Tony Robbins: Change Your Expectations For Appreciation

I remember hearing Tony Robbins say years ago, “To change your life, change your expectations for appreciation.”

Lately, I've been thinking more about this quote and the meaning behind it.

It's easy to get caught up in expectations.  When you're constantly expecting things, you're setting yourself up for disappointment and unhappiness.

Expectations can lead to complaining and a sense of entitlement which can be unhealthy.

Instead, what if you did as Tony Robbins says, and change your expectations for appreciation?

What if you found a way to appreciate EVERYTHING in your life?  Every little thing that happens to you or has happened?

My bet is that you would feel more gratitude, happiness, and fulfillment.

I think we should all strive to find ways to enhance and enjoy our quality of life!

Watch the video below:

(Click here to watch on YouTube)

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FULL DISCLOSURE: Since I did this video, I was actually contacted by the Tony Robbins team to partner with them in their affiliate program, as well as to offer my subscribers a $20 off site-wide coupon on orders over $100.  So if you want to purchase any Tony Robbins programs or products, CLICK HERE and use the coupon code MASTERY on checkout to save $20.  Please note that I am now an “affiliate” for Tony Robbins and benefit financially if you decide to purchase through my link.

Video transcript

Change your expectations to appreciation. What's up, everyone? This is Stefan from projectlifemastery.com. In this video, I want to talk about something that I heard from Tony Robbins years ago. You know when you hear something, maybe a few years ago, and it had value, but you didn't really associate with it? You didn't really get it? Didn't have that much meaning in your life, but then at a later point in your life, all of a sudden it makes sense?

All of a sudden you're like, “Wow.” You finally, maybe at the time before, you weren't really open to it. You weren't able to relate to it, but all of a sudden now it's like it finally makes sense, and you can relate to it a lot more.

Tony Robbins

What I want to talk about today, is something that Tony Robbins says which is, “To change your life you need to change your expectations to appreciation.” At first, I thought that means have more gratitude in your life and appreciate more. Somehow that is the message that he's trying to share, but also the fact that most of us, being aware of the fact, that most of us live in a world where we expect things so often.

Right? We always expect things to go our way, or to go a certain way. We have this attachment, this level of entitlement in a lot of cases for most people.

Often times I can come from a narcissistic place as well, where people are a little bit too self-centered, or selfish. I'm not saying you are, or maybe you're not, maybe you are. I don't know. I can relate to this in some ways myself. Getting caught up in expectations, but understand that whenever you expect certain things, you're always going to set yourself up for disappointment.

There's going to be times in life where things aren't going to go your way. Things are going to violate your rules, your beliefs. If you have these stringent beliefs and expectations from other people in your life; your spouse, your partner, your business partner, from your customers, from your friends or family, whatever it might be.

The country, other businesses, from myself. If you expect things, then it's a very easy way to always be disappointed. You know, expecting things to some extent can be helpful. In some ways, expecting things for yourself, having high standards from yourself. Also recognizing that focusing on appreciating and being grateful is really what's going to change your life more than anything.

Often times, people get upset over the silliest little things. You walk into a restaurant and maybe the service isn't as great as you like. Because you've expected, you expect a certain quality of service, a certain quality of a meal. You expect a certain level of treatment to yourself. Like I said, when you have those high expectations, it's very easy for you to get offended, to get hurt, to get upset by that.

Take a step back and be grateful

Whereas, taking a step back for a moment, and appreciating and feeling grateful instead for the fact that there' s a restaurant. Oh my god, we take things for granted so easily. There's a restaurant that you can go into, and you don't have to cook the meal. You can sit down in a great environment. You're having someone that's serving you the meal, and providing that for you as well.

Just being grateful for that, and appreciating that concept, that situation, because there are many people in the world that don't have that luxury that you might have, to be able to go to a restaurant.

The fact that we even have access to a healthy, fresh, abundance of food, is something that we should all truly be grateful for and thankful for because we don't realize the fact that we didn't have to go out and hunt, and farm, and collect, and nurture, and go through the whole process of trying to find food and put it together. Instead, we can just go to the store. Instead, you can just go to a restaurant and literally have whatever kind of meal you desire, literally in a matter of minutes.

