Expectations Are the (Other) Thief of Joy

Unmet expectations are probably the leading cause of resentment in our lives – especially around the holidays! Just sayin’. But! Recognizing that we had (potentially unrealistic) expectations in the first place is a great step towards greater joy and freedom and being nice to each other.

This little episode is a pep talk around recognizing our expectations, letting go of the unrealistic ones, giving ourselves permission to recalibrate, encouragement to talk openly about our needs, and to take care of ourselves so we can show up well in our lives.

You know, the usual. 🙂

It’s also an update on what’s going on behind the scenes over here – and an expectation reset! Since I had unreasonably high hopes for myself during my first term back in school…

Sending love and fortitude as we enter the dark but merry time of year.

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Find the episode wherever you listen to podcasts!

Resources, References, and Links

Episode #2: “Comparison Is the Thief of Joy.” (Which apparently I didn’t make a post for, so you probably missed it! Go listen on all of the places listed above).

Episodes #20 & #21: “Befriending Your Nervous System with Marjorie Schreurs.”

Episode #25: “Bringing Boundaries and Self-Compassion to the Holidays with Jenny Tryansky.”

Transcript

Note: this transcript was generated by AI. Please forgive any malapropisms and misspellings. It’s the robot’s fault!

Cate Blouke (00:00.158)

Our unmet expectations and the resentments that can come from those really just make us miserable.

Cate Blouke (00:10.499)

Welcome to Settling is Bullshit, a sweary podcast about claiming your joy. If you are craving healthier boundaries, a greater sense of purpose, or an increased capacity to feel at ease in your own skin, then you are in the right place, my friend. I’m your host, Kate Blauch, joy activist and life coach to smart and sensitive humans. I’m here to offer you practical tools and playful encouragement to step forward and be your most awesome self.

My hope is that each episode will leave you feeling a bit more empowered to make brave choices and claim your joy.

Hello, my friend. It’s so good to be here with you. I’ve missed you. And we’re not gonna be hearing a lot from each other this fall because I am in school and it’s a lot. 

And what’s been on my mind is this idea of expectations and how we need them in order to move through life with any functionality, but how they are also often the bane of my existence and can get most of us into trouble. When I was initially thinking about this post, I was going to title it, “Expectations are Resentments Under Construction,” which is one of my favorite little AA sayings. 

But then at some point in the last couple of weeks on Instagram, on some reel that I watched that I wish I could cite, but I can’t, I apologize. Someone was talking about how expectations are the thief of joy. And I was like, yeah, that’s true. They are the other thief of joy. Cause I do have an episode out from the very early days of this podcast about how comparison is the thief of joy. And that is very true. But like, expectations can also…

Cate Blouke (02:07.501)

rob us of our joy as well. And that seemed like a lovely way to get us all into this topic. And just to set some expectations or to reset some expectations, because that is also allowed. A lot of times we’ll have these expectations about things, about how things are supposed to go, about how they’re supposed to be. Note all of the supposed to’s in there. And we forget that like we can

change expectations. We can reevaluate as time goes forward. And I knew that going back to school was going to be a lot. I did not know how much a lot it was going to be. And I had such high hopes and expectations of myself that I would be able to consistently show up for this podcast. And that just hasn’t been true. And part of being in relationship with anyone

whether it’s you, my beautiful, wonderful, magical listeners, or the people more directly in our lives, when we can set realistic and clearly communicated expectations, we’re all just gonna be in a much better position to understand who we are in relation to each other. So to set some podcast expectations before I really dive into the topic, I don’t know how much you’re gonna be hearing from me.

between now and January. I’m four weeks into a quarter system term where I am taking an overload to get a bunch of prerequisites out of the way. I’m taking art and psychology classes and I’m having a great time and I am being really attentive to my capacities. Another topic that I have talked about a lot on this podcast is like being attentive to our energy and our bandwidth and our capacities.

And I’ve thankfully been staying below the overwhelm threshold, but like not by a lot of margin. I’ve been focusing on school, on my recovery, on working out, on self care, and that has really been what there is space for in a day. And as much as I love all of you and miss this podcast, it’s okay to recalibrate my own expectations. So that’s a…

Cate Blouke (04:30.352)

important place to start is like, are the expectations that we have of ourselves? And perfectionism is all about the expectations that we are setting for ourselves. It’s about measuring ourselves against this standard that we have invented. Like the reality is, perfection doesn’t exist. It’s not a real thing. It’s an imagined ideal that we have chosen for ourselves.

whether consciously or not, usually not consciously. Like, let’s be clear, most of us don’t go about our day being like, I’m gonna try to be the perfect human in all areas of my life because I’m so perfect and that’s gonna make everything amazing. Like, I don’t think that that’s how most of us consciously end up in the perfectionism fucking spiral. It’s a lot more subconscious and ingrained and internalized than all of that.

