Managing Your Expectations

Vinnie saw the three women approaching across the Bowdoin practice field, and promptly sat down in the grass, waiting. As he expected, all three stopped and fawned all over him.

At 12 weeks old, and in the midst of a pandemic, my basset hound puppy hasn’t met that many people.

And yet, he has expectations of everyone he meets.

Last week on our walk, we passed a man who was power walking, lost in his headphones and on a mission. Vinnie stopped mid-trot, sat down, and watched the man walk past, seemingly confused.

Given that he’s had few interactions with strangers, I’m not sure where he developed the expectation that everyone in the world is his friend and wants to say hello, but he’s got it. And though I know we anthropomorphize our pets all of the time, he looked sincerely disappointed (ok, he’s a basset hound, he always looks sad. But still) when someone walked by him.

I’d be willing to bet that all of us have expectations, the origins of which we can’t always identify, especially of ourselves.

I don’t remember my parents ever telling me that they expected me to be an A-B student in school – in fact when I got my first D in Plane Geometry I don’t even remember my parents’ reaction. But I’ll never forget my own – I was devastated.

I’d come up short. I’d failed. I’d put in my best effort and fallen drastically short of my expectations. And it didn’t feel good.

In many ways, expectations are helpful. They give us a sense of directions and standards and can help us with motivation. There can be a time and a place to ask a lot of ourselves. But sometimes we set expectations that are unrealistic, assuming that if we set those goals for ourselves that we will somehow find a way to hit them.

But when we come up short – when we encounter a road-block, either internally or externally, that can really jack up our stress levels and lead to an endless string of internal self-loathing. Or sometimes external too. What comments do you say aloud under your breath when you talk to yourself? (I’m super guilty of this…and my self-deprecation is absolutely my way of coping).  

And while I’m not suggesting you set the bar so low you can trip over it (though as I’ve written in the past, some days I have pants on and that’s what I’ve got), I am suggesting that you take a minute to step back and re-evaluate those expectations.

Do you even know where they come from? Did you set them or did someone else set them? What’s the time frame you have on those expectations? Can you be kind to yourself if you find that you need to allow yourself more time than you originally expected?

Perhaps the best question I can ask is this:

Would you set the expectations you have of yourself of someone else about whom you cared deeply?

Take a minute, right now – list out some of your goals. List out your timeline and your expectations. Be reasonable with yourself. Remind yourself that there will be problems and you will have to adapt. Hold yourself accountable yes, but don’t judge yourself too harshly.

Make adjustments, be kind to yourself, and keep moving - one foot in front of the other.