“Get ready folks, today’s weather forecast calls for Sun and a high of 25 degrees Celsius”
“If you follow my recipe, the cake should turn out just fine.”
“Awesome! I’ll meet you at 6:00 pm for dinner at the new Italian restaurant. Looking forward to it.”
You’ve probably heard this all before. Each of these statements probably gives you a picture of what you will experience in the future. We usually rely on the past lived experiences of others and ourselves to determine how to prepare for what is to come. These are how expectations are developed. Like most things in life, expectations can be both good and bad. Science is a great example of how expectations can be healthy. The scientific method has been proven to be a reliable way to predict future outcomes. The reason it works is that centuries of research tell us that we can expect certain outcomes based on consistent results from the past. Another reason it works is that the scientist is in control of variables. What happens when things cannot be controlled? What happens when the expectations you have are personal?
“I will grow up, get a job, have a family, and live happily”
“I should be better at music”
“I should know that, but I don’t”
When we have expectations that are personal it can be difficult to sort out what is bias vs fact. Take my personal experience with music as an example. Growing up, I was told through media, my parents, and teachers what music should be. “Your sound should be like this." “That doesn’t sound right, do it again” “See now this is music.” These are all statements that led me to believe that I was not a good enough musician. It gave me a false expectation of myself and my abilities and actually kept me from making music. The way I worked through it was by using these steps:
Name The Facts: What do you know for certain? In this example, I had to give myself some slack. Music is subjective. My parents are not musicians and their understanding of music is biased because it comes from their own music styles and tastes. The fact about the media is that they go with where the money is. Music that sells is the music that you will hear in the media. If you ask me that is a big bias. As for my teachers, they had many more years of experience being musicians than I did.
Radical Acceptance - Now that I know the facts, I now have something I can make more sense of. I also have a new fact to process. I may not be able to control how others perceive music or my own skills, but I can choose to radically accept it for what it is. I radically accept the facts for what they are.
Goals - Take time to dream. What is it that I want more of in my life? Take some time to journal or get creative. Give yourself permission to envision who and where you’d like to be. Now that you’ve radically accepted the facts for what they are, you can make space for your desires. When it came to music, my goal was to be kinder to myself when I played or sang. I also gave myself permission to get curious, enjoy and have fun. Another goal was to listen to different songs and ask me which ones, I’d like to learn. Another example is learning a new language. Let’s say you have always wanted to learn French or Sign language. Take the time to envision at what level you’d like to engage. Is the goal to learn the basics of the language or to be fluent? Dream big.
Objective - This is where you do the work to make your dream a reality. If the goal is the destination, the objective is the efforts you make to get there. Let’s take my goal of being kinder to myself when playing music. The objective would be “Every time I judge myself when playing, I am going to pause, reset and take a break.” If I had a goal song I was learning, my objective could be; “I am going to practice and focus on only this part of the song today”, then maybe another day choose a different part of the song. Regarding language, the objective may be “By the end of this week, I am going to learn three new words.” Remember, you set the pace of getting to your goal. Sometimes you need to rejig certain objectives to make it happen later or sooner, but again it is all up to you.
When you give yourself time to sus out what you really want for yourself, you make space for your dreams to be a reality. You are worthy of them and best of luck on your journey.