I’m thinking about expectations. Other people’s for me, mine for other people and mine for myself.
Sometimes I think I’ve made my expectations clear, only to be disappointed–is my disappointment someone else’s fault or my failure of clarity around my expectations? Yeah. The latter. Dang.
No one can meet meet our expectations if we’re not clear about what they are.
We think we’re telling people what we want when in reality we’re only hinting, or worse yet, expecting them to just know.
What do you mean, you don’t have ESP?
Get clear–state what you need/want. And make sure you’re clear on others’ expectations.
All of these have been challenging for me, but the biggest was figuring out my own expectations for myself. Maybe we have a nebulous idea floating around and maybe there’s a touch of guilt and/or shame attached to it because somehow we aren’t doing/being what we VAGUELY think we should!
We do the same darn thing to ourselves that we do to other people, hint at what we want or think the Universe will tell us what to do and or be.
doobee, doobee, do…
You are never going to get what you don’t really know you want. Ever.
I started the “earning dollars” phase of my life with no direction. None. Oh, I had a thought that it didn’t matter what I did, because I was going to be discovered!!!!!
I am not even kidding.
Just me tra-la-la-ing waitressing or bartending and SOMEONE would see me and offer me SOMETHING. Was I working toward this nebulous dream of vague outcomes? HOW COULD I? Okay, I spent a good chunk of my school life on stage, so I came by the nebulous dream honestly and after I was out of school I did audition exactly once for something–didn’t get it and that was it.
Really? Really.
But I still held fast to my “dream.” And I still thought something would happen–like some sad fairytale princess waiting for someone else to save her.
I wrote a little bit, had no set genre, or time frame, didn’t take any classes (read a few writing books)–and even submitted a couple things (years and years apart) got two lovely rejection letters, (they really were lovely with good advice) and both times I stopped writing. Instead of listening to the advice and persevering, I stopped… There was always being DISCOVERED…
I don’t know why I expected success when I’d barely worked at it. But then again, how do you work at something when you’re not sure of the outcome you want? Sheesh.
It wasn’t until much later that I realized another aspect of this: if I had no hard core attachment to a specific outcome, I couldn’t really try for it–and if I couldn’t really try, well, I couldn’t really fail.
No investment equals no (horrible) return.
So, no specific expectations for myself meant never letting myself down. Except, I always felt as if I weren’t living up to something, soooo, I was, in fact, letting myself down. Icky, icky circle.
Am I set with this now, golden with the whole expectations? Nope! Still working on it–but now I’m not kidding myself. I’m super happy I worked through The Desire Map and know that it’s the feeling we want, which doesn’t mean I don’t need/want goals, I do.
Now, I’ll start with how I want to feel, from there I can build my expectations for myself and then commit to them. And then build my goals accordingly.
Unless I get discovered first.
I kid.
Have you set your own “great” expectations? How about for folks around you? Let me know!
Amy Kennedy The Creative Crone 
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