Managing Expectations Part 2: Calming The Enemy Within
“Your book has sold really well. It’s blown through our projections… and you’ve gotten some really fantastic media coverage.”
But I couldn't even hear the good news in this recent meeting with my publishers. The words vaguely echoed in my ears, but I spent no time focusing on them. Instead my mind literally went to everything that I hadn’t done, the sales my book had not achieved, the accolades and easy living other authors must certainly be enjoying…
I am my own worst enemy.
I said, "I want to aim high with my PR. I want to be on the (hugely popular podcast) Armchair Expert. MSNBC. Scott Galloway’s podcast.” My brain fixated on these lofty goals and I locked in. I felt a rush of anxiety as I began crafting a to do list in my head. As I mentally ran through this new series of hills to climb, I became distracted and really couldn't pay attention to the rest of the meeting.
Not only am I my own worst enemy, my expectations are too high. As a result, not only do I never get to savor the good things, I don't even pay attention to what's going on because I'm always living in the future.
I did a poll on LinkedIn this week, asking you if you feel you set higher expectations for yourself than you do for others. 87% of you said yes. And the thing is: You’ve probably been rewarded for this drive. But sometimes, doesn’t it make you exhausted?
A lot of us bring our too high expectations into our teams and our management. The noise of our brains overwhelms everything else and often we're no even present for others.
Worst enemies: I feel for you. I am one of you. Sometimes we’ve never learned how to stop, breathe, and savor. I don’t think this particular skill was ever in my vocabulary growing up. Pushing and pushing is a habit.
It’s a habit that can be broken over time. Trust me, I am trying. And it starts, like a lot of things, with mindfulness, reflection, and practice.
Managing our own expectations is a constant negotiation we have with ourselves. If you're constantly berating yourself or skipping into the future during meetings or in your daily life, it’s helpful to get out of our inner dialogue and into a calmer, less judgy place by connecting with the breath and visualization. Cynthia Blair Kane is a mindfulness teacher and CEO of the Kane Intentional Communication Institute. She’s written How to Communicate Like a Buddhist. I interviewed her on The Anxious Achiever podcast this week. Cynthia offers a short meditation for calming the enemy within- and I love it. She recommends:
Kane notes that sometimes we get so caught in our head and our thinking mind, we forget about the body. The moment we can bring ourselves back into our bodies is really the moment where we can feel more in the present.
"We can touch base with the emotion that we're feeling, touch that sensation in the body. That's great because then there's movement there. When we're in our thinking mind, often there's no movement forward, it's more round and round we go.
Here's another visualization from Cynthia that I love for when you're stuck on expectations: "In those moments where you're feeling a lot of charge around something or someone, visualize it in front of you. See how you're really holding on to what just happened and how you're connected. See yourself connected to them with ribbon or string or maybe barbed wire. See all the ways that you're still holding on to that event. Visualize taking out something like a scissor that can cut.
And as you're "cutting" think: Thank you. I love you. I forgive you. I'm sorry. Anything you need to be able to cut the cords so that you end up creating more space around you and detaching.... detaching from the event or the person so you can see more clearly."
Happy cutting!
Morra
PS: My episode with Cynthia Kane is here, and it's fabulous!