I made a commitment to myself at the end of last year to share my writing with the world every week. Last week, I was off to the races having written my post for the week a whole 3 days early. Set out to start on this week’s piece annndddd…..
CRICKETS.
I tried filling the page with something I’d already written, wrote and erased, wrote and erased, wrote and erased, what felt like a million times over. Every idea that fell from my brain just felt wrong. Next thing I knew it was 10pm and the page was still as blank as a freshly painted white white wall.
I closed my laptop to give my brain a chance to reset and decided to watch some TV. In the show I was watching, one of the characters was hosting a farewell dinner party and at the conclusion of the meal, she asked everyone to go around and say in word, one thing they are letting go. The guests go on to list a myriad of words from nervousness, to fear, to guilt and even their old self. At the end the host says, “I’m letting go of expectations.” You could see the confusion slowly form on each guests face. Even as a viewer, I was a bit taken aback. How in the world are you living this thing we call life with no expectations?
….“HOW SWAY?”
Then she said, I don’t mean to imply that we live without dreams for our lives or accountability for ourselves or other people. What I am proposing is that we let go of is our expectations for how things should be.
In that moment a light bulb illuminated, and I saw that stark white page that had been staring back at me all week begin to fill with words.
“Write your purpose in pen and your path in pencil.” -unknown.
As I took in the moment after the show ended, I allowed myself to sit with the idea and the feeling of what letting go of expectations would feel like.
Honestly, it feels scary. So I had to ask myself why?
Because it means I am releasing my illusion of control.
Often times we attach very firmly to our ideas of how things should be and in turn try to engineer the situation to achieve that desired outcome . This usually leads to the opposite outcome and a whole heap of stress, exhaustion and confusion.
Guess what? Unless you are the only variable you cannot control the outcome.
I realize this idea of living without expectations might sound a little odd, but let’s take life milestones for example. People will say by this age I want to have a house, be married, have kids, be in my dream job etc. etc….the list goes on. They start to engineer their life to steer toward these milestones and more often than not end up disappointed and unfulfilled. And the even more odd thing, I know people who actually achieved the things and were just as disappointed and unfulfilled as the people who did not.
Why?
Because it is in the unknown where we begin to understand what we want apart from societal pressures, familial expectations and the should be’s of life. When we skip over that phase by engineering outcomes to match expectations, we never really pause to ask ourselves if the things we are pursuing are what we really desire.
If there is one lesson I’ve learned during my walk through this thing called life, it’s that the journey is where the real magic happens. We miss that magic when we try to force specific outcomes.
Letting go of our expectations for how things should be, allows us to open our hearts and minds to the possibility of what could be. And it is in this space that we are able to realize the most growth, depth and breadth within ourselves. It is in this space that we become our most grounded and authentic selves because we allow life and it’s lessons to shape us without interference from our own limiting beliefs.
If you’re open to it, I challenge you to visualize what it would look like for you to let go of your own expectations. Set a timer for two and a half minutes and write down all of the expectations you would like to let go of and then set a timer for another two and half minutes and write about how you feel after having written everything out and what your life would look like. Not what it would look like in the sense of what you would be doing, but how your life would feel.
For me, letting go of expectations feels like
Freedom to explore who I am, and who I want to be.
Empowerment to say no to something without fear that it will shift someone’s perception of me.
Flexibility to grow, change and evolve unapologetically despite people’s preconceived ideas of who they have decided I should be.
Letting go of expectations allows us to meet ourselves where we actually are as opposed to where we think we should be. And it is from this place that we are able to pen our purpose, but pencil our path.
Oh and the other things I’m letting go…fear, self-doubt, procrastination and self-minimization. Life is far too short to let anything hold you back from all that God has for you, including you.
All my love,
Britt
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