The road to hell is paved with expectation

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions…” 

We’ve all heard that saying and I hadn’t even thought about it until a client asked me to help her understand the difference between intention and expectation.  She was struggling with feeling disappointed and wondered if it was because she was really setting an expectation rather than an intention.

It’s such a great question! 

Intention and Expectation are different animals…. and WAY different energies.

Generally, expectation is outcome focused and usually involves other people.  We talk about meeting others’ expectations or not living up to them. 

Our performance at work is judged on whether we exceed expectations or whether we are below them. 

There’s a value judgement in expectation and some definition of what “success” or “achievement” look like.  

We can set expectations for ourselves, too. 

Although defining a goal that may be positive and helpful, expectation is the voice of the inner critic that tells us just how we failed the test.

Expectation may activate the fear-based part of our brain that looks for evidence of how we don’t quite fit in, we’re not quite good enough or we’re simply not working hard enough. 

Expectation speaks in the language of limitation.  Expectation energy speaks of scarcity and constriction.

We OVER-plan to avoid every possible failure so that we can control the outcome.  While that may reach the endgame, it also might have restricted an outcome that was even more favorable than the one we defined. 

Expectation looks through the narrow lens of what we believe to be the best outcome- conceived through the filter of our minds.  

Expectation involves living up to an ideal. Expectation involves scripting the action of OTHER PEOPLE… and sometimes you, too.

Expectation feels forced, driven and draining- even when dressed in your red cowboy boots, flowy Coachella blouse and those jeans that make your ass look perfect. It's why you fought all the way home even though it was the first time you've been out of the house in a freaking year.

Expectation is the one who created a 6-page itinerary for the trip to Europe and then sulked on the riverboat cruise because everyone said to hell with that and went to get an ice cream cone.

Expectation can be that road to hell with its voice of command and control. It leaves everyone out of sorts, grumpy and exhausted- even you.

Intention dances to a different drummer.

She’s the free-spirit cousin of Expectation. Intention looks through a wide-lens of possibility.

She's the one who follows the sunbeam along the riverbed to help you notice the quiet and FEEL the absolute magic of it all.

Intention shapes how I’m going to move through the moments of the day. 

Intentions set the direction of our actions that arise from the heart.  We have to stop and listen before we can set an intention.

I can’t set a true intention for anyone but me…. Crossing the other line moves into the realm of expectation. 

True Intention feels like an invitation to unfold, to look for mystery to pay attention with open curiosity.

There’s freedom in intention and many roads to what unfolds. 

When we set an intention from the wisest part of our heart, there is an inclination to move towards love and away from control. 

Of course, there’s a dark side. Even to that free-spirit voice.

When we move away from the heart and let our head lead the intention game, that’s when things go awry.

Sometimes we THINK we’re setting an intention but it’s just a prettied up version of expectation.

“My intention is that the outcome of the meeting goes my way…”

Ugh.

That involves those other people at the meeting. I slipped over the edge into command and control of the outcome.

So we dress up that sneaky expectation in some better words like "I wish...." or "maybe we could go there sometime....."

Thinking that softening the words will release how afraid we are at not knowing or getting what we want.

It's confusing. We're told to set an intention to manifest our dreams and we think that means that somehow there's a right answer.

Like if we choose the wrong intention the whole thing goes to hell in a handbasket.

So there’s choice with intention too. The energy matters. The motion matters.

For intention to invite possibility it must include expansion and compassion from the heart and it must involve action.

If intention is secretly coming from a hardened heart with a desire to shame or hurt, then it’s destructive- just like expectation.

That road to hell can also contain the mortar of bad intentions along with the bricks of expectation…

And the signposts of intention without action.

We have to DO something with an intention for it to make magic.

Anything else is a wish or a hope.

For me, intention shapes the day. I write down my intention for how I’m going to show up, what heart quality I’m responsible for bringing to the table that day.

Then I act from that place of compassion, love and care for myself and others.

The rest is out of my control.

How liberating.

There’s not expectation for anything more than exactly what happens in the moments of a day.

So this road to hell… I’m no longer on it

When I drop the desire to control

that’s when the path emerges.