I am hard on myself about most things that I do, I mean really hard on myself! In fact, I probably hold standards higher for myself through judgments and expectations than I would for anyone else. When things don’t work out just as I need them to, I also have a habit of beating myself up for that because I value my self-worth based on the expectations I put on myself.
When I get worn down by this, I wonder, is this a problem for anyone else? Guess what I found out? It is!
It’s custom for me to set my own self expectations so high that, many times, I have worn myself out meeting them. I run myself ragged for days and then reach a point where I just need a mental or physical break. Then, when I do take a break, I am inclined to allow myself to feel guilty for taking that break. I’m learning that’s not really a healthy way of life and it’s not a healthy way to take care of myself.
A lot of the high expectations for myself come from the feeling that I need to accomplish a lot in a day, but those things must also be ‘perfect’ or ‘in order’. I’m not inferring picture perfect, but whatever perfect order that I have made up in my own mind. While it may not be a perfect picture to others, it’s my ‘perfect’, again, because these are my expectations. I’m betting if you sit back and think about a week in your own shoes you may find you are setting some unrealistic expectations for yourself as well.
While this is work in practice, it’s becoming clearer to me than ever this is such an important piece to come to terms with, in order to be happy with myself- nothing is perfect and it’s ok to not have things in order.
As humans, we set ourselves up with impractical expectations because somehow, throughout life, we have learned to measure our own self value through those expectations we put on ourselves.
We are so awesome at judging and comparing ourselves with everyone else around us! It becomes hard a lot of the time to understand why our world doesn’t look like someone else’s world even when we are doing the same things. It’s tough to remember that those people got to where they are because of different circumstances.
What you might see on the outside is usually not what is really happening on the inside and what you see does not give any insight as to what had to happen for that person to get to where they are.
Stop comparing because you have your own individual and unique experience that’s gotten you to the place you are.
One of my unrealistic and unnecessary expectations is this- at the end of my day, after dinner is cleaned up, dishes are put away, appliances are wiped down, and so on, I feel accomplished! My brain says that I deserve to rest since I’ve completed my to do list and I now feel worthy for the day like I’ve earned that break.
The problem is, if I don’t finish my to do list because other things became a necessity, I’m unhappy with myself which trickles over to me being unhappy with everyone else because I’m taking out my own frustration on them. Is it worth it? Not really… not when the standards set are unrealistic and not when the standards set are unnecessary which have no true impact on the outcome of my day.
Does it matter that the sink is full of dishes until the morning? Frankly, the rest of my family wouldn’t notice if there was a sink full of dishes or not, nor would it impact them negatively or positively. So, what would it change for me? Why am I killing myself to accomplish a full days’ worth of to do’s AND trying to perfect my kitchen every single day on top of everything else?
Well, leaving the dishes would allow me some free time, but more importantly it would be a baby step in the practice of letting go of something in my life that is an unnecessary expectation. Once I take that baby step, it gives me more time to just live my life without stress! (Honestly, I say this, but just the thought of leaving dishes in the sink overnight is giving me anxiety…, so like I say I’m practicing this. Maybe I start with baby steps, by leaving one or two dishes in the sink first!)
What I do need to remember is, things don’t have to be perfect and things don’t need to be in order! The kitchen doesn’t have to be perfectly cleaned; the laundry doesn’t have to be perfectly folded. There is no police officer coming to my house to arrest me because I left a sink full of dishes. It’s ok for me to just be and be perfectly imperfect… and it’s ok for you too!
Now, while everyone reading this may be thinking I’m an obsessive compulsive nut, my point in my story was this- somewhere along the way in life, someone set up a belief for you, unrealistic or realistic, that if you didn’t accomplish whatever expectation, that you would disappoint someone or be judged a certain way by others for not accomplishing it.
Let’s face it when you were born, you had no inkling of what disappointment or judgment was, so this has clearly been a learned behavior. Now, after years of putting that learned belief into practice, it’s become your mindset and has truly become the way you feel standards should be set.
It’s ok to change your mindset and it’s ok to just be you instead of someone else that you think you should be.
Commonly, we feel that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger and therefore when we overcome something difficult it allows us to add a tally mark to that persona of being a driven, accomplished individual. While I do believe in that motto, and I say that cliché term frequently in my life, I think it’s taken to the extreme and allows us to think it’s ok to overdo everything through those unnecessary and unrealistic expectations!
It is ok to sit back, be perfectly imperfect, and it’s ok to change our mindset that we’ve known or been taught. It just takes awareness to know that you can grow into a different mentality in order to approach things in a different way in your life. That, my friends, takes a conscious effort.
Do this for me this week… Try to give YOURSELF some care. Do what you WANT to do, within reason of course. Really think about the expectations you are putting on yourself! Could you cut yourself some slack? Can you let go of something in your life that’s unnecessary or unrealistic?
You just might find when you start to let go a little and truly look at the standards you put on yourself you find a whole new world of possibility.
