How to Set Healthy Expectations to Cultivate Confidence, Self-Trust, + Growth
How to Set Healthy Expectations to Cultivate Confidence, Self-Trust, + Growth How to Set Healthy Expectations to Cultivate Confidence, Self-Trust, + Growth
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Beyond Your DefaultTrailerBonusEpisode 20Season 1
How to Set Healthy Expectations to Cultivate Confidence, Self-Trust, + Growth
"Our environment, the world in which we live and work, is a mirror of our attitudes and expectations." — Earl Nightingale
The expectations we set for ourselves not only dictate what we are able to achieve, they also impact our internal personal growth, as well as our happiness. However, there is such a thing as unhealthy expectations — and the act of setting expectations for yourself is akin to charting a course with clear markers toward success while acknowledging your limitations.
Over the years, both George and I have learned that establishing healthy expectations that cultivate growth, self-trust, and confidence involves finding a delicate balance between ambition and reality. It's not about restraining your aspirations but about ensuring they are achievable and sustainable.
But it's also important to remember that peaks and valleys along the way, as you live out your expectations each and every day, are something we all encounter. You can't compare yourself to others, and we've both learned how important it is to focus on our own path, with clear boundaries around how much we let others influence us. Some days are better than others. Life is unpredictable, and setbacks are inevitable.
Healthy expectations act as a buffer, fostering resilience and enabling you to navigate challenges with greater fortitude. But how do you create healthy expectations? How do you set yourself up for success with aspirational expectations that align with your values but don't set yourself up for failure? And how do you manage the deprogramming aspect you may need to undertake if you've struggled not to fall prey to unhealthy expectations — either self-imposed or imposed by others?
In this episode, George and I explore these questions and more. Because the expectations we set for ourselves and live by are so essential to walking the path beyond your default.
Questions We Discuss
Why is setting expectations so important in your beyond your default journey?
How have the expectations you've set for yourself evolved or changed over the years? Do you expect more or less of yourself? Do you simply expect differently of yourself?
What are examples of expectations you hold for yourself now, and how did you choose them?
What's the difference between setting healthy and unhealthy expectations?
What are the best ways to strike a balance between the influence and input of others, and making the right choices for ourselves, when it comes to setting healthy expectations?
What is an exercise someone can do to develop the right set of expectations for themselves that challenge them to reach without setting them up to fail?
What do you do when you fall short of expectations? How do you get back up again?
Exercises to Set Expectations
When asked what someone can do to develop healthy expectations for themselves, George shared how important mindfulness, meditation, and journaling can be for this act of holistic self-discovery. The process for getting to know yourself should include:
Reflect on your past experiences, because before you can determine where you want to go, you need to define clearly where you right now and how you got here.
Align your expectations with your values and abilities, so you can root your expectations in your moral compass and your current competencies, skills, and reach.
Focus on effort, not just outcomes. Celebrate the journey you're taking, and remember showing up each and every day to try your best is a big win. Yes, outcomes matter, but so does your commitment.
Practice self-compassion, because you will not be perfect every single day. None of us are. Sometimes you will fall down. Sometimes you will make mistakes. That's OK. Be self-compassionate and keep going.
Other Resources
Suggestions for setting realistic expectations for yourself (Psych Central)
How to set realistic expectations + expert recommendations (The Thirty)
Chapters
"Our environment, the world in which we live and work, is a mirror of our attitudes and expectations." — Earl Nightingale
The expectations we set for ourselves not only dictate what we are able to achieve, they also impact our internal personal growth, as well as our happiness. However, there is such a thing as unhealthy expectations — and the act of setting expectations for yourself is akin to charting a course with clear markers toward success while acknowledging your limitations.
Over the years, both George and I have learned that establishing healthy expectations that cultivate growth, self-trust, and confidence involves finding a delicate balance between ambition and reality. It's not about restraining your aspirations but about ensuring they are achievable and sustainable.
But it's also important to remember that peaks and valleys along the way, as you live out your expectations each and every day, are something we all encounter. You can't compare yourself to others, and we've both learned how important it is to focus on our own path, with clear boundaries around how much we let others influence us. Some days are better than others. Life is unpredictable, and setbacks are inevitable.
Healthy expectations act as a buffer, fostering resilience and enabling you to navigate challenges with greater fortitude. But how do you create healthy expectations? How do you set yourself up for success with aspirational expectations that align with your values but don't set yourself up for failure? And how do you manage the deprogramming aspect you may need to undertake if you've struggled not to fall prey to unhealthy expectations — either self-imposed or imposed by others?
In this episode, George and I explore these questions and more. Because the expectations we set for ourselves and live by are so essential to walking the path beyond your default.
Questions We Discuss
Why is setting expectations so important in your beyond your default journey?
How have the expectations you've set for yourself evolved or changed over the years? Do you expect more or less of yourself? Do you simply expect differently of yourself?
What are examples of expectations you hold for yourself now, and how did you choose them?
What's the difference between setting healthy and unhealthy expectations?
What are the best ways to strike a balance between the influence and input of others, and making the right choices for ourselves, when it comes to setting healthy expectations?
What is an exercise someone can do to develop the right set of expectations for themselves that challenge them to reach without setting them up to fail?
What do you do when you fall short of expectations? How do you get back up again?
Exercises to Set Expectations
When asked what someone can do to develop healthy expectations for themselves, George shared how important mindfulness, meditation, and journaling can be for this act of holistic self-discovery. The process for getting to know yourself should include:
Reflect on your past experiences, because before you can determine where you want to go, you need to define clearly where you right now and how you got here.
Align your expectations with your values and abilities, so you can root your expectations in your moral compass and your current competencies, skills, and reach.
Focus on effort, not just outcomes. Celebrate the journey you're taking, and remember showing up each and every day to try your best is a big win. Yes, outcomes matter, but so does your commitment.
Practice self-compassion, because you will not be perfect every single day. None of us are. Sometimes you will fall down. Sometimes you will make mistakes. That's OK. Be self-compassionate and keep going.
Other Resources
Suggestions for setting realistic expectations for yourself (Psych Central)
How to set realistic expectations + expert recommendations (The Thirty)
Creators & Guests
Host
George B. Thomas
A catalyst for growth!
