How can you become more realistic? originally appeared on Quora, the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.

If you are an overly optimistic person like me, you might struggle with realistic expectations at times. I often think that everything will be fine and turn out just like I want it to. Then, when it doesn’t happen, I am caught completely off guard.

Here are some things that you can do to become more realistic:

• Be honest with yourself. This applies to everything from the probability of success to your own internal assumptions. When there is a small chance of something coming to pass, combat the belief that you can defy the odds.

• Be mindful of potential challenges. If you are too optimistic, you won’t properly prepare which is needed in order to rise to the challenge.

• Examine your expectations. Compare and contrast what you think will happen versus what is likely to happen.

• Don’t look at outcomes as all or nothing. There is a lot of gray area in the middle. Learn to embrace the space between winning and losing.

• Avoid framing things with should outcomes. You can’t possibly know the outcome until it arrives so try to avoid that line of thinking.

• Determine whether your expecations are healthy or if you’re setting yourself up for a dissapointment.

• Understand that it might not happen on the first attempt (and that’s okay). The more you try, the more you’re likely to achieve what you want.

This question originally appeared on Quora.

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