But the more we can shed light on that, the easier it is to give ourselves a fucking break and to set more realistic expectations for ourselves. And honestly, like this is, does tie into this idea of comparison because perfectionism and unrealistic expectations for ourselves are really tied to what we see other people doing, this sense of how things

should be, how things are supposed to be, et cetera, et cetera, that we pick up from other places, whether it’s mass media, whether it’s Instagram, whether it’s magazines, whether it’s television, whether it’s our best friend, whether it’s our best frenemy. know, we somewhere down the line, like, get this idea of how we are, quote unquote, supposed to show up in the world, in our bodies, in our communications, in our fucking homework assignments.

I mean, those do have a rubric and like generally, hopefully clear set of expectations, but most of the world doesn’t offer this like written guideline for like what the expectation is. And that is when so many of us get into trouble when we’re at work and we don’t have a clear set of expectations. And so we’re imagining all of these like ideas of how things are supposed to be, of how we think that other people think we need to be being.

Cate Blouke (06:58.768)

And so much of this happens in our head and so much of it is not necessarily within our conscious awareness. know, oftentimes we are not aware of our expectations until they get trespassed, like until they don’t get met and we get fucking upset about it. This happens for me, it happens for my clients, for my sponsors, for my past students. Often times…

when we are upset about what other people are or are not doing about what is or is not happening, it’s because we had an expectation of how things were supposed to go. And again, in order to like move through the fucking world, we have to like have some sets of expectations. Like it is perfectly reasonable to expect that if I get in my car and I drive to the grocery store, that other people on the road are not going to run into me. They’re not gonna…

disregard traffic lights, right, that in order to move through the world, we have to have kind of shared sets of expectations. The problem is that those shared sets of expectations, aside from traffic laws, are often unspoken, they’re often different depending on culture and region and

background and socioeconomic status that like we’re all trying to move through the fucking world without a very clearly written handbook of like how things are supposed to be and what to expect. And so some of us are more flexible around that than others. I have a friend who likes to call the way he moves through the world dancing with chaos and he’s like totally comfortable doing that. I love that phrase. I love that for him. And that is

not my reality, partly because I am a very neuro-spicy human and expectations are really important for me in moving through the world in a way that is manageable. And I have a particular relationship with expectations where when certain not always predictable expectations aren’t met, my nervous system gets really dysregulated. I know I’ve talked about getting dysregulated on this podcast before, but I just wanted to

Cate Blouke (09:21.684)

actually take a moment to talk about what that means. And I highly recommend if you haven’t listened to the episodes about befriending your nervous system, I think there are episodes like 21 and 22, I’ll link to them in the show notes, those are really great. But essentially, dysregulation occurs when our nervous system gets activated in a way that is kind of disproportionate to what is actually occurring.

is how I will casually define this in this moment, because this isn’t an episode about dysregulation, but essentially like something in my system decides without my conscious control that whatever is happening feels unsafe. Nervous system activation is about our sense of safety. It’s our hardwired, precognitive system that is designed to keep us safe in the world. And

At least for me, my levels of dysregulation are often, not 100 % of the time, like, wait, let’s go with like 50 % of the time, it’s connected to like unmet expectations that like, I’m moving through the world, I think I know what to expect, I think I know where I’m supposed to be, what I’m supposed to be doing, how it’s supposed to go, and then that gets disrupted and my system hijacks me and tells me I’m unsafe.

And the more aware of that I have become in my own life, and the more aware of that we can all become, the more we’re able to then navigate that reality, right? I had some expectations that aren’t being met. I’m now dysregulated, I’m now upset. I can name the emotion. I’m frustrated, I’m sad, I’m scared, whatever. And then I don’t have to be so reactive.

because the reality is we often can’t control, actually, you know what, I fucking don’t actually believe we can control our emotions. Like that’s not a thing as far as I’m concerned. Like they’re gonna show up. We can control our reactions. And for those of us who are neurodivergent, we might not have particularly great control over those reactions. Like that’s a skill we really have to build, because that’s part of having ADHD.

Cate Blouke (11:43.348)

part of being autistic is this lower capacity for emotional regulation. And again, for me, for people I’ve worked with, for people in my life, that’s so often so closely connected to our, my, their expectations of like, how do we think things are supposed to go? And then when they don’t go that way, we fucking freak out. And I want to normalize that that freak out is normal and like we’re never gonna

fully get off the merry-go-round of this, because we have to have expectations to move through the world. It’s one of those both and things, unless you are able to meditate for seven hours a day and are just one of those people who is magically capable of moving through the life with beautiful equanimity of like, everything’s fine, I’m fine. I’m not one of those people. The people I think who listen to this podcast typically aren’t.

quite as capable of being completely chill about everything all the time. And so understanding that often we are upset because our expectations were not met is a really just helpful thing to bring into awareness. And then we can ask ourselves, like, all right, like, what was the expectation wasn’t met? Did I communicate that?

