Managing Expectations

Going back to school later in life and juggling studies with work and regular day-to-day demands has taught me the importance of managing expectations.  And the hardest ones to manage, I find, are my own.  The expectations I place on myself are much more rigorous and demanding than anything anyone in my life would place on me, and that is likely because it is so much easier for us to be our own harshest critics and judges.  

When I first started school, I set an expectation for myself to aim for straight As throughout my undergrad.  I managed to earn "good grades" in high school and started my undergrad journey with similar marks, much to my surprise and delight.  Then the inevitable happened...I fell short of the mark, and did it ever sting.  That sense of failure, the knowledge that this standard I had been imposing on myself was not going to become a reality, and there was nothing I could do to change that.  I mean, I guess I could have gone back to redo the course, but that costs more money than makes sense, seeing as I hadn't failed it; I had just failed to uphold a ridiculous expectation I had put in place.  What at first felt like a disappointment soon felt like a golden key; I had inadvertently freed myself from this thankless pursuit and could focus on the learning journey, instead of the outcome.

Elsewhere in my life, this same principle has come into play.  Whether it be in relation to running and performance, or how I schedule my time and the number of commitments I add to my days, I find myself more and more willing to give myself a break here and there to simply admire the view and appreciate the work that has taken place to bring me to the present moment.  This is not to say that the lesson has gotten any easier to digest, or that admitting I need to back off on things has become an easy practice.  It is something I often struggle with, usually prompted by a sense of internal pressure rising and the discomfort that accompanies it. 

The thing I find interesting is that it is often our fear of what others might think that causes us to white-knuckle through these times of overwhelm.  Meanwhile, the others we are worried about are likely facing the same pressures in their own lives, and are unaware of the turmoil we're tap dancing around while we wave off offers of assistance.  When we finally do come to the realization that we have no choice but to say no to something, the sense of relief that comes with this admission is often much more powerful than anticipated.  At least, that has been my experience of it.  

What can we do to help move us forward so we aren't always reaching a breaking point before we take our foot off the gas?  Maybe doing just this - talking about it and normalizing the fact that no one can do everything all of the time.  At some point in everyone's life, there is a point when no is the only honest and accurate response to whether we can take on one more thing.  And perhaps doing away with the idea that perfection exists at all, outside of our own internal dialogues.  Instead, what would happen if we aimed to achieve goals that felt like a stretch and that left us feeling a sense of accomplishment, regardless of how our success stacked up to that shown on social media feeds and reels?  I think that it would help manage expectations and might make setting intentions and following through on them more fulfilling and meaningful than simply striving and grinding our way through life.