5 Suggestions for Setting Realistic Expectations with Yourself

a post by Margarita Tartakovsky for the World of Psychology blog

Everyone has expectations for themselves. We often assume these expectations are reasonable. Yet many of them are anything but.

We expect ourselves to work without any breaks. We expect ourselves to have the same level of – high – energy every day. We expect ourselves to experience the same emotions – calm and contentment. We expect ourselves to be fearless.

We expect that we’ll handle difficult times like a to-do list, said Elizabeth Gillette, LCSW, an attachment-focused therapist in Asheville, N.C., who specializes in working with individuals and couples as their families grow. We’ll be quick and efficient with our sadness – like we’d be with replying to email or cleaning the kitchen.

Or we become parents and still cling to the same expectations around work and productivity – except, as Gillette said, now we “are sleep deprived and in survival mode. Even for people without children, there can be an expectation of doing everything well, 100% of the time.”

Or we set expectations based on the lives of others. We compare ourselves not only to other people, but to many other people. Life transition and recovery therapist Jenn Fieldman, LPCS, worked with a client who hyper-focused on all the incredible things people were posting on Facebook. They were getting more work done. They were having amazing dinners with their spouse. They were working out every morning. They seemed like the “perfect” parents.

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Posting on Facebook? Nothing but positive most of the time and if I feel the need to express any negativity then it's muted.
Unless, of course, I’m in a safe place like a secret group.
I think it's more the younger people who feel this immense pressure to outdo their peers in these very open places such as Facebook.

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