Lower Your Expectations

by Kris Pitcher

After a frustrating night trying to sleep and not being very successful I decided to just get up at an ungodly hour. Sometimes disappointment just isn't worth it. Have you ever been frustrated because you just can't please someone? And how often is that someone, you?

You know the type, no matter what you do - it just isn't good enough. Success - great, but you could have done better. Progress - that's nice, but you should have done more. True we do have external pressures to perform. But what I'm suggesting might just be refreshing.

What if we lowered our expectations? In the case of my sleeping habits if I expect to get eight hours of glorious, uninterrupted, sleep each night I'm going to be disappointed. I'm going to be frustrated. The alternative is I can change my expectation. What's the point really of being mad about it?

Getting all worked up about it would only increase my stress hormones. My options are to lay there, relax, do some meditation, visualization and breathing exercises. And then once I've exhausted those options...just get up and get started with my day. I got 5 or 6 good hours. Why be mad? Just lower the expectation.

We ask a lot of ourselves. Perfect homes, perfect families, perfect jobs...oh and we want to have healthy bodies and minds too. We want friendships that are easy, relationships requiring no work, and healthy parents who live forever. Except we don't live in Barbie's townhouse in 1978.

So just maybe we should consider all that is good in our lives, everything we are doing right, doing well and celebrate that. Look at it as permission to lower your expectations. I see it as still requiring the same things from ourselves, we're just doing it with a different perspective. The pressures are different. Allowing your expectations to be adjustable gives you a break. You deserve a little break.