most friday afternoons, or sometimes saturday mornings, i make a list of all the things i want to do over the weekend. it's a menu of sorts - i can easily get overwhelmed with decisions so having a range of options to pick from encourages me to remember some of the 1908123908 hobbies i have, and lessens some of the pressure of the minute by minute decision making of what to do. in the early blushes of this routine, i loved it - worked a peach every time. and then, something else started to happen.
as soon as it became clear i wasn't going to do everything, i'd be annoyed with myself for "not maximizing" the weekend. and if something unexpected came up - i'd start to worry about how i would fit everything in (even if there was oodles of time). and if my husband had plans of his own that impacted mine, well, that could be the spark that lit a whole powderkeg of yuck. all together, it wasn't even a pattern that registered as a problem, just an intensifying sense that my weekends were less fulfilling than they had been.
it wasn't until i was reading ATLAS OF THE HEART by brené brown and came across a section on "stealth expectations" that things started to click. as she writes:
"every day, sometimes every hour, we are consciously and unconsciously setting expectations of ourselves and the people in our lives - especially those closest to us. the unconscious, unexamined, and unexpressed expectations are the most dangerous and often turn into disappointment...when we develop expectations, we paint a picture in our head of how things are going to be and how they're going to look....we set expectations based on not only on how we fit in that picture, but also on what those around us are doing in that picture. this means that our expectations are often set on outcomes totally beyond our control, like what other people think, what they feel, or how they're going to react....and when that picture or movie fails to play out in real life, we feel disappointed. and sometimes that disappointment is severe and brings shame and hurt and anger with it." (44)
and goodness me, that was a big part of what was going on. by making a list (EVEN THOUGH I CALLED IT A MENU) i set some stealthy expectations for myself about what i should be able to accomplish. i'd move through the weekend and each activity would be enjoyable - whether i planned it or not - but because it wasn't living up to a sort of fuzzy idea that i had for myself that i would do all the things, i would put a little disappointment into that soup and leave feeling less satisfied without having a real reason why. and once i examined that behavior in myself, i started to see how it has always been a part of my relationships, with others, and especially with myself.
how many of us have had a "fine" day but because we didn't cross every item off the to do list, we leave the desk for the day a little deflated? how often have we planned for a big work session, only to have something else come up or have something put on our plate, and even though there's still time to adjust, we're mad about it?
or maybe you had some expectations about how an advisor would work with your writing, or how a course would go, or how a conference paper would be received. maybe you had a vague idea of how long it would take you to write the next section of your chapter, and because you finished it friday instead of wednesday, you feel behind and rushed even though you still have plenty of time.
we all have expectations about how things will go, how they'll feel, or how other people will react to us. that's part of how we, as humans, move through a world that is at times routine but often unpredictable - we have to anticipate to some degree. and often, once we express those expectations, we can manage them. once i realized that i was treating my options for the weekend like obligations, some of the pressure released and it was easier to reset my expectations for something more reasonable. many of us have a perfectionist streak in us - we maybe are noticing and supporting the places where it's showing up clearly, but brains are sneaky, and so are expectations.
so, what do we do in the face of this cloud of sneaky expectations we can float in? a few tools that might help:
check in with how you're feeling. moods are mysterious and emotions can be tricky to nail down, but it can be a good place to start. once i name what i'm feeling (i try for as little judgment as possible, but don't always get there), it often is easier for me to trace where that is coming from. if i'm ending most weekends - no matter how they go - feeling unsatisfied, then that's solid data to start with.
if you have a sharp sense of disappointment about how something went - and you're in a space where your nervous system is up to it - it can help to use these questions to get some clarity:
how did i think this was going to go?
what made me think that?
how did i think i was going to feel?
what was i imagining in terms of the other people involved?
it can be (relatively) more straightforward to handle your own expectations of yourself - it gets more complicated when other people are involved. i often work with clients who have expectations of how grad school would feel, or how things would go with their advisor, and here are some of the tools that are most helpful in that realm:
write out your expectations - even if you don't verbalize them right away. if you send a draft to your advisor, it might help to write down what you expect to get back - line edits? global comments? notes on argument? help with grammar? if/when you don't get those things, you can then either be more specific in your requests, or find someone or someplace else to help get you the support you need.
figure out where your expectations are coming from. are you seeing other people tweet about amazing conversations in their conference presentations, and then feel let down when yours are more stilted? do other people get loads of help on their job documents, and all your advisor does is send out letters of recommendation? and then you can check those expectations against more sources of data, or data sources that are closer to your situation - there is so much that's individual about our situations that it can be really helpful to check in with where we're getting our expectations, and whether or not they apply to us.
this is the work of a lifetime - like perfectionism, stealth expectations sneak in and take root before you notice them (that's why they're stealth!). but, noticing the invisible expectations we have for how things will go and bringing them to the surface can really help us stay out of the disappointment and shame that we don't necessarily even mean to welcome in.