Written by Ashley Lopez

All of our goals and ambitions in life stem from expectations—what we expect of ourselves. Naturally, we should expect to do it all and be the best—because we are the best.

Hi everyone, welcome back to Ashley Spills. Ashley, here. You can check out my other posts here.

Expectations and setting them

The expectations you set for yourself is a great way to track your progress (checking them off a list). For example, say you want to cook a variety of meals rather than the same ones each week. Some expectations you can set are cooking two new recipes a week. Then you can move up to three recipes a week and before you know it, you have a list of new recipes to add to your usual weekly menu that you can even rotate every week.

Like many other things in life, setting expectations can either be great, daunting, or unrealistic. Of course, we all hope for great.

While you should expect a lot from yourself, you also shouldn’t spread yourself thin. Being able to run a marathon and not train is unrealistic; even if you train for a whole month it’s still not too realistic if you’re not a runner. Learning how to play a new instrument won’t happen overnight and you shouldn’t expect yourself to learn how to play one that quickly.

Remember to enjoy the process. You can read more about that here. I’m here to applaud all baby steps. Maybe we should all expect to reach smaller milestones rather than huge ones. When you reach the big ones, that’s when you know you are absolutely slaying in life.

Should I set expectations?

Absolutely, yes! We all want to say we did it—we accomplished our it. Expecting things of yourself is necessary in accomplishing anything, but at times the fine line between setting realistic expectations and setting unrealistic expectations can be a bit blurred.

So, when I say you don’t want to spread yourself thin, I mean burnout. Don’t beat yourself up if you can’t accomplish or learn XYZ in only one week. Goals and new knowledge take time and patience. If the expectations you set are realistic, there is no room for burnout, only disappointment if you don’t meet them.

Setting expectations for yourself is essential in personal development because you won’t get to your desired result without them. The moment you feel disappointed in yourself is when you’ll know you are ready to set and meet your expectations because you failed in doing so previously. You won’t add color to your weekly home menu if you don’t attempt new recipes, or go out of your way to look for them.

I like to think of expectations as “to-dos” for myself. If I expect to write more, I will set aside X amount of hours a week to do so.

Self-care and expectations

Lastly, I wanted to remind you that wherever you are in the process of reaching your aspirations, you are supposed to be there for one reason or another. This post is a friendly reminder that you don’t have to do it all now, push yourself, but don’t push yourself over the edge. Take your time. Take those baby steps.

Self-care is an important step in setting expectations because before you can expect anything of yourself, you have to truly care about yourself. And your it.

This week I challenge you to think about the expectations you set for yourself. Are they realistic? Are you stressed because you aren’t meeting them? If so, are you spreading yourself thin?

Thanks for reading, xo.

(PS—expectations don’t have to be monetary—money shouldn’t mean success—happiness should, but I guess everyone has a different opinion on this.)