Sept. 2020 Meetup Recap

This month we brought back some basics and had a great conversation about managing expectations - one of my favorite topics! The topic was chosen based on your survey feedback that included the desire to cover how to prioritize friendships as well as managing expectations.

Here are a few of the notes from what I shared today that result in knowing which relationships to prioritize:

  • First, the hard part – you have to actually pause to think about your relationships in order to evaluate them. So find a moment, go for a drive, get a coffee, whatever it is, and think. For me, the most important have been:

    • Which friendships are reciprocal?

    • What relationships do you desire more from?

    • Who gives you life and who sucks life out of you?

  • Evaluating friendships can be a slippery slope, and it’s important not to be too judgmental, because we all have times we are less responsive – so try to really view it holistically.

Next we discussed expectations - which includes expectations of you as well as for yourself. I introduced an exercise I created as part of my life coaching practice based on something I do myself when I feel overwhelmed.

  • First, identify the different areas of your life and what you feel is expected of you in each area – write down absolutely everything that comes to mind.

  • Then go through one of two ways – either highlight all the items that are true expectations of you OR cross off all the items that you’ve placed on yourself and no one is truly expecting it. These may shift, of course, and a prime example is what we’ve all expected during a pandemic and with everything shut down.

  • Look at the overall picture that is left and notice how you might build a boundary between what is truly expected of you by others, what you expect of yourself, and the kicker – where you’ve created unrealistic expectations.

Lastly - how do we know if we’re doing the “right” thing? I came up with my top four:

  • Alignment with values

  • More fuzzies, less resentment

  • Less peaks & valleys in energy

  • More progress towards goals, not feeling “stuck”

You can view today’s presentation here. Please do not replicate without permission.

Resources shared today:

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