Host
Liz Moorehead
Content therapist and speaker.
What is Beyond Your Default?
What Is Beyond Your Default? "Everyone keeps telling me I should be happy, but I'm not." “I feel stuck.” “I have a calling, but where do I start?"
Right now, you have a choice. You can continue living within your default norms, playing it safe, clocking in and out every day, and scraping by to achieve what's supposed to make you happy hopefully. Or you can choose to accept the challenge of living beyond your default. Stop wishing to live your "best life” and start living your best life. Success leaves clues. And they're waiting for you to discover them.
George B. Thomas:
Because I'm on a journey to reach what could be perfection. Again, I know I'll never reach it. It doesn't exist, but I used to have a very unhealthy well, I can't do that because I know my grammar and spelling sucks. It won't be perfect, so let's not do it at all. What?
George B. Thomas:
You know the amount of content I've created that has helped humans that has jack shit to do with grammar and spelling, but it took me forever to get there because of this unhealthy, unkind expectation of myself to be perfect. I'm not gonna be a perfect parent. I'm not gonna be a perfect boss. I'm not gonna be a perfect human. Guess what that equals?
George B. Thomas:
That equals freaking freedom. The understanding that that shouldn't be an expectation because it's unachievable for anybody. Frees me. You know what? Freedom equals happiness and joy.
George B. Thomas:
This is why I'm saying at the beginning, expectations is tied to this connective tissue of happiness, living a happier life.
Liz Moorehead:
Welcome back to Beyond Your Defaults. As always, I am your host, Liz Moorehead, and I'm joined by the one and only George b Thomas. George, how are you this morning?
George B. Thomas:
I am doing fantabulous, Liz. Fantabulous. Fantabulous. I'll tell you why. We're doing an episode on expectations, and it's funny because I worked this weekend for many hours on the beyond your default website community page.
George B. Thomas:
Just tweaking things, change we got some testimonials from a couple folks who are listening to the podcast. We got those on the home page. And it's funny because this whole project, this passion project, is based off of the fact that I wanna do a book, the fact that I wanna help humans be better humans, that I wanna help people live a happier life. And it's interesting how my expectations of what I want that to show up as and my goals for where I want it to go. Notice I listed 2 different things there.
Liz Moorehead:
Mhmm.
George B. Thomas:
Can either be dramatically separated or completely aligned. Now we're gonna dig into that, but I'm excited because there are new things happening. The podcast is growing. Liz, I sent you an email way early this morning. I don't know if you've seen it yet, but we officially, this week, hit 25 countries.
George B. Thomas:
Really? People are act yes. That are people are listening to the beyond your default podcast, and that was never an expectation, but it's a happy like, it happened. So fantabulous is the word for today.
Liz Moorehead:
I love that word in 25 countries. That's unbelievable. I'm a little taken aback.
George B. Thomas:
Right? That's when I saw the email, which, by the way, is one of the reasons why I love transistor.fm, not sponsored by the way. They'll send us these little, hey. You didn't know, but you did this thing, and it was kinda special.
Liz Moorehead:
That's amazing. Well, let's get into expectations. So I wanna take us on a little trip in the way back machine, actually, just to last week, when you and I were having a conversation about growth mindset. And one of the questions I asked was what are the ways in which someone can cultivate a healthy growth mindset? And you had one of your points being around setting healthy expectations.
Liz Moorehead:
And it didn't take us long to realize that we needed to have a conversation around expectations because expectations I mean, quite frankly, it is a word that has a lot of expectations and presuppositions around it. You know what I mean? Not to get too meta, but that's that's the truth. Expectations are lofty. Expectations are about ideals.
Liz Moorehead:
They're about I see you already nodding your head. And this is why I'm very excited to get into this because one of the conversations you and I had about this and why we knew it had to be its own episode is that the idea of expectations can be healthy or unhealthy depending on how you develop them. And if you push them into an area that is healthy, you have the capacity to not only cultivate growth, but confidence in yourself and self trust. So, George, I wanna open today's conversation by asking you, why is cultivating a set of healthy expectations important not just to the idea of growth mindset, but to the overall journey one walks with beyond your default?
George B. Thomas:
Yeah. I love this question, and I love this topic because, first of all, you mentioned the way back machine. We gotta go back to the let's simplify it machine as well because this word, I think people, myself included, by the way, I think people get it confused with what it really is versus what they think it is and what it's attached to. But let's go ahead and start this episode out with a nice quote to kinda get the mind headed in the right direction, and this quote is by Earl Nightingale, and it says, our environment, the world in which we live and work, is a mirror of our attitudes and expectations. Now, what I want you to stop and think about, listeners, is what do you feel or think about your life right now?
George B. Thomas:
Because if you're happy, then you might have healthy expectations. If you're unhappy with different things, it might be based on those expectations and notice that attitudes and expectations are together in this quote. I'd love to pull on the string of connective tissue. The more we do these episodes, things that match with things. Right?
George B. Thomas:
So attitudes and expectations and the mirror of the life you're living. Now this journey, and we've talked about this historically, is yours to design. You have the power. You have the ability. But so many times, there are things that get in the way, questions we ask, expectations that are not set.
George B. Thomas:
For instance, you know, you might start to ask yourself if you're designing this world, like, what color should I use? Where do the lines on the canvas belong? Is it charcoal? Is it watercolor? Is it oil based?
George B. Thomas:
Like, there's so many questions on this journey, and, of course, I'm waxing poetic on the actual, like, painting your destination. You do have real questions that you'd ask, but there's this need for some type of self devised instructional manual that many of us don't take the time to actually create this manual. We don't know what our expectations of ourself are. We let the expectations of others rule our life, which is toxic, and we'll get into this, and we haven't set expectations or the acceptance of expectations on either side of this conversation. Before we get too deep into this, I wanna dive into the word expectations starting with the basics because we have to understand truly what we're talking about before we dive into a deeper level of this.
George B. Thomas:
So expectations is a strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future. A strong belief that something will happen. A belief that someone will or should achieve something. Now here's the thing. When I read those, my brain immediately, again, connective tissue, goes to self belief.
