold you back.

How hope and expectation interact

There’s an incredibly fine line between hope and expectation working well together or being a disastrous combination. Expectation is the assumption something will happen - sooner or later - whereas hope is like expectation’s more ethereal partner. Hope is the underlying wish in our hearts and minds. 

Partnered together well, expectation can bring the powerful law of assumption into play to boost the gentler wish. Partnered badly, it can be the force that strangles the goose. Bringing unforgiving standards and hard lines that leave a sense of failure and guilt in the spaces left when wishes and expectations remain unfulfilled. 

What are your expectations?

The novel Great Expectations was all about the moral theme that can sit under expectation. The good stuff (love, honour, loyalty, and conscience) versus the bad stuff (high standards, division, superiority, and wealth as status). 

So what I’m saying is that it comes down to what sort of expectations you have. That will determine how valuable a purpose they serve in your life. Are they good expectations that empower you and drive you forward? Or are they creating a looming sense of pressure and secretly screwing your thumbs to the table?   

Unhealthy expectations about how something must come to fruition keep the end goal fixed and inflexible. They leave you feeling as if there’s no room to change your path or pivot your focus. And that can remove a lot of your agency and freedom. You stop yourself from achieving your goals organically by employing force versus power. 

Harnessing your expectations healthily, they remain non-negotiable in terms of them eventually ‘becoming’, but there’s less finality on how you’ll get there or what success will actually look like. You step into power and rise up to meet your goals through action. Hope alone can bring an element of inaction and uncertainty; we don’t have the same drive. Hope with healthy expectations can be a powerful force that inspires us to bring the impossible to fruition.

Are they really enough?

So, when push comes to shove, is any amount of hope or expectation enough to actually bring about the results you want to see? To achieve the future you want, you’ll need great expectations - Dickens was onto something there - an empowering sense of hopefulness, and consistent and persistent action. You’ll need to do the work.

Your life and success represent a partnership between yourself and your action, and your hopes and dreams. Are you sitting there and expecting hope to do it all, expecting success without actively working towards it, or are you getting off your butt and doing some of the work as well?

Hope and expectation as passing thoughts are about as useful as tits on a fish. We can’t expect life to just happen however we want it to. Instead, we must partner with them to push us towards the achievements, success, and future we desire.

The journey to the future you want

The action that moves your hope from being a meaningless wish to powerful fuel for success is no easy feat. To get the life you want, you first need to get out of your own way. To heal your relationship with yourself and all that’s brought you to this point.

We simply cannot be the best version of ourselves if we’re held back by blockages - be that limiting assumptions about ourselves, broken relationships with others, or the filters we have for life. You can’t be free, peaceful, and empowered if you’re constantly confronted by aspects of your life that haven’t been dealt with. You can’t truly partner with hope if you’re not first in full partnership with your mindset and behaviour.

To achieve your goals, you need to recognise that you’re in the driver’s seat, creating it all - both good and bad. Whether you want more money, greater business success, or personal fulfillment, step one is getting yourself in the best position to receive it.

And I’d love to help you.

I’m thrilled to announce I’m running a new beta course to build up my community and get case studies ahead of an official launch. Polly’s Peak Performance Path will help you smash through your own glass ceiling and feel empowered to make your hopes and dreams reality.

It will involve group coaching, where I personally work with you to get the results you want, without the higher 1-1 fee. Initial members will also get free access to my upcoming membership group. And I’m offering this first look at the program at an extremely discounted 50% deduction.  

I can’t wait to get started.

To uncover real workability across your life, reach out to me at [email protected] to let me know you’re interested in signing up. I’d be happy to set up a call to answer any of your questions ahead of getting started.