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Great Expectations

Expectations are not necessarily the best recipe for success. They actually tend to lead to feelings of disappointment and failure. It’s ironic, because the concept of having high expectations sounds so productive. But in my experience, every time I have had any sort of expectations about how an event would go, I always ended up disappointed. I simply couldn’t understand what would go wrong. But I always felt awful. It would make me question what was wrong with me that caused everything I really wanted to always go wrong for me when it seemed to go so right for everyone else. I just didn’t get it. I work hard. I set goals. I prepare. But more times than not, it would end up a disaster. So why weren’t things going just as planned? That just wasn’t how it was supposed to be. What was going wrong? Why couldn’t I get it right? What I didn’t realize at the time was that it was my thinking that was making it go wrong.

I began to compare situations where I felt like things turned out great versus when things tended to go south. I ultimately concluded, after some reflection, that there seems to be two universal truths that impacted having expectations:

Truth #1 – no matter how much you plan, nothing will go exactly as planned. It is the truth and there is no point in arguing with it.

Truth #2 – You cannot control every aspect of a situation. You can only control how you interact in the situation. This is what makes Lesson #1 always true.

I learned this lesson when I allowed an illness that I struggled to cope with in college to steal my dream. I enrolled in a summer program to go to France, since I was a French major and it was essential to my education that I go. Not to mention it had been my dream since I had been in high school. But the truth was the whole thing terrified me. I had always struggled being away from home as a kid. I was a picky eater. I was generally a shy person. I was just scared through and through. On top of that I was insanely obsessed with my GPA because I thought it was the equivalent of my self worth.  

Long story short – I struggled with anxiety, which already made me very ill while I was at home. I didn’t realize at the time that anxiety was my culprit and I didn’t know how to cope with it. I was simply medically treating the symptoms. So when I arrived in France, I culture shocked hard, freaked out, was afraid that my grades would suffer due to my inability to cope, and I came home. As soon as I made the decision to come home I was relieved. And I was so grateful to be greeted by the loving embrace of my parents when I arrived home, after being in France for approximately 48 hours. They took me to my apartment, and that’s when it hit me. My dream was gone. It was over. I quit. I let it slip through my fingers. And depression set in.

I spent the next several months working to discover what went wrong. I had tests done, went to holistic doctors, tried gluten free diets, until finally the issue was pinpointed. I was stressing ALL THE TIME about EVERYTHING!!!  Especially my grades (aka self-worth). I am not kidding either. I would choose to blow off some homework and watch a movie. Then the entire movie, I would think about how I should’ve done my homework. Then I would stay up late getting it done. That was my life constantly. My thoughts were toxic and obsessive. So I started working to change them. First by noticing them, then by addressing them. I had to determine if my thoughts were real. They weren’t. They were not based in reality. I wanted to go back to France and have the experience that I dreamt of.

So I got to work. I was getting ready to graduate. So I applied for the program to teach English for a year in Dijon, France. I got a job in restaurant management to save money for the trip. I got accepted to the program. I researched everything I could about the culture, about culture shocking. I got prepared, especially mentally. I told my family, “Come hell or high water, I am staying the entire year. I don’t care if I die there, I am staying.” And it was the best experience of my life! I knew I would have bad days, I knew there would be unexpected situations, but I mentally prepared myself by telling myself I would deal with any situation. And that thought empowered me. I wasn’t living in a dream or fairy tale where everything was supposed to be perfect.

I abandoned my expectations! Best decision of my life. Expectations equal disappointment because you cannot prepare for the unexpected. You can prepare yourself to handle whatever comes your way, but that is just a belief. Just a thought that you are capable of anything!

Are you trying to do something new, scary, challenging? Check yourself, examine your thoughts. Write them down. I bet you will be surprised to discover that you are creating your own anxiety. Fear seeps into our thoughts and pokes holes in our perfect little plan. So what if you approached your challenge by expecting it to be hard. Expect for things to go wrong. Just believe that you are fully capable of figuring it out. You are capable of finding a way forward.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, I started by saying to abandon your expectations. So now that I have explained myself, let’s clarify that idea. Most of the time when we set expectations, they are cloaked in perfection or in negativity. A predetermined notion of how we believe something will or should go. But that’s not real. Sometimes things go wrong when we desperately longed for them to go right. And sometimes things go right when we were convinced that was not possible. So when you have expectations, review them, examine them. Are they based on factual circumstances? Actual things that could go right or wrong? Or are they a reflection of your greatest hopes and fears? If you base them on fact, they transform from being an expectation, to preparing yourself for alternative outcomes. That puts you back in the captains seat. So I challenge you to steer your own vessel! Expect the unexpected and maneuver accordingly! It will change your outlook on life!

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Dream Big

When I was a little girl, my parents told me I could be anything I wanted to be. I wanted to be a singer and later I decided I wanted to teach. I studied a subject I loved, fell in love with the experience of living in a far away land, and spent many years in education trying to combine my preferred subject with my preferred profession. But somehow I was never able to make the two meet. I joined the workforce, embracing it and pursuing it with excitement and vigor, determined that I would climb to the top. I discovered something very interesting, for the first time in my life. I discovered the commonality of our experiences. I finally saw how we were all trying to accomplish the same thing. We were all doing the best we could to provide for our families and our lifestyles, all the while trying to find some pride and meaning in the work we do each day.

Inspiring others to tap into their fullest potential and accomplish goals they once believed to be impossible is my passion.

As a teacher, I didn’t want to teach the subject. I would always say that was just the vehicle. I wanted to inspire greatness in others. I wanted to plant seeds in those who were willing to receive them and nourish them as they rose to discover their fullest potential. I wanted to be the cheerleader for the future, for their futures. I have a deep-seated belief that giving back is what makes the world go round.

I believe that living inside a situation where the dominating principle is that you have to show up, give your greatness away and go home seems like a waste of talent. There is so much talent untapped, because it doesn’t fit the production model. In my experience, we don’t know what we don’t know and we will never find what we don’t attempt to discover. If we do not try something new, we do not discover greatness. However, the traditional way of thinking seems to be, we have always done it this way, if it isn’t broke, why fix it? My answer, the greatest innovators we celebrate are the ones who never asked that question. In fact, they did the opposite. They pursued ridiculous ideas that people deemed crazy, like flying, regardless of others insistence on its lunacy and impossibility. In the face of adversity, they relentlessly pursued their vision, adjusting it as necessary, based on their numerous attempts and failures until they saw it through. What if we all lived like that? Regardless of our job title, what if we all pursued life with that sort of dedication, faith and vigor? What would our world look like? What would your life look like? How would that feel?

The greatest challenge you face to rendering you free to pursue your wildest dreams is defining that dream, honing in on your vision and believing in your ability to bring it to fruition. I am sure you are familiar with the saying “You can accomplish anything you set my mind to.” To this I would simply add, “as long as you believe in your vision and your ability to make it a reality.” I have accomplished many things in my life that I would have once deemed impossible. It all started with committing to the vision and beginning to work to make it a reality.

Tell me, what is your wildest dream? Do you believe in yourself enough to make it a reality? What would it take for you to believe it was possible? What would it take for you to try? Anything can be possible, but it all begins with the dream. So dream big!