I watched Marvel's 'Spiderman: No Way Home' yesterday, and highly recommend it if you've been following the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

In the movie, MJ tells Peter, "If you expect disappointment, you will never really be disappointed".

A lot of us tend to live by this quote, which sobers our own expectations. 

If that is all that it does, then it's a great philosophy to live by. However, along with sobering our expectations, it also makes us feel that it's alright to hold back and not give our full effort, attention, energy to it.

And this is where the downward spiral starts.

What we need is to find the fine balance between giving our fullest to what we do, while at the same time, not being swayed by our expectations of the outcome.