In Session … Setting Expectations That Serve You
In recent months, I’ve come across an amazing therapist. She gets me all the way together on a regular basis. Now, I could have an entire conversation around the general idea of therapy, its benefits and why I think more people need to partake, but I’ll save that for another blog post. My therapist, we’ll call her Tracy, has been helping me work on setting better boundaries and prioritizing what is most important to me. In one of my sessions with Tracy, she said something that shook me to my core. She said, “setting expectations for someone else is usually our attempt to control them.”
My ears rang from how loud she was screaming. Every word hit me like a ton of bricks.
I thought about expectations in regard to my relationships, my career and my finances to understand where and how I may be attempting to control these areas in my life in ways that I wasn’t meant to or simply just couldn’t. After careful consideration I realized that I did want people to act a certain way or say things a certain way when interacting with me. I learned that I had to relinquish that desire to control, which also meant that I needed to let go of my expectations.
Further along in my conversation with Tracy, she gave me a golden nugget to take with me as I move forward through the world. She said, “Instead of setting expectations for others, set standards for yourself instead.”
By the end of the session, I felt like I was able to assume an entirely new way of life. I had learned so much from these tidbits of information. I found a multitude of ways to apply what I had learned in the weeks after my session, which now allows me to perceive the important areas of my life (my relationships, career and finances) in a different way.
When it comes to expectations, I try my best to keep them at the bare minimum. I would like to be able to say that I have no expectations, but that wouldn’t be true. I do have expectations and I think there are a few that I’m unwilling to relinquish. However, I prioritize the standards I set for myself that address how I move through the world so that I can take accountability for what does or doesn’t happen without giving that control or power to someone else.
In my journey to setting realistic expectations and creating my own self standard, I’ve garnered more patience, granted more grace and created more peace in my life.
With power comes great responsibility - so when we maintain that power it is our responsibility to ensure that our own needs are met. Passing that power along to someone else, by setting an expectation (which we normally don’t even talk about), is only our attempt to pass off responsibility. Be courageous enough to take responsibility for yourself.