George B. Thomas:
You are the someone, by the way, in in these definitions. Your goal is the something. The future equals your beyond your default state, but there's this messy thing that happens in this self belief, in this word expectations, and this word of goals. And we're gonna talk about expectations versus goals along the way. But I want us to realize when I think about expectations, when you as a listener think about expectations, I want you to think about accountability, and I want you to think about self accountability.
George B. Thomas:
And it's almost like these expectations are the guardrails and mile markers into what would be your goal, and it's it's all part of this system that I think you can create when we're thinking about these as pieces that go together of, like, a GPS. K? Like, we all have GPS at this point. We get in our car. Most of us, if we're being honest with ourself, don't know how to get to many of the places on the planet without our cell phone and GPS at this point.
George B. Thomas:
Didn't always used to be that way. I can remember life before the Internet, before Garmin, before GPS on our phones. But at this point, I get in my car, and I say I wanna go here, and I know that there's gonna be different routes. I know I can pick a route. Now my route is based on my expectations.
George B. Thomas:
Do I wanna pay a toll? Do I wanna take the quickest route? What am I expecting for the journey that I'm about to go on? And so think about expectations as an element of your own personal GPS. And what's crazy about this too is if I think about this self belief, this self accountability, this idea of setting your route or setting your GPS of your life, there's a very deep level connective tissue to the word happiness.
George B. Thomas:
If you have healthy expectations, it may be easier to live a happier life. If you're setting your own expectations and following your expectations, it may be easier to live a happier life. If you're driven, follow, and even have like Pavlov's dog response to others' expectations, it might not be a very happy life. So one of the reasons you might battle with this life that is not so positive. Maybe you're more pessimistic than optimistic, and you're just you know, I don't feel the joy.
George B. Thomas:
I just wanna be happy. Maybe this is because your expectations are one of 2 things or maybe both, not met and not set. And that's the thing. I want you to look at these directions of expectations not met and what that does to you and expectations not set, and so, therefore, you don't know what your baseline is. But we'll dig into the baseline versus Liz.
George B. Thomas:
You mentioned lofty with the word expectation, but we'll we'll get into the baseline as we move forward today on this
Liz Moorehead:
episode. You know, a couple of things came to mind as I was listening to you talk about this. First of all, that Earl Nightingale quote, what I found about it is our environment, the world in which we live and work is a mirror of our attitudes and expectations. It reminded me of the episode we did a while back about the importance of language and the language we used to talk to ourselves because our language and what we say to ourselves dictates our thoughts and our thoughts dictates how we see the world, which then dictates our reality. And I found that to be absolutely fascinating.
Liz Moorehead:
There is an interesting parallel here because your expectations are the lens through which you look at the world and measure success, either for yourself or for your life. The other piece of it as well that I know we're gonna be getting into today that I personally am very interested to have a conversation about is this idea of sometimes we don't know the expectations we have are bad. Right? And I've had this happen in my life before where I'm sitting there. You and I have had conversations.
Liz Moorehead:
We were like, Liz, why are you beating yourself up this way? You know what I mean? And and I think what can happen is that depending on your background, depending on your life's experiences, you can end up with expectations that in your head you genuinely believe are healthy and they are not. So I'm very excited to dig more deeply into that part of the conversation. But first, I actually wanna ask you a personal question, which
George B. Thomas:
are you ready
Liz Moorehead:
for the hot seat? Yeah?
George B. Thomas:
Oh, yeah.
Liz Moorehead:
So I'm curious how the expectations you've set for yourself have evolved or changed over the years. Do you expect more of yourself or less of yourself, or do you just simply expect differently of yourself?
George B. Thomas:
It's interesting because there's really three main things and, like, a and a thought that I wanna put into this as I'm kind of thinking about it. First of all, yes, Liz. My expectations have grown over time. And what I'll mean or what I mean by this is when I was a younger man, my expectations were more external. Oh, you got an a on the test.
George B. Thomas:
Good job, Johnny. Oh, you mowed the lawn without me having to ask. I baked you a cookie. And so my life was literally based on the meeting or matching the expectations of others for the instant gratification or hit of dopamine of an attaboy or attagirl. I'll I'll dig into that later.
George B. Thomas:
More now, it's actually more internal or me looking at what do I expect from myself and how am I driving myself in this journey? How am I rerouting my GPS along the way? And, again, I know we're gonna keep digging deeper, but, Liz, the reason that my expectations have grown over time is my belief of things that can happen. If you ask the George Thomas before he was George b Thomas, could he ever have a family? I would have maybe told you no because, one, I didn't think I could have kids for a lot of years.
George B. Thomas:
2, if you asked George Thomas before George b Thomas, could he ever own a business? I would tell you, no. I'm broke as a joke, brother. Like, how am I gonna start a business? Like, I got government cheese and rice on my plate.
George B. Thomas:
What are you talking about own a business? But as things happen, as you reach goals, your expectations of yourself and your belief of what is achievable and your belief in yourself change. So, yes, my expectations have grown over time. I honestly expect more of myself, but what I want everybody to realize is when I talk about expect more out of myself, it's the baseline of who I choose to be and refuse not to be. Okay?
George B. Thomas:
It is not a set of goals or set of destinations or a financial achievement that I'm that's nothing to do with my expectations, and we'll dive deeper into this. Again, I know I keep setting us up for, like, conversations we're gonna have along
Liz Moorehead:
this way. Expectations.
George B. Thomas:
Yeah. I'm setting expectations. We're getting there, people. We're we're driving in the right direction. When I start to think about the expectations for me and when I start to think about the expectations that the listeners will set for themselves, by all that is holy, please put the word baseline into your brain.
George B. Thomas:
The baseline of who you want to choose to be or will never show up on the planet as. And then the kind of third piece of this is, do I expect differently? And you you alluded to it. The episode of, like, the language we choose to use for ourself. I even think there's another episode where it's about relationships and a relationship with yourself.
George B. Thomas:
I expect differently in the direction of I'm kinder to myself with my expectations. I'm more strategic with what I would call an expectation, a baseline, versus what I would call a goal, which if a goal is an expectation, it's probably unhealthy. Our expectations can always be moving. If your expectations haven't moved since you were, like, 12 years old, time to tap into the game. It's time to tap into the game because what we know to be true and what we have achieved should always be moving that baseline of what our expectations are for ourselves.
