Quotes About Expectations

We're raising children who have little tolerance for disappointment

We put so much of our time and energy into making sure that we meet everyone's expectations and into caring about what other people think of us, that we are often left feeling angry, resentful and fearful.

Perfectionism never happens in a vacuum. It touches everyone around us. We pass it down to our children, we infect our workplace with impossible expectations, and it's suffocating for our friends and families. Thankfully, compassion also spreads quickly. When we're kind to ourselves, we create a reservoir of compassion that we can extend to others.

Perfectionism hampers success. In fact, it's often the path to depression, anxiety, addiction, and life-paralysis.

The important thing to know about worthiness is that it doesn't have prerequisites. Most of us, on the other hand, have a long list of worthiness prerequisites—qualifiers that we've inherited, learned, and unknowingly picked up along the way. Most of these prerequisites fall in the categories of accomplishments, acquisitions, and external acceptance. It's the if/when problem ("I'll be worthy when ..." or "I'll be worthy if ...").

Communicating our expectations is brave and vulnerable. And it builds meaningful connection and often leads to having a partner or friend who we can reality-check with.

Perfectionism is not a way to avoid shame. Perfectionism is a form of shame.

As Anne Lamott said, "Expectations are resentments waiting to happen." We have the tendency to visualize an entire scenario or conversation or outcome, and when things don't go the way we'd imagined, disappointment can become resentment. This often happens when our expectations are based on outcomes we can't control, like what other people think, what they feel, or how they're going to react.

Until both men and women are allowed to be who we are rather than who we are supposed to be, it will be impossible to achieve freedom and equality.

Do not think you can be brave with your life and your work and never disappoint anyone. It doesn't work that way.

It's dangerous to put your self-worth in other people's hands. Again, no matter what you do, you can't control other people's responses. These are recipes for disappointment and hurt.

Overcoming self-doubt is all about believing we're enough and letting go of what the world says we're supposed to be and supposed to call ourselves.

Yes, if we care enough and dare enough, we will experience disappointment. But in those moments when disappointment is washing over us and we're desperately trying to get our heads and hearts around what is or is not going to be, the death of our expectations can be painful beyond measure.

Disappointment is unmet expectations, and the more significant the expectations, the more significant the disappointment.

In a US study on conformity to feminine norms, researchers recently listed the most important attributes associated with "being feminine" as being nice, pursuing a thin body ideal, showing modesty by not calling attention to one's talents or abilities, being domestic, caring for children, investing in a romantic relationship, keeping sexual intimacy contained within one committed relationship, and using our resources to invest in our appearance.

Perfectionism is not self-improvement. Perfectionism is, at its core, about trying to earn approval. Most perfectionists grew up being praised for achievement and performance (grades, manners, rule following, people pleasing, appearance, sports). Somewhere along the way, they adopted this dangerous and debilitating belief system: I am what I accomplish and how well I accomplish it. Please. Perform. Perfect. Prove.

People may call what happens at midlife "a crisis," but it's not. It's an unraveling—a time when you feel a desperate pull to live the life you want to live, not the one you're "supposed" to live.

Painting done" means fully walking through my expectations of what the completed task will look like, including when it will be done, what I'll do with the information, how it will be used, the context, the consequences of not doing it, the costs—everything we can think of to paint a shared picture of the expectations.

You don't have to be a mother to experience mother-shame. Society views womanhood and motherhood as inextricably bound, therefore our value as women is often determined by where we are in relation to our roles as mothers or potential mothers.

Basically, men live under the pressure of one unrelenting message: Do not be perceived as weak.

Shame loves prerequisites. Our if/when worthiness list easily doubles as the gremlins' to-do list.

One of the greatest challenges of becoming myself has been acknowledging that I'm not who I thought I was supposed to be or who I always pictured myself being.

Perfectionism is a hustle.

From Long Island to Silicon Valley, a fear of being perceived as weak forces men into pretending they are never afraid, lonely, confused, vulnerable, or wrong; and an extreme fear of being perceived as cold-hearted, imperfect, high maintenance, or hostile forces women to pretend they're never exhausted, ambitious, pissed off, or even hungry.