Is it OK to lower your expectations?

As a coach, I am not supposed to encourage people to aim low, but I believe there is real value to adjusting your expectations downwards sometimes. Often, it is not what we have or what we have achieved that troubles us, but what we achieved in relation to our expectations.

When we set expectations, we are thinking about how we want things to be. This is usually far removed from the reality of what is. Dreaming is an activity for exploring what is possible, free from day to day constraints and it can cause us to strive further than we would by just thinking things through rationally.

However, it can also be so intoxicating that we start to truly believe our expectations are how things should be and we can even become indignant when they don’t turn out how we planned. Once we become wedded to an expectation we are often slow to recalibrate it when circumstances change. We fail to question if the expectation was ever reasonable in the first place.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying set the bar pessimistically low, it is healthy to stretch our capabilities, I’m just suggesting that we set ourselves up for success by keeping our expectations in check.

I’m told that the Stoics used the qualification, “unless nothing happens to the contrary” when making plans. Perhaps this is something we should all add to our plans for 2021?