George B. Thomas:
I'll pause there.
Liz Moorehead:
You know, George, I would love for you to get a little bit more explicit about what your expectations are that you hold for yourself, but I'd love to hear a contrast, especially about what you just said toward the end there about how you are kinder to yourself. Can you give me an example of an expectation that you used to hold that you either have done away with completely or have altered due to kindness to yourself?
George B. Thomas:
Oh, yeah. So do you ever hear people talk about being perfectionists? By the way, that's an expectation that you've set on yourself, or it's an expectation that you've allowed others to manipulate your brain that can be a true fact, and you've embraced it as your own expectation. I will dot every I, cross every t, and it will always. Man, there is no such thing as perfection.
George B. Thomas:
Therefore, I know that it is not something that I can achieve. Therefore, why am I gonna set that as an expectation in my life? So what do I set as an expectation if I can't be perfect? I can at least achieve to go in the direction of perfection even in the understanding that I may never reach it. Liz, this goes back to why do I have the mantra of 1% better each and every day?
George B. Thomas:
Because I'm on a journey to reach what could be perfection. Again, I know I'll never reach it. It doesn't exist, but I used to have a very unhealthy well, I can't do that because I know my grammar and spelling sucks. It won't be perfect, so let's not do it at all. What?
George B. Thomas:
You know the amount of content I've created that has helped humans that has jack shit to do with grammar and spelling? But it took me forever to get there because of this unhealthy, unkind expectation of myself to be perfect. I'm not gonna be a perfect parent. I'm not gonna be a perfect boss. I'm not gonna be a perfect human.
George B. Thomas:
Guess what that equals? That equals freaking freedom. The understanding that that shouldn't be an expectation because it's unachievable for anybody. Freeze me. You know what?
George B. Thomas:
Freedom equals happiness and joy. This is why I'm saying at the beginning, expectations is tied to this connective tissue of happiness, living a happier life.
Liz Moorehead:
What are some of the other expectations you hold for yourself now currently?
George B. Thomas:
This is fun. I saw this question, and it, at first, made me nervous. But the rate in which I jotted them down actually excited the crap out of me because they just flowed. And then I noticed something about what flowed, and I was like, oh, we need to make sure that we dive into this during the episode of this key piece. So I really have and and I probably have more, Liz.
George B. Thomas:
But I have seven expectations of myself of how I wanna show up, who I choose to be in the world. And by the way, each one of these, you might be able to tie to a historical podcast episode or a future one that will do if you just kind of have been listening and paying attention to the journey. So number 1, I set an expectation of myself to be a blessing bomber. Meaning, as I move forward in life after the Indian reservation and when are you gonna realize you're the blessing, I set this expectation of wherever I go, be a blessing bomber. Always be watching, always be listening for those moments that you can do what you were put on this planet to do.
George B. Thomas:
Be a blessing. 2nd expectation that I'm always focused on is give them your best. Give them your best. And what I mean by that is I could be having the worst day ever, ever. I could have been fighting with my wife.
George B. Thomas:
There could be $5 in my bank account. I could have just stubbed my toe on the counter in the kitchen trying to get a coffee and spilled it, but they would never know. I would step on stage, step in front of a camera, get on a Zoom meeting, whatever it looks like for you, they would never know because as soon as I sit down, as soon as I step on stage, as soon as I hit the, meeting button, give them your best. None of that matters. Give them your best.
George B. Thomas:
I expect that of myself. 3rd expectation, and this is hard, by the way, because people will challenge you on this one. If you pick this one up for yourself and move forward, just know that humans will make this one sometimes difficult. But I set an expectation, and I I run a narrative in my brain of lead with love. Lead with love.
George B. Thomas:
And what that looks like for me is leave them better than you found them. Again, if I tie into to always watching, always listening of being a blessing bomber, you're always watching, you're always listening, and you're trying to figure out what does that human need to get them from where they're at to a better place and how do I do that out of love? How does my personal life strategy out of love? How is my business strategy out of love? How do I create content out of leading with love?
George B. Thomas:
Like, these are questions you can start to ask yourself. Another expectation that I set because, again, I look at historical George, and I'm like, oh, that dude, he he kinda maybe thought people were out to get him. He maybe thought life was out to get him. It was pretty pessimistic, and so I had to transform into having this expectation of positive intent. Things are gonna happen, but what's the positive intent that I can actually connect to it?
George B. Thomas:
And for me, this is the root of what I have used for years in my professional videos of be a happy, helpful, humble human. Ladies and gentlemen, embrace positive intent and be happy, be helpful, be human. And so that's like a baseline principle or expectation for myself. A couple more, be a light into the world. Listen.
George B. Thomas:
I have a and I think I've talked about this on another episode too where there's a a men's group that I'm part of, and we have to have this thing they call the inner badass and mine is sergeant shine because I believe that in a very structured military's fashion, you know, organized like, I'm to be a light into the world. Now, obviously, that's very scripture based, which means that's this expectation is also tied to this spiritual expectation that I have in my life. Actually, these 2 that I'm gonna mention are very much tied into the spiritual life that I have. Be a light into the world, and the next one is seeds over 2 by fours every day. Now let me explain that one because it's a little bit cryptic seeds over 2 by fours.
George B. Thomas:
What
Liz Moorehead:
is That's a little bit mysterious.
George B. Thomas:
What is this guy talking about? So one of the things that drove me nuts, younger George, drove me nuts is that I always felt when I stepped into a church that it was their mission to pull out the 2 by 4 and beat the crap out of me. Like, beat me into submission with their 2 by 4 of theology. And I'm like, man, this just is not the way that I wanna roll. And so what I had started to do is figure out how can I have the Johnny Appleseed mentality?
George B. Thomas:
How can I just go around the planet and kinda throw the seed out there and where it will grow, it will grow and have the belief and trust that I am saying and doing the things, the seeds versus hitting people across the forehead with the theological 2 by 4? Right? So be a light into the world and simply sow seeds and see how much good you can do on the planet, which ties to this one, not so much from a spiritual level, but it actually comes from a verse that I once heard and have read many times. I expect myself to do good work. Whatever I do, I'm gonna try to do it at my best.
