3 ideas to manage your self-expectations
How do you manage expectations internally and externally?
A theme that has been really relevant as of late.
Do you know what’s expected of you in your career? In your relationships? Within family? Most importantly, the expectations that you have for yourself?
Without clarity, it can be challenging to understand what this means on a daily basis. There can be expectations that haven’t been clearly communicated — by yourself and with the other person. And if the other person expects you to abide by these expectations and you are not aware of what these expectations are, there can be challenges.
Within your career, if you’ve started a new job without clearly understanding your job responsibilities, how can you expect to succeed? Is there a defined plan that has been agreed upon to create mutual success? And does this plan have the flexibility to change over time? If you understand how your goals line up with the organization’s goals, then expectations can be created to align and foster collaboration.
Within a family, if your parents are aging and cannot take care of household responsibilities, who is responsible for supporting them? Is there an (unspoken) expectation that the children will take care of them? Do you have children with the expectation that they will take care of you when you get older? What if your children live in a different state or country? What if the children have their own lives that they want to live and a purpose that they want to fulfill that conflicts with these expectations? How do you manage the worry, anxiety and stress of dealing with parents with high expectations? And even more, what if parents cannot clearly communicate their expectations? There are many considerations and different realities that need to be worked through.
Within your own life, what do you expect for yourself? Do you have high expectations for yourself and how do you manage this within yourself? I’ve held high expectations that can create a lot of internal pressure. Managing the expectations and the internal dialogue for me has been work-in-progress; in times of frustration, it’s easy to give in the path of defeat.
Here are 3 ways to re-visit expectations within yourself:
Clarify: Revisit questions to self-reflect and gain more information. What is it that you truly want to achieve? What is the legacy that you want to leave in this world? Tap into the specific feelings that you want to feel. Think about why you want to create these feelings and the impact that you want to create. Recapitulate through writing and/or talking through what you understand and see if it makes sense. I’ve found that I can get a better sense of what I want by revisiting goals and vision boards.
Focus: What do you want (instead of what don’t you want)? I have more moments of focus in my day when I can spend the first few waking minutes on something that serves me. In my perfectly imperfect schedule, I’ve been giving myself permission to take a few more moments of rest as that’s what I’ve been feeling. Sometimes I’ll meditate during this time and sometimes I won’t. I haven’t been able to do my hour of power consistently. I also know that throughout the day, I’ll fit the elements periodically as that is what has been working for me. I’ve been spending a lot of energy supporting others and as a result, I forget on checking in on what I need to be successful in my day.
Talk it out. Thanks to a few useful resources, I’ve been able to talk through my thoughts to understand my triggers. By talking through my challenges, I start to gain more awareness of my words. Words have power. Even words that I catch myself saying, such as, “This is taking too long. Why isn’t this happening faster?” creates self-awareness to make the shifts for me to learn and grow.
What are your expectations of yourself?
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Thanks as always, for taking the time to read my articles.
