The Shift

Expectations Shape Experience

Expectations quietly influence our lives.

Before we speak, before we act, before we even consciously think — our bodies are already predicting how things will go.

Notice what comes up for you as you read these scenarios:

• Tomorrow you're giving a huge presentation. Your boss's boss will be sitting in the front row, watching.

• You're walking into a crowded room where everyone already seems to know each other — and you only know the host.

• You just hit 'send', reaching out to the friend you haven't spoken to in years, and you're waiting for a reply.

• You're walking into a first date with someone your friends swear could be "the one."

What stirred in you? Nervousness or excitement? Thrill or dread? Hope or embarrassment?

If you reread them, you'll notice there are no emotions attached. Just facts. And yet I know you had a reaction.

A Metaphor for Expectations

Think of expectations as glasses with interchangeable lenses. When the colored lens is flipped down, it makes you see situations negatively, judgmentally, and coldly. Flip it up, you see clearly, and the same situation becomes welcoming and kind.

Why it matters: Your brain's predictions literally change what you see, how you feel, and how others respond to you.

What Are Expectations?

• Brain predictions based on past experiences, learned patterns, and emotional memories

• Nervous system responses that manifest physically and behaviorally before conscious thought

• Filters that determine what information is accepted, what is discarded, and how events are interpreted

• Self-fulfilling prophecies that create their own reality

How Expectations Work

Your brain constantly forecasts what's coming next based on past experiences to save energy and reduce uncertainty. This is called predictive processing (Clark, 2013).

Since the brain is built for survival, it gives more weight to negative experiences to prioritize safety — especially those involving fear, shame, or pain.

The amygdala tags threatening moments as important and tells the hippocampus to store them as long-term memories. Increased neural activity causes us to remember negative experiences more vividly than neutral or positive ones (Baumeister et al., 2001).

This means difficult or painful experiences can disproportionately influence the expectations we carry.

Maria’s Story

A while ago, I worked with a client, who we will call Maria. 

She was a data analyst and she dreaded giving presentations despite her technical expertise. Before an important quarterly review, she noticed her familiar anxiety spiral pattern.

"I kept imagining my voice shaking, my mind going blank, and executives looking at me like I was an idiot," she recalled. Upon further exploration, Maria realized these expectations stemmed from a humiliating high school presentation experience.

She began to notice how this old lens was coloring her current reality.

"I started practicing the lens-lifting technique," Maria explains. "When I felt that familiar tightness in my chest, I'd pause and ask, 'What's my nervous system predicting?' 

Then I'd remind myself this wasn't tenth grade, and these colleagues actually valued my expertise."

She intentionally recalled positive past experiences when her analysis had solved team problems and when her boss had praised her clarity.

"The morning of the presentation, I was still nervous," she admitted, "but it felt like anticipation rather than dread. I made eye contact instead of staring at notes, and even enjoyed answering challenging questions."

What changed wasn't Maria's skills, but the expectation lens through which she approached the situation.

The Science Behind the Transformation

Maria's experience isn't just an isolated success story—it's backed by decades of research showing how our expectations fundamentally shape our reality. 

When Expectations Work Against Us

Social Anxiety & Selective Attention

People with social anxiety literally look at different parts of faces than confident individuals, focusing more on potential signs of disapproval (Horley et al., 2004). Their brains are primed to find rejection, so that's exactly what they see (Horley et al., 2004).

The Power of Unconscious Priming

In one study, elderly participants who were subtly exposed to words associated with elderly stereotypes (like "Florida," "bingo," and "wrinkle") subsequently walked more slowly down a hallway compared to control groups—without any awareness of the influence (Bargh et al., 1996).

Stereotype Threat in Action

When women were simply reminded of gender stereotypes about math ability before taking a test, they scored significantly lower than equally capable women not given such reminders. The mere expectation of underperformance became reality (Steele & Aronson, 1995).

When Expectations Work For Us

Just as negative expectations can hold us back, positive expectations can propel us forward in remarkable ways:

The Athlete's Mental Edge

Elite athletes who practice visualizing success—executing a perfect routine or crossing the finish line—activate the same brain circuits involved in the real performance. Their nervous systems literally rehearse victory before it happens (Frenkel et al., 2014).

 The Healing Power of Belief

In placebo studies, patients who believe in a treatment's effectiveness trigger measurable biological changes—including dopamine release, reduced pain, and enhanced immune function—despite receiving sugar pills. Hope itself becomes part of the medicine (Wager & Atlas, 2015).

Reversing the Clock Through Mindset
Elderly participants who lived in an environment designed to reflect their younger years, including photographs of their younger selves, showed improvements in memory, hearing, vision, posture, and physical strength. Even their before-and-after photos showing visible physical rejuvenation (Langer, 2009).

Marketing and Taste Perception: 

Participants given the same wine but told one bottle was expensive and the other cheap not only reported the "expensive" wine tasted better—their brain's pleasure centers (orbitofrontal cortex) actually showed greater activation during tasting (Plassmann et al., 2008).

How to Lift the Lens: Inner Shift Practice

Because these expectation "lenses" were shaped by experience, they can be reshaped through new experiences, especially when those experiences are conscious, kind, and repeated.

Shift 1: Notice the Colored Lens

1. Think of a situation this week that's causing anxiety or where you're expecting something to go wrong.

2. Pause. Ask: What is my nervous system predicting?

3. Gently scan:

   • Where do I feel that in my body?

   • What memory does this remind me of?

   • What's the belief hidden in this expectation?

   • What thoughts come with this?

4. Offer a gentle alternative: "Maybe I don't know how this will go." "Maybe I can expect to be surprised." "I can show up, even if I don't know."

Shift 2: Strengthen the Positive Experiences

Studies have proven that it is more effective to start a new positive loop (building new pathways) than trying to fight or suppress a negative one. (Shift 1 isn't about fighting it, it's about noticing what is already happening so you can make a change.)

Positive experiences, while less "sticky" in the brain on their own, can be deliberately amplified through conscious attention, repetition, and emotional engagement.

According to research by Rick Hanson, PhD, author of Hardwiring Happiness, here is what you can do to enhance a positive experience (Hanson, 2013):

1. Notice a good moment that's already happening (e.g., a sense of safety, accomplishment, connection) or create one deliberately.

2. Stay with the experience for 5–20 seconds.

3. Let it grow stronger, richer, and more intense in your awareness—in your emotions and body.

The Essentials

YOUR WEEKLY TOOLKIT

Resources for your emotional & mental toolkit - including articles, strategies, techniques, frameworks, videos, people to check out, links, and anything else I find helpful.

A Quote to Consider

“Do not be satisfied with the stories that come before you. Unfold your own myth."

Rumi