If you are somewhere between twenty and thirty years old (or maybe a little earlier or later, depending on your circumstances), this article is for you. It shows what you can do to get a grip on your life and keep it from sliding out from under you.

Does your life ever seem like a scorecard that doesn’t add up? College degree, check. Job that pays the bills, check. Contentment, no check. Personal satisfaction, another empty box. Ever feel slightly resentful if one of your good friends gets a promotion, dream job, or randomly meets his/her soulmate while you are searching for your passion and have more invitations to engagement parties than you do dates of your own?

As your twenty-something experience takes form and your dreams of what you expected fade into the blistering reality of the “real world,” you might find yourself getting what I have coined as an “Expectation Hangover™.” And, since sometimes misery does love company, know that you are not alone.

From our beliefs, we construct ideas of who we should be, ways we should act, and things we should have. Our lives often are fueled by expectations, many of which are not our own. We are “should-ing” all over ourselves!

Perhaps your mother thought you should become a doctor, and you were so busy preparing your butt off for the MCATs that you never stopped to ask yourself if you actually wanted M.D. after your name. Or you thought you should study law as your parents had, but really wanted to study the rituals of pygmies. And sometimes you compare yourself to friends who have found professional success, buying fancy cars with their bonuses, and seem not only content, but happy . . . and you should be happy for them (ouch!).

This should-load leaves you, and who you really are, buried under a pile of expectations. And the media pours salt into your wounds by continuing to focus on young entrepreneurs, some starting their first companies before they finish high school. Multi-millionaires overnight! Expectations are all over the place coming from society, parents, peers, and worst of all, your own treacherous mind. Maybe you daydreamed of a corner office and a vice president title by the time you were 27. Or that you would have met your soulmate and be well on your way to 2.5 kids and a white picket fence by the time you hit 30. High expectations all around, and if you’ve subscribed to one or all of them, you are at risk for an Expectation Hangover.

Expectation Hangovers arise when things don’t go as expected, when we are unable to match our expectations for ourselves, or when something unexpected (and undesirable) happens. If we don’t succeed or meet the standards set for us (or that we set for ourselves), the incessant judgment begins.

The familiar phrase “should have, could have, would have” is centered on looking back, and the only way to get to the life you want is to move forward. So the key to preventing Expectation Hangovers is to not allow yourself to get bogged down in the quicksand of expectation and comparison! What are your goals and what are just expectations and “shoulds?” How is what you want for yourself different from what you expect, or what you think others expect, from yourself?

It’s easy to follow a life path paved from expectations, when the alternative, the not knowing what you want, is downright scary. Only 20 percent of twenty somethings in my online survey said they are where they expected to be in life. The rest -- 80 percent -- reported suffering from an Expectation Hangover. Many people might think they are working towards something, the family life and work life they think they want, when really they are running away from their desires out of fear and uncertainty.

If you are not where you want to be in your life and you feel like there is nothing you can do about it, let me remind you that this is your life. If you want to be happier, more focused, more decisive -- you have that choice.

Once you find yourself suffering from an Expectation Hangover, it takes more than two aspirin and your favorite platter of greasy food to cure it – but it is possible! I recommend the following treatment plan for the next time you wake up with an Expectation Hangover:

1. Distinguish goals from expectations. A goal is defined as a, “purpose or objective.” An expectation is defined as, “eager anticipation for something to happen.” Notice from the definition how disempowering expectations are? Goals are self-attainable things we can take action to achieve. If you want something in your life to manifest, you can’t just sit around and wait for it to appear or expect it to happen.

2. Own your expectations. Admit you’re suffering from an Expectation Hangover to someone close to you. Talk it out, vent and then ask them to hold you accountable for moving forward and not harping on your expectations. Resist the temptation to ask for advice; no one else holds the crystal ball to your future.

3. Get out of the past and into the present. The only time is now. Don’t think about what you should have done or what you had wanted instead. What does the person you are today want? What do you want to be doing ten years from now? What steps can you take that will lead you there?

4. Stop the pity party. If you are feeling sorry for yourself, take a second to wallow, but then snap out of it. “I suck” or “what happened to me sucks” kind of thinking keeps a theme of negativity alive, reinforces hangover symptoms, and leads to isolation. And there is never a line at the door to a pity party.

5. Give yourself some wiggle room. We can be our own harshest critics. Success never happens overnight. It takes thinking, planning, and hard work. You will get to where you need to be eventually.

5. Say “no” to obligations, say “yes” to yourself. Maybe you are a social butterfly and have a million things on your schedule. Sure, sometimes you have to network, or go to the goodbye party for your best-friend who is leaving for Tibet, but most often than not we make plans out of obligation. It’s okay to say “no, thank you.” People can be very sympathetic if you explain you just piled one too many things on your agenda plate, but you’d love to see them soon.

7. Leave comparison land. It’s a toxic place that we all tend to vacation at. There will always be someone you judge as better looking, more successful, smarter and so on as long as you travel to comparison land. Stop taking trips to a place that only leaves you feeling bad about yourself. Your goal is to like YOUR life, not envy someone else’s – and remember, there is enough abundance in this world to go around!

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Based on the book 20 Something Manifesto: Quarter-Lifers Speak Out About Who They Are, What They Want, and How to Get It.

© 2008 Christine Hassler, Reprinted with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA. www.newworldlibrary.com