George B. Thomas:
Now my best might suck. It's okay, but I'm gonna try to do it at my best. Do everything unto him. Right? So Colossians 3 2324 says, whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the lord, not for human masters since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the lord as a reward.
George B. Thomas:
It is the Lord Christ you are serving. And so if I get into a job where I'm like, man, I hate doing this thing. Do everything unto him. Oh, man. I don't wanna do another hour.
George B. Thomas:
Do everything onto him. Right? So these are expectations. Be a blessing bomber. Give them your best.
George B. Thomas:
Lead with love. Positive intent. Be a light. Seeds over 2 by fours. Do good work.
George B. Thomas:
And what I want everybody to notice is none of these are destinations. None of these are I'm going to choose, achieve this, be this. It's literally just a set of baseline program narratives that run into the brain that tell me this is who I will be. This is how I will show up. It is nothing to do with what those expectations will allow me to achieve as the goals of my life.
George B. Thomas:
2 totally different things.
Liz Moorehead:
I'll be honest. I'm having a lot of emotions listening to this.
George B. Thomas:
Well, I'm back, though. That's what we're here for.
Liz Moorehead:
I think I knew going into this conversation that we were gonna be touching on some sensitive areas for me personally. Because we're about to talk about that difference between healthy and unhealthy expectations as well as the and you already alluded to this, as well as the impact that other people can have on your expectations and your self perspective, which then has direct correlation to what kind of confidence and self trust you have, as well as your capacity for growth. I'll be perfectly honest. I was sitting here going, I'm not sure I could sit down and write a a similar list. Not that I think anybody's list has to look like yours.
Liz Moorehead:
And I think you and I would both agree. Like, our goal here in you sharing that list is not to have people say this is the metric of success for what your expectation should look like. No. It made me realize how I can't even believe I'm gonna say this out loud. How my expectation for a very long time in my life, and in some ways it's one I'm battling against is, well, if other people are happy then I'm doing a good job.
Liz Moorehead:
And on the surface that doesn't necessarily sound like a negative to some folks. Right? Particularly if you're working in a collaborative environment or you care about your friends and you care about your family. You want other people to be happy. But I was having a conversation with someone yesterday as I was driving back from Maryland.
Liz Moorehead:
You and I were talking about this earlier. The house has sold, and that chapter of my life has that was kind of the last big piece of it. But I was talking with somebody on the way back. We were just reminiscing about childhood and I was talking about how my parents had very different expectations of what success would look like for me. And success had a very kind of binary construct of this is what success looks like.
Liz Moorehead:
Then there was the other piece of it in terms of my mother who I've spoken about on this show, and she was an absolutely beautiful and brilliant woman who suffered from her own demons. And as a result, the expectations of what it meant to be a successful daughter was a target that moved minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, and there was often a lot of contradictions involved in that. And so as I was sitting here listening to you talk about your expectations and how they're so healthily self focused, it really kind of shines a spotlight on the fact of I think people toss around the term people pleaser without really digging into what that really means and how cemented in your psyche that can get. Because if you are living in a constant state like, let's say you work in a client facing environment like we do, and you have this programmed mentality that your ability to self actualize, your ability to say, I am doing well, I am doing right, This is what success looks like is entirely held within the brains of other people. You're gonna have a problem.
Liz Moorehead:
Because let's say you have to pick up a project and complete this, and it's a client project. If you go into that with the mindset of, well, how am I gonna make them happy? Then you're not solving the problem in front of you. You are not doing the work that you need to be doing. And so sitting here listening to you talk about those expectations, George, like, it's just, I'm glad we're having this conversation, but it's giving me the ick as the people on TikTok like to say.
Liz Moorehead:
Like, it's giving me the just like, oh my god.
George B. Thomas:
Well, then let me dig a little deeper. If there's an open wound, I'm gonna be the guy that on this podcast, I just kinda stick my thumb in there for one hop. Thanks, fucking.
Liz Moorehead:
Really appreciate that.
George B. Thomas:
Yeah. Because Is this
Liz Moorehead:
what blessing humming looks like?
George B. Thomas:
This I'm about to be a blessing bummer. It's not gonna feel good at first, but it will in the long run. Look. Here's where I go into. You have to take care of yourself before you can take others.
George B. Thomas:
You have to love yourself before you can love others. You have to trust yourself before others will trust you. You You have to believe in yourself before they'll believe in you. And if you don't have these expectations to set you up to like, know, trust, and believe in yourself, If you're exactly what you talked about, Liz, how are you gonna get a positive action out of that? I would much rather know that I have built the constructs for me to show up in a way that enables others to say great work.
George B. Thomas:
Man, you're inspirational. Holy crap. Thanks for doing that in my life because those rewards, those words far off are more healthy, are going to lead us, faster into a life of beyond our defaults than the opposite of that. If you get nothing else out of this podcast episode, start setting expectations that create you to be a happier, healthier human so that you can show up better. And all of a sudden, trust me on this, the universe is gonna notice, and some real cool shit is gonna start happening in your life.
Liz Moorehead:
You know, I think I'm gonna be honest. I love the way that sounds, George, but that feels to me at least a little bit easier said than done. And that leads me into my next question. Because, again, if you're coming at expectation setting, whether it's with a more healthy mentality about it or maybe you're listening to this and resonating more with what I'm saying, You don't necessarily understand the difference between a healthy expectation and an unhealthy expectation because of the way you've been trained to think about expectations. Like, I love that idea of you have to be able to love yourself before you can love anybody else.
Liz Moorehead:
But sometimes loving yourself is hard. And I think you know that. Like, to be fair, I am not glossing over the fact that you have gone through a tremendous amount of self forced transformation on this journey of beyond your default, on this journey of developing that self love. One of my favorite phrases from the book Atomic Habits is motion before emotion. Like, you just have to do the thing and not wait to feel the thing.
Liz Moorehead:
Because if you do the thing, then you will feel the thing. But let's get into this. Healthy versus unhealthy expectations. Because I can imagine somebody's listening to this right now like, yes, I wanna do this, but they go a little too hard. They they they set expectations that aren't fair to themselves.
Liz Moorehead:
So what does that look like?
George B. Thomas:
Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Liz, but we're all set up for failure from the get go.
Liz Moorehead:
That's fantastic. So thanks, guys. Ladies and gentlemen, thanks for listening. This has been a great one.
