How to Successfully Manage Your Expectations
“When you place unhealthy expectations on your life, you are setting yourself up for disappointment,” Stephanie Ritter Maat
MANAGE YOUR EXPECTATIONS SO THEY DON’T MANAGE YOU
Years ago, a wise Life Coach said to me, "Stephanie, you are disappointed because things are not turning out as you EXPECTED….your expectations are out of balance.” At that moment I had to hit a major PAUSE button. Expectations are good because they create a sense of direction or drive, but when they influence our thoughts too much that we are out of balance, then we set ourselves up for discouragement and disappointment.
Managing expectations is the answer so that the expectations don’t manage you. Start with your MINDSET. I know…"MINDSET" is a word we hear all the time, but changing your mindset to keep your expectations in balance is key. Maintaining that MINDSET is key to balancing future expectations so that they don’t control you.
When expectations manage us, it is like we are looking into a crystal ball expecting (or predicting) certain outcomes, reactions, or events TO happen. We truly don’t know if they WILL happen, thus the need to have a mindset that keeps expectations balanced and flexible.
How do you manage your EXPECTATIONS?
A TEMPLATE FOR YOUR EXPECTATIONS
Do you manage a personal budget? Do you manage your relationships? Do you manage your day? Perfect...you now have a template to manage your expectations so they don’t manage you. What do I mean? We expect a lot of ourselves (who doesn't!!!), but when our expectations start to manage us our vision becomes unbalanced or unrealistic. Do your expectations have to be altered a bit due to outside circumstances happening that were not in the original plan?
“Expectations were like fine pottery. The harder you held them, the more likely they were to crack,” ― Brandon Sanderson
If we don’t manage “life happening” with our expectations, we will find ourselves disappointed and stressed and those self-limiting beliefs can start to take over. Manage your expectations like you manage other areas of your life and be intentional about it so that when life happens, your expectations can keep thriving without self-imposed limitations.
When we create our crystal ball expectations and they let us down, we have a choice to (1) go down the road of disappointment and discouragement, shame and feeling like a failure or (2) decide to hit pause, evaluate, and level set those expectations to bring the energy back into your mindset and overall well-being. Unhealthy expectations are like a roller coaster: when expectations are not met, we get down and sad. However, when we meet our expectations at any given time, our joy surges and we are hopeful.
Expectations, however, do not have to be hindrances to our happiness. In fact, we can harness our expectations and strategically make them work to our advantage. Check out this BLOG to learn more on this topic.
TO EXPECT OR NOT EXPECT
Expectations show up in many ways and in different areas of our lives throughout the day, such as:
· New Year’s Resolutions - our expectations are wrapped up in the sparkle and excitement of a new year, but it only lasts for a brief period of time.
· Relationship Expectations – you expect your partner or children to act a certain way (your way).
· Professional Expectations– you expected to be promoted by now but it is not happening quickly enough for you.
· Finance Expectations – you had expectations you would be a millionaire by age thirty, but now you are forty and it has not happened.
Earlier I shared that expectations are like looking into a crystal ball and expecting to see the future….when we can’t predict the future. We can have a plan, goals, and an idea of what we would like to accomplish down the road (which is good), but life happens on that road so we need to embrace the changes and opportunities that run parallel to our expectations.
THIS I KNOW - Think of your life as an adventure where YOU get to explore all that it has in store for you instead of letting it dictate what you should experience. Whether you succeed or fail forward, let your goal be “I will have the expectation that I will learn as I go.”
An Illustration of An Expectation: Have you ever prepared a special evening for someone special? You made their favorite dinner and then planned to take them to their favorite movie later. However, your special person comes home grumpy and tired because their day did not go as expected. They barely noticed the special dinner you made because they lost their appetite hours ago. You head to the movies only to find out it was a sold-out show. The expectations you placed on yourself to create the perfect evening did not work out and the expectations you placed on your special person to be excited and grateful for what you did…did not go as planned either. All around the expectations failed! Your special person did not live up to your expectations, right? But that wasn’t their fault because they were your expectations and no one had an obligation to fulfill them.
Balance your expectations, don’t look into the crystal ball, and you will accomplish more than you ever thought you could!
“I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine,” ― Bruce Lee