And hello to you and welcome to the Richard Nichols podcast, the Personal Development

podcast series that's here to help inspire, educate and motivate you to be the best you can be.

I'm psychotherapist Richard Nichols, and this is episode 166. It's titled Disappointment and Low Expectations.

And if you're ready, we'll start the show.

Quick joke for you, pod fans. A young boy was so optimistic that his parents thought that they needed to teach him a life lesson.

Being cruel to be kind, they bought him a six-foot-high pile of manure for his birthday.

And it's delivered whilst he slept, and the next day they tell him his present is on the lawn,

and he rushes outside with his eyes open wide.

Wow, he shouts. That's amazing. And he jumps into the manure and starts to dig through it with his hands in excitement.

What are you doing? scream his parents. Well, said the boy. With this much manure, there's bound to be a pony in here somewhere now obviously the kid is going to be majorly disappointed

a pile of horse crap doesn't necessarily mean a horse which is a collection of words i never thought i'd ever say

but is the kid right to set his sight so high is optimism all it's cracked up to be? And to me, it's

important to see the difference between expectations and goals. You can have high goals,

but don't necessarily need high expectations in order to reach them because there's a difference

between having low expectations

and no expectations.

Having no expectations can prevent the disappointment from setting your sights too high.

So no expectation allows you to enjoy whatever you experience.

Having low expectations, or rather expectations of something bad,

could easily spoil what would have been a nice experience

because you might have primed yourself to look for what is bad about it rather than what is good.

Now, I get why being pessimistic can be

...