What need is attached to this particular expectation? How can I get that met? Like, is this something I can control? Is it something I can’t control? This episode and topic is like really influenced by my experience in 12-Step Recovery and the language I picked up in AA meetings because so often the things that I am angry or frustrated about or resentful about are

unrealistic expectations. Like I just have these expectations of how things are supposed to go in the world, in my life, in school. This has been coming up in one of my classes in particular of just this idea of like how a class is supposed to be taught. that expectation has been going unmet. And as someone with a background in higher education and in curriculum design, like it has been so hard for me to detach from this

Cate Blouke (14:03.378)

like expectation that I am just like holding on to with my righteous indignation of belief that I know how this is supposed to go and you’re doing it wrong. And ultimately like that has just been making me miserable. Like that’s the thing is that our unmet expectations and the resentments that can come from those really just make us miserable. Like, and then maybe we make the other person miserable or the circumstance miserable or whatever. Like maybe that

unfortunately bleeds out because we’re not managing our reactions terribly well. But fundamentally, when I have unmet expectations, when I’m getting resentful, the best available option, like I always have the option to stew in it. And believe me, I’ve been stewing in that stew for a little while and getting real tired of it. So thank you to my therapist and my sponsor.

for helping me pull myself out of that mess because again, it’s really just making me miserable. And when I can do the work through journaling, through verbal processing with an appropriate person, through meditation, through offering it to my higher power, because that’s part of my practice, and get to a place of release and letting go of unrealistic expectations, because

in certain circumstances, like I don’t have any power to change things, right? God grant me this or anything to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. like, oftentimes I don’t actually have a lot of power or control or authority to change things. And sometimes like, it often isn’t my job. Like it’s not my job to teach this teacher how to teach. Like that’s not up to me. And it’s not my job to…

make the people in my life behave in particular ways. And I don’t have the power to do that. And so when I can get to this clarity around like, okay, like I have this expectation and it’s not being met and what do I actually need and how can I take care of myself in this situation? I can then…

Cate Blouke (16:17.22)

access my own capacity for like joy and connection and love instead of staying mired in this stressed out, frustrated place, right? That accessing serenity and moving through that serenity prayer process of like, let me accept the things I cannot change really means like detaching from my unrealistic or, you know, sometimes they’re realistic expectations that still aren’t gonna get met.

And it’s do I have any control over that, yes or no? What can I do to attend to myself in this situation or experience or moment? And when it’s interpersonal relationships, you know, when it is stuff that we do have control over, it’s all about clear communication. The holidays are approaching and…

I would encourage you to go listen to last year’s episode about boundaries and self-care during the holidays with Jenny Trianski. I’ll link to that in the show notes. But that is all about communicating, what do I have the capacity for? What are the expectations? Because oftentimes, like, if people know what to expect, they’re much less likely to get upset about it. Not always, obviously. Like, with family and the holidays, like, there’s often likely hurt feelings and whatnot, but…

You know, if I can say, here is what I am available for, here is what I want, here is what I am hoping to get out of this, can we have a dialogue about that? It’s so much more likely for all of us to have a better and more connected and compassionate time. So that’s kind of my little spiel about expectations. I really wanted to just…

drop something in here because I had set the expectation that I was going to be able to show up for this more. And I had set that expectation with myself and I have been feeling a lot of internal pressure and sadness about not being able to show up and connect with y’all in the way that I want to. And part of dispelling that energy is just recalibrating and resetting expectations. For those of you who do tune into this with any regularity, like

Cate Blouke (18:35.06)

I am not abandoning this project entirely, but that is how my black and white thinking can get, just to offer some normalization and peek behind the curtain. And my own struggles with all or nothing thinking, when the quarter started and I quickly realized just how much this was gonna be, part of my brain was like, fuck, we just gotta cancel the podcast, we just gotta delete it.

and it’s never gonna happen again and everything’s terrible. And thankfully, I don’t have to react. I don’t have to make decisions when I’m in that activated place. And instead, I got to get a little more grounded and I’m like, you know, maybe I’m just putting this down for a couple of months. So my invitation in this episode, when I don’t know when I’m gonna get to talk to you again, my invitation is just to like…

Think about, you know, are there any places in your life that are feeling crunchy? And is it because you have expectations that are going unmet? And what is the need that is being unmet that’s behind the expectation? And what do you need to do in order to get that need met? What can you do? What is actually within your realm of capability in order to get your needs met? Because fucking A.

We can’t count on other people to meet our needs. We can ask them, we can talk about it, we can communicate clearly, but like, at the end of the day, we gotta take care of our fucking selves. And so I really hope that you are taking good care of yourself and that you can get your needs met today.

Cate Blouke (20:24.616)

Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please help me grow the podcast by subscribing, leaving a review, and sharing it with anyone you think would benefit from hearing it too. Your support means the world to me. If you’d like to get updates about new episodes, posts, and offerings, please visit settlingisbullshit.com to subscribe to my newsletter. You can also find information there about working with me one-on-one to build your most amazing life. Until next time, remember that I believe in you and that you are fucking awesome!