Everyone has goals and expectations for themselves. When you were younger, maybe you wanted to be the best athlete in your class or the smartest boy/girl in your grade. But we don’t start off as being the best at everything. Perhaps that’s why we’ve set those expectations for ourselves. It isn’t that hard to mentally generate a list of all the things you don’t like about yourself.
Let’s say you do earn yourself a reputation of being the most intelligent student in middle school. Everyone looks up to you and admires you. They don’t know how you did it. The spotlight’s on you and everyone’s looking. Your expectations go a little higher: study and read more. Watching TV and playing silly games won’t help with anything, so you can just sacrifice that for now. The most important thing at that moment is to maintain your status of being brilliant and clever.
In high school, pressure builds up and you have to carry more burden on your shoulders. A test is coming up, and you know that you have to get at least an A+ to push your average up. You study for hours and pull a few all nighters, hoping that everything will be worth it in the end. Your GPA, SAT, ACT scores are all that you are thinking about right now. But after all that, does it really mean anything? Millions of people are competing with you to get a spot in your dream college. How can you outshine everyone else? Will you ever be good enough? You work and push yourself really hard to meet your own expectations. You can’t help but think: Is there more I can do?
When it’s finally the time to apply for colleges, your stress increases dramatically. You must have already thought about what field you want to enter in as. Grades are not only a huge stress factor, but jobs are, too. There are about 5 billion jobs in the world. Let’s be honest, you have to get a great job in order to thrive and fully succeed in life. However, will you choose your job based on your interest or will you choose a job that offers a large income? That might seem like a lot right now, but don’t worry, in life, you always have to start low and work your way up.
What about relationship goals? What role does relationship play in your life? What kind of expectations do you have for your future partner? Or yourself in a relationship? One might feel that being in a successful relationship means you must reach this or that stage, but in reality, you just need to be happy with where you are at. You may want your relationship to be at a certain level, but what happens if it fails? Will you give up or try to fix it? When dealing with emotions, one can easily misjudge and end up regretting their actions. Relationships should just be a learning experience that reminds us that it’s not the end of the world if your expectations are not met.
So, compared to when you were young, what was your goal? Is it the same as now? How has your view of the world impacted your decisions? Every time you failed reaching your expectations, you found another way to success. There will always be negative and positive effects of your decisions. Expectations should not hinder one’s success and decisions to do better in life.
Comments