Most people t,hey get upset over the silliest little things. Another example is just going to the airport and getting on an airplane. People expect, they freak out when their airplane is late, or delayed, or whatever might be the silliest little things, instead of appreciating the fact that, oh my god, I'm on an airplane and I'm basically having the ability to fly in the sky from one place in the world to another, in a matter of hours.

This is something that never even existed for people hundreds of years ago, that I can now take advantage of and live this incredible life as a result of it. Right?

Most people they take those little things for granted

There's actually a funny bit on that by I think C.K. Lewis, I think it was. I'm not entirely sure. I forget his name, but appreciating those little things, you know? Spending more of your life instead of expecting. Appreciating things. I know myself in business, or any business owner might be able to relate to this. We have customers or followers that expect so much of you.

They expect you to talk about this. They expect you to do this in the business. To treat them this way. To create products or content on this or that. They expect you to always just give to them for free, and never sell or promote anything in your business, or not make any money. They just want everything for free. It's like an entitlement perspective that some customers can have.

Every business, I'm sure if you're a business owner and you have customers, you can relate to some bad apples and some customers that you have to deal with that, unfortunately, have that mentality. Instead of you know the customer just appreciating, “Oh my god, I'm able to benefit from the internet. I'm able to benefit from this person for free. I'm able to benefit from these products or services that they put so much time, money, and energy into that I can receive value from.  I'm grateful there's people or businesses out there that exist that can provide the solutions to some of the problems or challenges that I might have in my life.”

Just being grateful for those little things and not taking that for granted, can change your life.

My challenge for you and this is a challenge for myself. I'm not pointing the finger. I've been guilty of this in my life so many times, it's scary. Don't think I'm pointing the finger in any way, because I've had many expectations, other people. I've been upset with people, I've had people violate my rules. I'm also speaking to myself right now as well. I've taken responsibility for it. I want to change and improve myself, and hopefully, you're open to it as well.

Focus more on appreciating

Whenever you catch yourself going into that mode of being upset, angry, sad, offended, having expectations, complaining, understand where that really comes from. That comes from you focusing a little bit too much on yourself. That comes from you taking things for granted.

Okay? You taking things for granted, not fully appreciating and taking in the amazement around you. What you're already blessed to be given in your life, and the opportunities and the situations provided.

When you step outside yourself, you're able to see that. You're able to recognize that. If you catch yourself complaining, expecting things, going into a negative mode, understand, “You know what? I'm just focused on myself. What am I grateful for? What's great about this? What can I appreciate fully in this moment now about this scenario?”

If it's something on the Internet, “Oh my god, I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to have access to The Internet. To have a computer, to have wifi access, be able to search online to solve my problems. To be able to deal with businesses, or have access to businesses, or people that can influence me. That can help me solve my problems.”

Be grateful and appreciative of that. I know for example, in online marketing businesses for example, Kindle Publishing, Amazon, blogging, whatever. People are so upset all the time at Amazon, at Google, at Yahoo, at Youtube, at Facebook. People are always complaining about them. Right?

Instead of appreciating, “Wow, I'm so grateful the fact that someone invented Youtube, and someone invented Google, and Facebook, and Apple products, and computers, and the Internet, and all these amazing services. I get to benefit from it.” You know? “I'm so grateful that Jeff Bezos started Amazon because that now provides me an opportunity to make an online living, an online business. That's amazing.” Right?

You can find and complain about all the things with Amazon that you're not happy with. That you expect from them. Or you can find a way to appreciate the opportunity that they've given you to help you shop better, to get access to products, to be able to earn an online income from. The same can be said for almost any other business out there as well.

If you can change your expectations to appreciation, you can change your entire life

When you can find a way to appreciate, see the value, see the good in everything in life, your life is going to go to a whole new level. Nothing will ever bother you because you'll always be looking for the good.

When you look for the good, you'll find it. If you look for the bad, you'll find that as well. Part of it's conditioning you, training yourself. That's why I love morning rituals because I find that every morning I train myself to look for the good. To be grateful, to appreciate.

Now hopefully this can help provide another perspective for you as well. Hopefully, you'll take me up on my challenge, and find ways to appreciate more, and be more grateful. Rather than expecting and complaining about things as well.

All right, guys. I'd love to hear your experience with this. Do you agree, or do you disagree? What's been your experience? Do you want to take me up on the challenge? Leave a comment below. Love to hear what you think. I'll talk to you guys again soon. Take care.