Establish Realistic Expectations to Maintain Goals (or Resolutions)

Creating Realistic Expectations

When it comes to creating new goals or resolutions that we want to uphold, we are doomed if we are unable to set realistic expectations. Realistic expectations are standards that are honest, and therefore, likely to occur. Having more realistic beliefs on what is going to happen in any situation helps set us up for success because we can do something called planning ahead of time. This simply means that we can decide how we will respond if a situation goes in a way we can reasonably expect. Sometimes this means having one solid possibility, while other times it means we can think of a couple of ways a situation can go and plan accordingly.

To create realistic expectations, we need to look at the situation from a more objective view (or third-person). This helps us to see if we would believe that someone else with your similar capabilities, tendencies, and thoughts would accomplish the goal. If the answer is yes, then great! However, if the answer is no, you should adjust the goal post. For example, if I am not a morning person, then I will not magically become one if I set a goal to workout before going to work every morning. Instead, the alarm would go off, I would grumble about it being too early (regardless of how much sleep I got) and probably just fall back to sleep. So, a more realistic expectation may be to gradually start waking up earlier to eventually get to the goal of working out before work or adjusting to make room at night (when I am more energized) for working out.

Another example of a way to adjust expectations is to review the past. We can reasonably expect that certain things will reoccur. For example, let’s say you have a goal of reigning in your spending. You have created a budget and allowed yourself $10/week to spend on takeout. However, you typically work late multiple nights per week and do not feel like cooking those nights. So, you have a tendency to spend much more on takeout. In creating your next week’s plan, it would be reasonable to expect that you will spend more on takeout than the $10. So, you can plan ahead of time by deciding to either setup a different system to make eating at home easier or adjust your budget to allow for more takeout spending.

How Realistic Expectations Help

So, how do realistic expectations effect our ability to maintain goals or resolutions? Well, the most helpful way they can assist us is through helping with motivation. Motivation has a few stages that have been seen repeatedly in people trying to achieve a goal of some kind. These are the hype, the honeymoon phase, the plummet, the lapse, surges, and slips.

The Hype: For many, we tend to get very excited about the possibility of achieving our goals and this helps with what we call the motivation “hype.” It is a time where we are dreaming up what goal(s) we want and how we want to achieve them. It is in this phase where your mind can run wild with all of the possibilities you see for yourself. During this phase of motivation, we set goals and start working towards them. In 2023, Forbes Health released an article on many statistics regarding New Year’s Resolutions. One statistic I found especially interesting was the average number of goals Americans make at the start of a new year. 45.5% of people make 3 separate resolutions. 21% make 4 or more resolutions, 19.5% make 2 resolutions, but only 2.5% of people chose to focus on just one resolution. I think this is a great illustration of how unrealistic we can become in the hype phase of motivation. As mentioned in my last post, creating one achievable goal at a time is considered best practice if we want any chance of sustaining our goals long-term.

Honeymoon Phase: In the honeymoon phase, motivation is going strong. Just like love is blind, the honeymoon phase has the potential to be unrealistic. There is a belief that we will always be able to maintain our new goals and habits with ease because in this phase, we are! If we are encountering any obstacles, we are hurdling them with relative ease. But the honeymoon must always end (sorry). . .

The Plummet: This is when the going finally gets tough. For some people it comes quick and others can make it a week or two before they are faced with obstacles they either didn’t see coming (unrealistic expectations) or they just couldn’t dodge them. In this phase of motivation, people tend to start falling off the wagon by forgoing part(s) of their goals or making excuses. For people who had unrealistic expectations, the plummet can hit especially hard. Eventually it ends when the person has completely halted progress or is barely putting in any more effort.

The Lapse: So now the person has officially fallen off of the wagon and is deciding whether or not they are going to try to catch up with it or give up on the wagon altogether. In this analogy, the wagon is the goal or habit. Once in the lapse, people either “take a break” before trying again or just stop here and choose not to continue. They may restart at a later time when they experience another hype phase, but they are not going to pick up where they left off. In this phase, people tend to start feeling down on themselves. If they had unrealistic expectations, this is a time where they start feeling as though they are the problem rather than the expectations themselves. If this has been a habit for someone, they may start to feel as though they don’t have the self-discipline or that they are lazy. When we start to believe these negative thoughts, and many more, about ourselves, it does make us more likely to give up.

Surges: If we choose to continue trying towards our habit or goal, we typically do so when a surge of motivation comes. It may come in the form of a pep talk from a loved one, finding a new resource to help, or seem to come out of the blue. Regardless, this is a very important time to shift expectations. If we resume with the same expectations, we are making it even more likely that we will develop those negative thoughts mentioned above, which could eventually cause us to give up. So, instead, it is a good time to recognize that we cannot be perfect and that certain expectations may need to be lowered. This might mean reducing the number of things focused on, allowing for more “mistakes,” or changing the goal altogether, for example.

Slips: Even when we choose to resume, the process doesn’t stay easy. There are going to be many things that get in the way of our motivation. For example, situational things like feeling sick or schedule changes can get in the way of our goals. Hormonal and emotional changes can also shift motivation. If something happens that makes us sad or angry, we may be less motivated to keep the course. However, over time you can learn to identify which obstacles tend to get in your way and either decide how to cope with them, avoid them, or adjust for them. Regardless, this will either keep your expectations realistic or help to make them more so. As you go through surges and slips, the slips should become less frequent but also less impactful until your eventually have a new habit or have met your goal.

The Takeaway

So, understanding the motivation stages and how they apply to having realistic expectations teaches us how important it is to set ourselves up for success in our minds. We can buy all the books, pay for the subscriptions, and sign up for accountability partners all we want, but those things will never get our minds in the right framework to succeed. In order to this, we need to set expectations that are likely to actually happen. For example, the person who is not a morning person can’t expect to become one overnight and the person who relies on takeout is going to have a very hard time eating only at home. So, set attainable goals that do not dramatically require you to shift your life. Once those become habit, you can create a new goal to work on until you finally build up to where you want to go. This gives you a solid foundation for success instead of trying to rush to the top.

Also, having realistic expectations means accepting that you are not, will not, and can never be perfect. You will forget, choose momentary pleasure, run out of time, have unexpected events occur, and just plain mess up sometimes. Having realistic expectations means that you acknowledge these things are an inevitability, but choose to continue despite them and through them. The when those things happen, they are smaller slips that can be shrug off without feeling bad about yourself and that makes it that much easier to go back into a surge.

If you are having trouble making realistic expectations and goals, we can help! Many people fall into the trap of having unrealistic expectations and end up with a low self-esteem because of it. If you are tired of struggling and want to shake off the negative thoughts you have about yourself, reach out today on our contact page or by call (704) 815-6440.