George B. Thomas:
No. It's just here's the thing. We've been taught that it's all about the expectations of others. If you get an attaboy or an attagirl, then you'll be happy. Right?
George B. Thomas:
If your parents, oh, good job, Johnny. If your teacher, you got this. Like, there's so many times in your life that you can if you sit down I love, by the way, telling people to sit down at the base of a tree and be quiet for a little bit. I've said that on multiple episodes. If you sit at the base of a tree and think about all the times that you are happy and tie it back to the fact that it was somebody saying something to you that was an attaboy or attagirl version.
George B. Thomas:
And then write down the times that you've given yourself an attaboy or attagirl for meeting a set expectation. And just look at the list. Look at that. We've been set up for failure. So here's here's the thing.
George B. Thomas:
I wanna dig a little bit deeper into this. The first massive problem is we spend way too many times looking at others. On a personal level, this is the keeping up oh. Oh, god. Listen.
George B. Thomas:
Entire social media platforms have been built on the thing of looking at others and loving their perfect designed dream life because that's all they show you on Insta, or that's all they talk about on TikTok or whatever it is. Personally, it's keeping up with the Joneses. Professionally, it's going and looking at competitor websites and ripping stuff off of their websites and just putting it on your website. Like, dying in a life of sameness because we have this disease that we like to do, which is comparisons. Then as soon as we start to compare to others and set expectations on our belief of what we see their life to be, see their life to be.
George B. Thomas:
You have no idea what happens in closed doors. You have no idea what happens at 2 AM when they're not sleeping, but setting expectations on what you see to be truth. Now we have unexpectations and, by the way, fake goals because our goals and our expectations are aligned together. You need to understand that you are only designed and should only be competing with yourself. Matthew McConaughey has a great talk or quote where he talks about this, where somebody asked him, who is he trying to be?
George B. Thomas:
In his life, who does he wanna be? And the best answer that he could give was, I wanna be me in 10 years. I'm chasing me in 10 years. He's not trying to be, you know, another actor doing another actor's things. He's I wanna be me in 10 years.
George B. Thomas:
And by the way, it goes on. You gotta search it. It goes on. 10 years, the person comes back. Did you achieve it?
George B. Thomas:
Who you wanna be? No, man. I wanna be me in 10 years. That line's always moving like we talked about. I wanna be me in 10 years.
George B. Thomas:
10 years from now, I wanna be me in 10 years. The race, the chase is with yourself. The setting of the expectations isn't based on what we think we see. It's based on what we know of ourselves. And, again, not to sound like a broken record, but who we choose to be and refuse not to show up as.
George B. Thomas:
I started to try to, like, bullet point some stuff out in these episodes when we get into these kind of harder conversations just so people can grab a piece, and and I hope it's the thread that they pull on their own lives and start to go down their own mental journey around these things. So, Liz, I wanna bring up 4 things. The first one is recapulating what I just said is self expectations versus the expectations of others. This is one way comparison and other people's expectations that we get in trouble. The other thing too is because remember I used the word baseline.
George B. Thomas:
This idea of achievable versus unachievable. Unmet expectations equals a life of unhappiness. So, therefore, if it's a baseline, they should be achievable expectations, not lofty goals. I'm calling us right back to the beginning of this podcast, by the way, when you used the word lofty. Baseline expectations, not lofty goals, meaning achievable.
George B. Thomas:
So, therefore, they're met expectations leading to happiness and joy in your life. Expecting something or something was expected, and these are the ways that we look at this. Right? Two verticals, and these are barometers for how we judge ourselves off of these two things. And so, by the way, I'm gonna drop a bomb that people are gonna believe is not true, and I'm gonna tell you where it came from and why I embraced it.
George B. Thomas:
But 80% of this podcast episode has about internal expectations that I've been talking about. I expect something, and I'm gonna make sure that I can meet these expectations for myself. Something was expected. I expect of others. Now I've got 2 verticals here that I'm looking at.
George B. Thomas:
So when I think of expectations in others, 0 expectations. Do I have hopes for them? Do I wish they would do things? Absolutely. But those are different words than expecting.
George B. Thomas:
I have zero expectations for the humans around me. Do I want for them? Absolutely. But as soon as I have expectations of others, I'm doing what I know I don't want people to do to me. I hold zero expectations.
George B. Thomas:
By the way, the person that I actually heard say this for the first time that I can remember was Gary v. And I immediately was like, actually, brother, out of all the things that you say, that's the one thing that I'm gonna pick up, plug into my life because I realize the amount of things that I expected from people in my past and how toxically hateful it made me. Well, I expected you to stay together. Well, I expected you to treat me right. Well, I expected you to show up in a certain way, and I'll tell you, I've been honest about my anger.
George B. Thomas:
A lot of my anger was fueled by unmet expectations that I shouldn't ever had on other humans. Now wants versus needs. Listen. When you set expectations, if you lean more into the needs of life instead of the wants of life, you will be in a better place. Make sure your expectations are expectations and not goals.
George B. Thomas:
I've been knocking on this the entire time, by the way. If you want an unhealthy expectation, make it a goal. And here's what I mean. We have to go down this road. A goal, when we think of a goal, is action oriented, measurable, time bound, and under personal control.
George B. Thomas:
Now we're gonna put a section, Liz. I wanna make sure we put a section that I have in the show notes of goals versus expectations. So goals, action oriented, measurable, time bound, under personal control, expectations, belief based, not always under direct control, can be implicit or explicit. We've already talked about that. Make sure that it's anyway.
George B. Thomas:
And it's an emotional component. It's an emotional switch. When not used right, can actually short circuit the brain.
Liz Moorehead:
I wanna dig a little bit more deeply into a very specific part of this healthy expectations versus unhealthy expectations component. Going back to something we were talking about earlier in this conversation, how do you strike a balance between a healthy influence and input of others? Because let's face it, you know, you and I have conversations and you and I are very growth oriented and we learn from each other and we talk to each other and I would say we influence each other positively. Like if we were to be very binary about, you know, don't listen to anybody, don't pay attention to anybody when you set your expectations, then you wouldn't be listening to this podcast. You would be like, no, George.
