Expectations

It’s a difficult thing to grow up in a world where expectations are set for you at an early age.

Your parents may be high achievers and expect the same of you. Your parents may come from humble beginnings and expect you to achieve what they weren’t able to.

Your teachers set certain expectations for you to learn what is required. You may have teachers that believe you can achieve even more so their expectations for you are much higher.

Your employers will have certain basic expectations as required for the job you have. Some employers may set the bar even higher, expecting you to be the consummate overachiever.

What about you? What about the expectations you have set for yourself? Do they differ from what your parents, teachers, employers, or even friends have for you?

By Way of Example

Let me give you an example. My parents were college-educated and set the expectation that all of their children would go to college, as well. During the summer between my junior and senior high school years, my parents took me on a trip to visit my mother’s alma mater. It was a beautiful campus, far from home, but near family friends, and it offered a wide variety of majors. What it lacked was all attraction for me. I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do ‘when I grew up.’ I couldn’t fathom the idea of essentially wasting my parents’ hard-earned money when nothing appealed to me as a career.

Their response to my decision against a college education was palpable. Several times a year, my father would state that the money was still available when I was ready to pick a school. Occasionally, my mother would mention that I could probably get farther ahead in the business world if I had a degree. After about five years, they finally dropped the subject, but their disappointment was well known.

I wasn’t a great student, either. My parents’ expectations were that I would study hard and get straight A’s. The reality was that I never liked school (well, kindergarten was okay) and was bored most of the time. The only subjects I truly excelled in were English and Typing. Nonetheless, all other subjects were just uninteresting. I graduated but with a C- average, and even that was a struggle.

My mother was constantly after me to lose weight and would offer to buy me new clothes if I lost X number of pounds. I gained weight.

My parents wanted me to get married and have children. I never wanted children and my first marriage ended after 8.5 years.

In my work life, I got fired from my first job after having worked for my father. Everyone had expected better of me. (I got fired because I was trying to tell my boss how to run his office. I wanted him to run it like my father ran his. I was 18. It was my second job. Ever. *sigh*)

After that, I tried my hardest to live up to the expectations of every employer going forward. For the most part, my ‘career’ was spent in the clerical field moving ahead to administrative assistant and spending the bulk as an office manager. Doing what my employer expected of me.

Don’t get me wrong. I worked hard and was very good at my job. Still, I wasn’t truly happy because I never allowed myself to determine my expectations for my life.

Knowing My Expectations of Me

Throughout the bulk of my adulthood, there have been plenty of other situations where those around me had expectations of me in a wide range of situations. Expectations that didn’t take me and what I wanted into account.

Consequently, I have spent far more time being someone I really wasn’t just to please others. I have struggled with anxiety and mild depression for as long as I can remember. Is there a correlation there? Probably.

About four or five years ago, in my early 60’s, I finally had enough. I decided I needed to take my life back. It took a couple more wrong decisions followed by a whole lot of right ones for me to start gaining the confidence to live up to just my expectations.

I saw a great article along the way that read, “Your idea of me is not my responsibility to live up to.”

Read that again. It’s very powerful.

As you grow up, you are taught right from wrong. You are told you can be and do anything you put your mind to. That means that you are the only person responsible for your decisions. You are the only person responsible for setting the expectations for your life.

If you buckle under to what other people expect of you, you are no longer your own person. You may end up living a life that is less than.

But, Wait a Minute

Common sense dictates that that are certain basic expectations of any child, student, employee, spouse, etc. What I’m talking about here are the expectations beyond those. Do you want to be the best secretary your department ever had or do you want to be another mediocre manager; unhappy every day because you aren’t doing what you really enjoy?

Do you want to start your own design firm that incorporates new and creative ideas or do you want to work for someone else, following their design ideas; again, unhappy every day because you let your dream go.

If you find yourself trying to meet the expectations that others have of you, maybe now is a good time to evaluate what you want from your life. What do you want to accomplish? What are your expectations for yourself?

If you decide to step off in a new direction, know that you may stumble a bit but the harder you try for what you truly want, the happier you’ll get.

And isn’t that what life – our one and only shot – is meant to be? Finding and living your happiness by making your own decisions? By setting your own expectations?