Listen to Overcoming Frustration: Managing Expectations and Embracing Self-Compassion

(00:01):

Hello. Hello. Let's dive into another episode of Been There, learned That today I want to talk about our frustration in something we're pursuing and the thoughts and fears that we have that come up when it seems like things aren't working. I want to ask you the question, what if it's actually working? If I were to ask you that, you might be saying, okay, how can you say that, Dana, my data does not agree with you. Everything around me says that it's not working. I'm not gaining the traction I need. You might be thinking, I'm not meeting my sales quotas, or I'm spending a lot of time with my kids reading all the parenting books, but they just aren't showing me respect, or they aren't doing their chores consistently. Or you might even on a personal level be saying, I am being so consistent in what I eat and how I move my body, but the scale is not budging.

(01:02):

And I just want to respectfully respond to you with, okay, maybe you aren't seeing results yet, and the keyword here is yet you and I get so stuck in a timeframe of how long we think something should take or could take, and we allow that to work against us. So I want to start with a reminder that you and I are not God. We cannot predict where our next sale is going to come from or what our next paycheck will be necessarily. We can't see the inner workings of our kids' brains. We don't know everything they think and how they choose to behave. And you and I don't know whether tonight's dinner and what we choose to eat is going to lead us to topple the scale tomorrow morning or not. So you see, data is extremely valuable. We don't want to throw out data yet.

(01:56):

I want to say that those numbers and that evidence that you have is only one part of a bigger picture. There could be a new client headed your way this week, or your child might be making big leaps at school and working super hard there to make progress. And it could be that your body has whiplash from eating habits over the past couple years and it's just doing its best to keep up. It just might need some time to make the shifts that you are looking to happen. I'm going to share with you a personal story so you can see a little bit about how a coach coaches herself when she's feeling like things aren't actually working. So back in 2023, there was a season when I was dealing with the unhelpful thought of, I'm not getting any new clients. And you can imagine if I was thinking that I was basically punishing myself for it, I was presenting data to myself that I felt I couldn't do things about, or the things I was trying to do about just weren't.

(02:59):

And the problem with that thought of I'm not getting any new clients is that it wasn't 100% true. The evidence of having zero new clients one month told me that my thought was true. But looking back, time passed as I experienced that thought and then suddenly two new clients came shortly thereafter. So the truth of the matter is I just kept doing what I knew to do at the time, and I did grow my business and get new clients in a matter of time. But the important thing to point out is it just didn't exactly happen in my preferred time. And I think you understand exactly what I mean. But I'm sharing this personal story with you because I came up with a powerful new question to doubt my doubts. And here's the question, what if my business is just a business where clients come in groups?

(03:56):

I was thinking, oh, I should be getting so many new clients every month or maybe every week. But as I looked at things over time, I realized I may never sign a new client every week, but there have been times when I've signed three clients in the course of three days. So it ebbs and flows in asking myself that question really gave me some freedom to rest and consistency instead of focusing only on the outcomes, my point is we can easily determine that something isn't working just because it's not working the way that we expected it to. And I want you to know that unnecessary expectations can kill your dreams if you are not careful. It can impact the way you care for your body. It can impact the way you parent your children. It can impact the way you show up in your business or at work.

(04:48):

I want to take what I'm sharing with you here about unnecessary expectations and how those can unintentionally kill our dreams. And I want to turn it back to you. I want to give you an opportunity to think through this directly. Think of something in your life that just isn't working yet. And I want to ask you some powerful coaching questions about this situation. Okay, here we go. First question. How will I manage my mental energy if this situation takes a year longer than I hoped it would to work out? What can I stop doing to minimize the anxiety I feel right now about not yet being where I want to be? How am I using data and facts to punish myself or others for things that are not yet working? And what unnecessary expectations am I putting on this situation that are causing me to think it's not working? And the last question, where do these unnecessary expectations

(05:57):

Come from? And that's a lot of questions. Hopefully you stopped and realized a couple of those pierced the situation that you're facing. Go back, listen to this episode again, and really process the scenario that's so frustrating to you. Think about your unnecessary expectations. Answer these questions authentically. Take them to God in prayer. You are going to find that your courage and your self-compassion increase. This is not a time to judge yourself. This is just a time to get honest with yourself and step forward with a lighter demeanor. Feeling encouraged, knowing that you don't have the results you want, but it's just not yet. It might actually be working. Alright, I'm cheering you on. I'll see you on the next episode.