Liz Moorehead:
I have to do this for me and just for me. But how do you strike that balance between a healthy influence and a healthy input from others and making the right choices for ourselves versus that more negative toxic way in which others can ultimately influence our expectations. Because I'll be perfectly honest, if I were to use expectations of my parents, it wouldn't matter how successful you and I are George right now, I would be considered a failure. And you and I have talked about this in our private scheduled human to human time. But when I think about how we allow others to influence us when we're setting expectations for ourselves, I think this is why I'm on this sticking point.
Liz Moorehead:
Because I have once admitted to you that I often didn't expect very much of myself, and that leached into my behavior because I fundamentally believed there was no way for me to ever out run the moniker of, well, Liz is just wasted potential. Liz, the perpetual disappointment. So I'm asking this selfishly. I'm going to assume there may be other people out there who resonate with that, but from a selfish perspective, where is that line?
George B. Thomas:
I wanna address something first because you said I don't ever think I would be able to outrun it. I've tried to outrun a lot of things in my life. And, again, if there's anything that somebody would pick from a micro portion of this podcast and take with, I would pray that more people would turn and punch the thing in its face than try to run from it. I ran from being a high school dropout for 25 years, and it wasn't until I turned around and punched it in its face and used it for good instead of letting it create evil in my life that things really actually started to change. But, Liz, to get on to your question, it's funny because I don't have a lot of thoughts here, but I have some thoughts around this.
George B. Thomas:
And I think I don't have a lot of thoughts here because as you can see, I have built a life where it's a lot of internal expectations of myself in different areas of how I show up. To sit here and say that I never listened to anybody or that I don't have expectations that I try to meet because of other humans, Well, it'd just be a lie. So we'll get into that. But I wanna start with a quote because first of all, Oprah and Bruce Lee. Actually, I just like quotes, but Bruce Lee is the man.
George B. Thomas:
I love the one about, you know, form of the water, not of the glass. Not why we're here today, but Bruce Lee said, I'm not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you're not in this world to live up to mine. That's a Bruce Lee quote. Now it's a good quote because that means the human is looking both directions. If you get a quote like that, you're looking in both directions.
George B. Thomas:
So here's the thing. When I think about striking a balance between the influence and input of others, I don't let them set the expectation. That's mine to set, but I am curious about the conversations can ensue from the people who care about me in life. Now what I mean by that is, historically, have I listened to my moms and my dads, and have I taken in conversations, put it through the expectation, you know, 2,000 machine, and something came out the other end? Yes.
George B. Thomas:
But did they have expectations of me to become a thing and me go, I'm gonna become that thing. No. When I think about employees and their expectations around things like, oh, I don't know, raises or bonuses or culture, do I immediately run off knee jerk response and start to give raises, give bonuses, and drastically change the culture of an organization? No. But I listened to the conversations of the people who care about me and the thing that we're trying to conversate about.
George B. Thomas:
I put it in the expectations 2,000, let it work its thing, and out the other end comes the expectations that I'm willing to set based on those caring conversations. So that's the thing, and I've said it in a couple different ways. What I want people to realize is striking the balance is watching out for the knee jerk. I'm gonna go do that thing. That's the way it has to be.
George B. Thomas:
Let's move on that right now versus setting in your brain your own system that is the expectations 2,000 and bringing in the conversations, bringing in the data, giving it time to churn and burn, and then you having the power to set the thing that comes out of that. Because like Bruce says, I'm not put on this world to live up to your expectations, and you're not put on this world to live up to mine. But George B. Thomas says, while we're here living together, we need to make it work for both of us.
Liz Moorehead:
What's an exercise someone can do to develop the right set of expectations for themselves? The kind that challenge them to reach without setting them up to fail.
George B. Thomas:
This was the question where I'm like, ugh, geez. Here's where I wanna be very careful.
Liz Moorehead:
Step 1, buy an expectations 2,000 machine.
George B. Thomas:
Yes. Buy an expectations 2,000.
Liz Moorehead:
At your local Costco. Yeah.
George B. Thomas:
Or wherever they're sold. This is where I wanna be very careful, and I've even said, like, perfection is not a thing, and we've said on historical podcast, we're going through this ourselves. Many times, we're probably doing episodes because we need the episode as much as the listeners need the episode.
Liz Moorehead:
This may or may not be therapy. You're welcome, ladies and gentlemen.
George B. Thomas:
Exactly. For ourselves and for you. So I I jotted down some thoughts. I'm gonna unpack them here, but just know that for me, this is very much a pocket in my brain that is still being cultivated, curated, and created as I move forward the older that I get. The first one that I have just realized is that mindfulness and meditation and journaling for self discovery is actually a really important piece of what you can and should do because of the output that happens.
George B. Thomas:
And we've done a podcast episode on this of, like, getting to know yourself. Because when you truly know yourself, you can start to do things like we've talked about in this episode and many episodes before where you get into the real deal holy fields of, like, your life and the way that you wanna be and all of that. So if you're not doing some type of mindful meditation and you're not doing some type of, like, daily or weekly journaling for self discovery, this is what happened and this is how I felt, Then this is how I showed up and being able to look back on that and make executive decisions based on the data that you see happening in your life versus like, oh, it's another day. I don't remember any of that. Let's just move forward and make the same mistakes.
George B. Thomas:
That's huge. So you have to reflect on past experiences. It can't just be another day. Why did I get mad at my wife? Why did I yell at my, daughter?
George B. Thomas:
Why did I choose to go in that direction? Oh, that's right. 2 years ago, somebody said x y z, and then this happened. And now I have this knee jerk response, and that's not even really what happened. That's just the way I perceived it at that time.
George B. Thomas:
I learned that lesson, but then I never plugged the learned lesson into that actual thing, and now I'm making dumb mistakes. We've gotta align expectations with our values and our abilities. Probably a whole another podcast, by the way, on values and abilities of you as the human and understanding those and using those to drive yourself forward up that journey of beyond your default. But those expectations, now that you realize they're not goals, how do you align those expectations with the values that you wanna live and show up in life and the abilities that you have to impact yourself and others along the way. You have to make sure that you're always putting them.
