Imagine If You Really Tried
Imagine what your life would look like if you really tried, without fear of failure holding you back. A recent discovery regarding the relationship between expectations and fear of failure has been life changing for me.
Nothing good comes from expectations, those that we place on others and those that we place on ourselves. Expectations are concrete, stiff notions of how things should be that ultimately set us up to fail. Even if we meet them for some time (for example the expectation that we are calm and present with our children or the expectation of how much exercise we should do), eventually we do not meet our expectation and then we fail. With failure comes negativity towards ourselves and towards others if our expectation is of others. Feelings that they are not enough, that we are not enough.
The other thing about expectations is that they instill fear. They stop us from pursuing what we really want, they stop us from really trying to do our best, to smash through our own limitations.
What if we got rid of expectations? What if we instead of expectations we decide to have standards? Standards of how we want out life to be...
A standard in this context is an inspiring goal, the bar that we set for what we want our life to be like. In my relationship with my husband, I have come to recently think and talk about the standard that we want for our relationship. This is about defining the connection, the backing each other and being on the same team rather than at war. Does this platform mean we are always on the same team? Not always! But we both are committed to the same goals, the same standards. What this means is that rather than having individual expectations of each other which eventually we will not sustain, we have set a bar which guides us to reset the course if we are off track. For example 'to be considerate of each other' is an expectation that eventually both of us will fail to meet. That is so because consideration looks different to different people, and what 'we expect' is inside of our heads. So even if we were constantly on form, without a crystal ball we can never meet such an expectation! This failure will lead to feelings of frustration, hurt, lacking respect for each other. If instead we re-frame this expectation into a standard of 'supporting each other and being committed to understanding each other's point of view'. It is presented to us as the bar to aspire too as appose to something to fail at. Then we can talk about and recognise what works well for both of us and what we want to continue to build on.
Now if I were to grade my ability to apply this new way of thinking, I would say I am about to advance from toddler to kindergarten level! However practice is something I can continue to do and I know that with practice I get better at things. The thing is, this realisation can be life changing and it has been for me.
True practice in growing a new skill requires some stumbles too! Which leads to the other thing about replacing expectations with standards. In being dedicated to growth rather than perfection, we all of a sudden open the door on being able to test and push through our limits. Imagine that... Imagine removing the fear of failure to allow yourself to really go for it and live your life to the fullest.
