Expectations! A strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future. Do you know where you have them and what they may do to you? Expectations of people or an outcome of an event can cause you to feel completely lost and let down if the end result is not what you had hoped for. Recognizing you have an expectation and setting a goal instead to work towards an end result may be a safer way to get there. An expectation doesn’t help you work towards a goal it is just a mindset.
I did my first webinar on Monday. I had absolutely no expectations when I did it. I’m part of a webinar Facebook group with over 19,000 participants all sharing their major goals that have been met. I posted how I was structuring mine with no expectation in mind. My goal was to just show up, learn how to do webinars and share some great information with my audience. I met my goal and the event was a huge success!
I share this with all of you because many of you may be setting yourself up for disappointment by having too many expectations placed upon your life and the people in it. During the webinar, I discussed how next year my Membership group will have a curriculum every month that will be working towards defining and achieving their individual goals. Every successful business book I have read says that setting goals is a must in order to succeed. I can hear you all groaning now. They groaned on my webinar too. Here is the trick, you need to set the goals so the intention is there, the focus, and the consciousness and release the expectations of the outcome. The goals will help you become completely conscious of what you want. They help you to make clear, aware, solid decisions about your life. They help you to stop wasting time with unnecessary expectations of outcomes and others. They help you to live a life that is centered in your heart working towards what you want and not what you hope will happen. They keep you self-aware. They keep you from living a life that is less than ordinary and waking up one day going how the f*&k did I get here. That’s what setting goals without expectations does for you.
I set goals for myself in December on my last birthday. I became very clear about the feelings I wanted to experience with those goals. After setting them, I felt refreshed, inspired, excited and driven. Recently, I reviewed those goals and did so a few times during the year. I did not meet all of them but was not disappointed in myself because I could see how much progress I made in all the areas I had set out to change. How I was fully awake in my life this year and how clear I became around making decisions. I said yes to things that served me and no to the things that didn’t. I could see I was in alignment with my soul this year and that I was focused (a hard one for me because I’m always creating) and centered and alive. I was so proud of myself for staying the course, for committing to my life, my joy, my happiness, myself. For making me first.
I want to share some of those goals with you. One of them was to be able to do the splits and a wheel backbend. I set out to practice every day until I could do both. It did not happen. I am no closer to doing the splits and my wheel backbend is better, but not great. But guess what, I am okay with it because I did so many wonderful things with my physical body and health that not having achieved those particular goals does not matter. For instance, I am starting to develop a great tennis game and actually played on a league, my yoga practice continues to get better, I did a 10 mile hike, I’m running again and I’m taking my first kayaking lesson this Saturday. Physical health was a priority and a goal for me and lo and behold I did it. Without having expectations the progress I made became even more wonderful than I could have ever imagined. I’ve met some amazing people and I now have fun when I exercise. Really that was the goal. To enjoy my exercise. I’ll continue to work on my wheel and splits (I can’t even get one leg to go down) but I’ll be having fun when I do it.
One goal I set and did meet was improving my nutrition. I wanted to know exactly what I needed to eat and what was good for my body and me. A couple of months ago I was feeling very sick and it was suggested to me that I had candida. After reading about it and working with some knowledgeable people, I surmised that I did have it and changed my diet drastically. I feel so much better. Amazing actually. I am clear about what I can’t eat, what my body doesn’t function well on and what I need to do to feel physically well. I had so much pain in my body but thought it was because I was getting older and I was doing so many new and different physical activities but once I changed my food, oh my goodness, the pain went away. Amazing. I had no idea that getting sick was going to lead to such clarity. No expectations, wonderful information and my nutritional goal met!
Honestly, I could write about this topic for another page or two….Like how when you are clear about your goals you don’t waste your time going to events that don’t serve you and you go to the ones that feed your soul… but I will leave it here. Something you can ponder and think about as we close out 2015 and enter into 2016. I will be sharing more information about my membership program because I am setting up a fun, directed curriculum that helps you to stay clear, focused and will guide you to expand in all the areas of your life – Career, Family/Friend relationships, Love, Health, Home and Spirituality. So stay tuned as I share more wisdom that helps you to make clear, conscious, passion-driven choices for your life that will lead you to a happy, healthy, peaceful existence.
