Great thought – to give yourself an adjustment period.

Also love “If all else fails… I resort to a nap.”

Ha! Absolutely. Amen.

It can be expectations about anything- the way I expect my family to treat me after I’ve had a bad day, the amount of cooperation I expect my 4 year old step-son to give me during our morning routine, the level of moisture I expect to be in the chicken after I’ve baked it, the proportions of coffee, cream & flavor I expect the barista to put in my Americano…… All very tiny details, but still very real opportunities for the frustration of unmet expectations to embed itself into my psyche, and turn my blessings into complaints.

I find that when I focus on what I expect myself to accomplish or how I expect others to act, then my whole view on my life gets warped.. I stop seeing the big picture, and I get wrapped up in the tiny imperfections to be found in ALL areas of my life. I’ve been working on learning how to cope with expectations, maybe changing them altogether, because I hate the way that if something goes “wrong” my ATTITUDE is the thing that gets most affected by it. I don’t want to live life in such a way that an imperfectly cooked chicken, or an unmet deadline will be able to ruin my outlook on the day.

So I guess what I’ve been doing to avoid becoming a slave to expectations is taking the approach of, “perfection is optional but not required.” Meaning, my expectations and daily goals are good, but not required for God to successfully run the world. I keep my goals in mind, but when the rubber meets the road, I know God is the one running the show- just because something seems super important to me doesn’t mean that it is actually necessary for the world.

Basically, the most important things, for me personally to EXPECT, is that
1) God will have the ultimate say in what happens in my life, most things are out of my control
2) I expect to be surprised by changes in plans, and I expect to give myself an adjustment period when it’s ok to be pissed off and frustrated that plans have changed.
3) I expect God to put unpleasant obstacles in my path to show me where my patience and endurance can be strengthened
4) I expect to live in a world that changes and adjusts minute by minute, which may not need the same things from me today that I planned on it needing yesterday
5) and if none of those perspectives seem to help, then I expect God to understand my frustrations and to guide me through the lesson being offered to me at the time.

If all else fails to alleviate the inner frustration, I resort to a nap. LOL!!!

I am mother, a Christian woman, and I work in full time outreach ministry….Expectations suck.

How are you managing to not become a slave to the expectations?

Initially I did not manage it… just slapped the handcuffs of expectation right on like that was what I was expected (expectation) to do.

Then I took them off and decided that I did not care if I let everyone down. I quickly realized that a lazy, self entitled, grumpy stank attitude was entirely too much work and the ironic, snarky sarcasm that I dressed myself in only satisfied my contempt for so long.

Now….I just do that best I can to be real, give constructive support, and forgive quickly. No one will like you all the time except God… haha, but you won’t like everyone all the time either.

So like a duck, water rolls off your back and feet are still busy getting work done. It’s more fun that way also, and I have found that cultivating creativity, family and love have continued to fuel me serve better in general.