The Joy of Lowering the Bar: Why Unmanaged Expectations are Just Resentment in Disguise

Have you ever meticulously planned a family road trip, complete with organic snacks, an educational podcast, and visions of harmonious sing-alongs, only to find yourself screaming over a rogue juice box spill three miles past your driveway?

Welcome to the world of unmanaged expectations.

As women, we are often trapped in a toxic love triangle with who we are, who we think we should be, and who we expect everyone else to be. We expect our bodies to bounce back like they did at twenty, our partners to read our minds, and our kids to suddenly develop a passion for hanging up their towels.

Spoiler alert: They won’t. And it is driving our stress levels through the roof.

The Truth Bomb: Expectations Are Planned Failures:

There is a brilliant phrase floating around the psychology world that every woman needs to tattoo on her brain: Expectations are just premeditated resentments. Or, put even more bluntly, an unexamined expectation is a planned failure. If I had a nickel for every time I said this to one of my patients...

When we set rigid, unspoken expectations for ourselves and others, we are essentially writing a script for a play that nobody else has rehearsed. We set the bar at an impossible, cinematic height, and when real life inevitably falls short, we feel let down, frustrated, and completely exhausted. Others around us may also feel the same way.

Think about it. When you expect yourself to crush a 60-minute workout, cook a gourmet dinner, excel at your job, and maintain a pristine house all in one Tuesday, you aren’t setting goals. You are scheduling a breakdown. You are planning to fail.

Need other examples: think holiday or vacation expectations; what you think* your spouse should know and how that nearly always leads to disappointment.

Lowering the Bar for Yourself:

Setting healthy expectations starts at home—specifically, in your own head.

• Audit your "Shoulds": Pay attention to how often you use the word "should." I should be further along in my career. I should be meditating for an hour. I should love kale. Replace "should" with "could" or "choose to." It instantly removes the invisible pressure. "Shoulds" and "Musts" are considered "bad words" by some psychologists. They are often referred to as "cognitive traps." Listen to The LYLAS Podcast, Season 6, Episode 1, for more on this.

  
  

• The 80% Rule: Aim for excellence, not perfection. If you get 80% of your daily to-do list done, call it a massive win. The remaining 20% can wait. Your sanity is worth more than a completely checked-off piece of paper.

  
  

• Give yourself grace periods: Some days you are a productivity machine. Other days, your biggest achievement is putting pants on. Both days are acceptable.

  
  

Setting Realistic Boundaries for Others:

We also break our own hearts by expecting the people around us to operate exactly the way we do.

• Say it out loud: Your partner, coworkers, and children cannot read your mind. If you expect your partner to empty the dishwasher, ask them directly instead of sighing loudly in the kitchen and hoping they take the hint.

  
  

• Accept people for who they are, not who you want them to be: If your friend is notoriously 15 minutes late, stop expecting her to arrive on time and getting angry when she doesn't. Expect her to be late. Bring a book. Adjust your timeline, not her personality.

  
  

• Define "good enough": If you ask your kids to clean their rooms, expect a child’s version of clean, not a luxury hotel version. If the floor is visible, let it go.

  
  

The Ultimate Reward: Less Stress, More Joy

When you stop treating life like a series of strict performance reviews, something magical happens. The constant buzz of anxiety begins to quiet down. You stop viewing your loved ones as disappointments and start seeing them as beautifully flawed humans. Best of all, you finally give yourself permission to just breathe.

So today, let’s make a pact to officially lower the bar. Not because we don’t care, but because we care too much about our own peace of mind to keep planning our own failures.