George B. Thomas:
You know how you have a filter system and your water takes out all the, like, big chunks, lets you leave, like, you know, drinkable water? This would be a filter for me. It's just, like, always having the filter of realistic and flexible versus, like, hard and fast and, like, unattainable. Right? So, like, being realistic and flexible in this idea of what are your expectations.
George B. Thomas:
Just because you said them, doesn't mean they're not changing. As we said earlier, the line is always moving. Focus on effort, not just outcomes. I should have saved that one for hang on. So I'll get back to that one.
George B. Thomas:
We had an episode where we talked about loving yourself and then, like, listen. Practice, daily practice, maybe hourly. Some of us maybe need every minute. Practice self compassion. Have compassion for yourself.
George B. Thomas:
And I have to just put a exclamation mark on this always and forever be managing those external expectations like we talked about. But I wanna go back to focus on effort, not just outcomes because there's another piece where I gotta drive this home. I just feel like this is a massive piece of what this episode is supposed to be about, and I'm gonna go back to drivers of anxiety for many of us as humans, and this focus on effort, not just outcomes, is this goal expectation conundrum that many of us live in, this ununderstanding. I'm gonna put it as plain as I can. A goal is a dream, a possible destination.
George B. Thomas:
Goals are there to stretch us. Aspiration and drive. The goal is the top. Goals can be lofty, and I wrote this in my show notes before you use the word at the beginning of this episode. It's hilarious how things align.
George B. Thomas:
An expectation is something I must do. It's got to happen. And if not, humans, myself or others, are going to be frustrated. Expectations are the bottom baseline that I need to meet. Expectations need to be realistic and in line with what we do and who we will be.
George B. Thomas:
And so in that understanding of holy crap, are my expectations actually my goals? Is that why I'm so dang anxious? Is that why I'm so unhappy? It's because literally, I'm focused on the effort more than I am the actual outcome of the thing. If you had a goal, I'm gonna educate myself for 8 hours a day, and all of a sudden you did 6 hours and 59 minutes.
George B. Thomas:
You'd be happy because at least you're headed in the right direction. But if it's an expectation, I expect to educate myself for 8 hours a day, and you did 7 hours and 59 minutes. You're frustrated and mad at yourself because you did not achieve your expectation, Where you could be happy because you're getting close to attaining your goal. Like, this is where the the thing that I want people to unpack in their brain.
Liz Moorehead:
I wanna end today's conversation. I think a really important question that, quite frankly, is gonna open up undoubtedly into another conversation we're gonna have in the future. Because we've had a lot of dialogue today about healthy expectations versus unhealthy expectations, and that the whole idea here is that you can cultivate your confidence. You can actually achieve meaningful growth. You can learn to trust yourself through healthy expectation setting.
Liz Moorehead:
But one of the things that you and I have talked about throughout today's episode is that we are humans. We are fallible. We are imperfect creatures. That is if both a feature and a bug of humanity and the human experience. So what do you do when you fall short of expectations, George?
Liz Moorehead:
How do you get back up again?
George B. Thomas:
Yeah. I love this question. First of all, you just get back up. Just just get back up, but we gotta go deeper into that. Let's be honest.
George B. Thomas:
If we have truly listened to this podcast and we are taking pieces from it, we realize that if we actually have healthy expectations, many times they're met. Most times, they're met. Almost 99% of the time, we would want to meet them. They're not the lofty goals. They're the baseline that should just be like, yep.
George B. Thomas:
Done. But you said it. We're human. We're we make mistakes.
Liz Moorehead:
Sometimes we're not gonna always sometimes we're not always going to assume that positive intent. We will react instead of respond.
George B. Thomas:
Exactly. So if we don't, right, then what do you do? And, again, I'm not saying outwardly, although some of these might work for the outward although some of these might work for the outward action of missing that expectation, but I'm gonna go inward for a second. Listen. If you jack up one of your expectations, lead with love, love yourself, forgive yourself, realize you're only human, realize nobody's perfect, and then take action to either ask the other people for forgiveness if need be, but at least forgive yourself and move forward.
George B. Thomas:
Have a move forward mentality. And what I'm kind of saying here when I say lead with love is, like and I said it earlier, daily, weekly, monthly, by the minute if you have to practice self compassion, like self understanding of that you are trying to be the best human you can be on the planet, and sometimes we didn't get enough sleep. Maybe we're a little hangry. Maybe the other person is just a real big a hole, and we weren't ready for it. Whatever.
George B. Thomas:
You get in that moment. You have to get back up. You gotta roll with who you're supposed to be and who you wanna, so you gotta practice a little bit of self compassion for yourself. And the other one that has been huge for me, and we, you know, failure, this idea of failure. Oh, I didn't meet my expectations.
George B. Thomas:
Oh my god. I'm a failure. I should just give it all up. Forget it. None of these expectations are gonna work in my no.
George B. Thomas:
No. No. No. No. No.
George B. Thomas:
No. It's not failure. It's just a lesson. Oh, oh my goodness. I wanted to have positive intent.
George B. Thomas:
Bobby showed up. Bobby was a bigger butthead than I was ready for. But what lesson can I learn for when the next Bobby shows up in my life? How can I make sure that I don't get Bobby again? Because it's loving ourself, having compassion for ourself, and learning those lessons.
George B. Thomas:
So next time when Bobby shows up, we know to bob and weave. No pun intended there, by the way. We don't get hit by the uppercut of butthead Bobby. Right? Because we learned the lesson.
George B. Thomas:
We just didn't sit there and allow ourselves to be a punching bag of life for other people. So let's go into one last quote as we kinda close this bad boy out. Ralph Marston. And ladies and gentlemen, just quiet yourself. Listen to the words here.
George B. Thomas:
Think about everything that we've talked about today and ask yourself a simple question. We'll get to that question in a minute. Don't lower your expectations to meet your performance. Raise your level of performance to meet your expectations. Expect the best of yourself, and then do what is necessary to make it a reality.
George B. Thomas:
And, Liz, you said something earlier on the podcast, and I believe many of the listeners probably entertain or think about. I know I did. The same thing, still do. And that is what does success look like? What do other people tell me success looks like?
George B. Thomas:
Does that matter? What do I think success looks like? What are my expectations to my own success of my own life. And so my question to you and all the listeners is when you think about the word success, when you think about living a life beyond your default, what are your expectations?
