Day 41- Great Expectations

How many times have things exceeded our expectations? How many times have they fallen short? For me, a lot of my anxiety was because of my unrealistic expectations. I always took a tiny little thing and turned it into a catastrophic expectation. I always would see the glass half empty instead of half full. For example, right after my blockage in my stomach, every time I had a sore stomach I would think it was another blockage, but this time I would need surgery to fix it instead.

Even though I have slowly started to get better at seeing things half full, I still have work to do. This past Friday our District Manager came to our store. It was the first time in the 9 months I have worked there that she has ever come to our store. She was mostly there to do interviews for a new store opening, but we all thought she would walk our store after. I opened that morning so I knew I would see her; needless to say I was worried. I was EXPECTING it to be bad. Our numbers at our store haven't been that great and since I am one of the supervisors I was EXPECTING her to really let me know how terrible we (and ultimately I) was doing running the store. So, we spent 3 days prior making sure everything was in order and the store was spotless. The reality, she spent a total of 10 minutes after the interviews looking around the store and told me how well I individually I had been doing. My EXPECTATIONS of how the visit would go were far worse than how it went in REALITY.

So how could I have approached this situation differently? I first could have looked around at our store and pointed out to others (and to myself) that our store is very clean and in order. We often get complemented from a corporate worker who visits our store often that our store in one of the cleanest she has ever seen. I could have also remembered how many things we call "Super Sales" (these are transactions of over $300 at one time) that I have done recently. I also should have given myself more credit. I have a lot of experience in my position and know 99.9999999% of the things I should know in that position. If I had looked at all these things maybe my EXPECTATIONS would have matched my REALITY.

The thing to remember is that people with anxiety and depression have a very hard time with positive expectations; they have a problem with anything positive. For a long time if someone asked me to describe myself and my qualities they would be negative, or if they were positive I would have to always add on a "But that's not important" or "But that's only sometimes."

I know it's hard, but one of the easiest things we can do to start being more positive is looking for things that are good. If we can make ourselves find one good thing each day, about ourselves or about the things around us, then it will become easier in finding the good and EXPECTING good. Your brain will actually learn how to do this.

Here are a few things I found so far today that have been good:
1.) My dad, mom and I were able to put together an outdoor gazebo with little arguing (During projects we all tend to think our way is the best way).
2.) It was sunny.
3.) There were white puffy clouds scattered in the sky (Ever since I was little I have loved clouds).
4.) I got to see and play with my favorite kind of dog- 3 pugs.
5.) I am going to the movies with my family.

All these are good, positive things, and I EXPECT you you to find at least one positive thing about your day today as well. Don't let me EXPECTATIONS be wrong and not match REALITY.

Day 41- Thing I Love to Do........Play with animals.