We all have expectations of what we think our life should or will be, and how people in our life should or will act. At some point most of us realize that’s not how life works. Life never goes how we expect it to, and people don’t act how we think they should. Life will take you on so many twists and turns that sometimes you will feel lost. Some people will find their way again, and some people will continue to be lost for the rest of their life. With all of the diverse backgrounds and upbringings there are no two people who will think or see everything the same way. Even children brought up in the same household, with the same expectations and rules are going to view life differently, and live life differently.

“You can’t just write life like a book and expect everything to go the way it was written, because you write expectations for people in your head, but life isn’t a book where you make the characters whoever and however you want.”

-Alexzandra Arnold-

With that being said, what have your expectations been of your spouse, your kids, your parents, your siblings, your friends, your coworkers, or even strangers? Have you ever realized that you may have had unrealistic expectations of any of those people? I have been there a few times, and it can be a humbling experience when you realize that others expectations are not your expectations. For example, when I worked at the Sam’s Club Café, one of my bosses entrusted me to be the trainer for the new hires in our department. I loved my job, I was a very by the book person, I did what was expected of me, and I had a system down that was efficient and effective, all of those qualities should have made me the perfect person to train the new hires. The problem was that I thought that everyone would see how effective things ran the way I did them, that was not the case. Even my own little sister, who worked with me in the Café, whom I trained, didn’t see things the way I did. It wasn’t until I became the department supervisor and had to train an almost brand new staff that I started having different expectations of the new hires. I would go through what was absolutely expected from the company, then I would train them the way I did things, but I also explained that they will find their own rhythm and figure out what works for them. I had finally started to realize that I couldn’t expect the new hires to do everything exactly the same way I did, or even love their job the way I did.

What have your expectations of yourself been as a parent, spouse, child, friend, or coworker? How many times have you really looked at your life and the way you are living it and realized the expectations you have of yourself are more unrealistic than anyone else? As a parent we tend to get this idea in our heads that we need to be the perfect example of all things for our kids. Something that my husband Robert and I have realized over the years is that showing our kids how imperfect we are at things, and the mistakes that we make are ok, because we learn from the imperfect moments and the mistakes. A couple of our kids have this unrealistic expectation that they need to be perfect at something the first time they try it. Sometimes it is a struggle to have the patience to deal with their frustration when they don’t meet their high expectation, but patience is the key to get them to work through what they can do right now and what they can do with practice and patience.

Nurture yourself and each other and you will see growth.

I myself have all of these expectations of myself. Some of them are realistic and some of them are unrealistic. I have a list of things that I want to accomplish throughout the day, and throughout the week. Realistically I know I can get them done if I take them on one by one, unrealistically I feel like I’m lazy or didn’t accomplish enough if I don’t get all things done in one day. We all need to learn to give ourselves more Grace when we don’t meet our own expectations. When you feel like you didn’t do enough, remember the things that you did accomplish. No matter how big or little the accomplishment was…it was still something!

Don’t let unrealistic expectations steal your Joy! There is a saying that says “Don’t let anyone steal your Joy!” But did you stop to think about how much you are allowing your unrealistic expectations to steal your JOY?