Have You Checked Your Expectations?

They might be out of date

If you’re new around here, welcome! I help people learn to discern their lives so they can live with purpose and peace.

My job is to ask the questions that get you thinking and praying about all the things that might be tangled up together in your life: your fear of leaving a stable job; your joy in turning clay into cups; and your great-uncle’s voice telling you that painfully hard work is the only valuable thing in this world. These questions are always asked in light of faith, because our spiritual lives are not something that belong in a box on Sundays.

Since 1:1 client work isn’t a good fit for everyone, I’m sharing some of the questions that come up on a frequent basis with my clients, and frankly, in my own decision-making! These are short and sweet and helpful.

This week, we had something go wrong with our car. Things do go wrong with cars; I know this. But when my husband told me the cost of a new replacement part, I actually laughed out loud. It was crazy! How could they charge so much?? I’m no car expert, but I know it shouldn’t break the bank.

When I expressed my feelings at this outlandish amount of money (more than half of what our car is worth, anyway), my husband reminded me that in the last 3 years, inflation has doubled or tripled the price of new car parts. We were working with outdated expectations.

I’ve been thinking about this concept a lot – outdated expectations, no-longer-helpful metrics of what’s ‘normal’ or ‘to be expected.’

Sometimes I find myself tripping up in discernment and decision making because I’m working with outdated expectations.

• I used to be able to write x number of articles a day!

• I used to function on x hours of sleep a night!

• I used to read x number of books per week!

… and now I can’t.

The usual conclusion is: there must be something wrong with me.

But what if there’s not? Or, frankly, what if there is? Either way, the reality in front of me is that I can no longer work like I used to, so I can either hang on to my outdated expectations and be really frustrated with myself, or I can adjust.

That adjustment might look like investigating whether I have health problems that need treatment, or it might look like just accepting that the brain of a 44-year-old woman is not the brain of a 34 or 24-year-old woman.

Either way, hanging on to the outdated expectations is totally unhelpful for my current decision-making.

Acceptance looks like getting used to new metrics, setting new expectations.

• If I can’t write as many articles in a day as I used to, then I need to decide which one to focus on, and lower my expectations for publishing.

• If I need more sleep, then I have to block out time for it, rather than continuing to run on fumes and self-beration.

• If I only read one book per week, I need to be a bit more choosy about which one it’s going to be.

These are small examples, but outdated expectations can affect everything from discerning a job change (I used to love this job!), to parenting decisions (He used to be such a quiet, obedient child!), to whether or not we get rid of significant material possessions (The children used to play the piano all the time!) They can even affect our spiritual lives (I always used to pray in this particular way at this particular time of day!)

It’s hard to let go of outdated expectations — after all, they’re familiar. They served us well. It’s disorienting to establish new ones. And, perhaps, we feel we shouldn’t have to.

Car parts ought not be outrageously priced. Truthfully, I don’t know enough about the world economy or the specifics of a particular car manufacturer to know what a ‘fair price’ is for all involved – including a just wage for all the workers on the assembly line. I don’t know who’s getting short-shrifted and who’s profiting off of someone else’s loss.

All I know is what I thought was normal, is no longer normal, and I don’t like it.

You know what else I don’t like? The fact that I have no control whatsoever over it. We were lucky enough to locate a used part for less, and we can only hope it will do the job. But I cannot change the price of car parts. I can only change my expectations.

This feels unfair, especially in a culture where we’re taught that we have the power to ‘change the world!’ The truth is that most of us will change the tiny piece of the world that is ours, not the global economy.¹ And most of us, to start actually changing our tiny piece of the world, need to change any outdated expectations that are keeping us stuck.

So that’s my discernment question: am I working with any outdated, no-longer-helpful, expectations?

If you’re realizing that you’d like to inventory your expectations, I may be able to help you begin. Feel free to get in touch!

1. If you are called to work for global economic change, please do! We need people who embrace that vocation.