stealth expectations: or an easy way to ruin a perfectly good day
most friday afternoons, or sometimes saturday mornings, i make a list of all the things i want to do over the weekend. it's a menu of sorts - i can easily get overwhelmed with decisions so having a range of options to pick from encourages me to remember some of the 1908123908 hobbies i have, and lessens some of the pressure of the minute by minute decision making of what to do. in the early blushes of this routine, i loved it - worked a peach every time. and then, something else started to happen.
as soon as it became clear i wasn't going to do everything, i'd be annoyed with myself for "not maximizing" the weekend. and if something unexpected came up - i'd start to worry about how i would fit everything in (even if there was oodles of time). and if my husband had plans of his own that impacted mine, well, that could be the spark that lit a whole powderkeg of yuck. all together, it wasn't even a pattern that registered as a problem, just an intensifying sense that my weekends were less fulfilling than they had been.
it wasn't until i was reading ATLAS OF THE HEART by brené brown and came across a section on "stealth expectations" that things started to click. as she writes:
"every day, sometimes every hour, we are consciously and unconsciously setting expectations of ourselves and the people in our lives - especially those closest to us. the unconscious, unexamined, and unexpressed expectations are the most dangerous and often turn into disappointment...when we develop expectations, we paint a picture in our head of how things are going to be and how they're going to look....we set expectations based on not only on how we fit in that picture, but also on what those around us are doing in that picture. this means that our expectations are often set on outcomes totally beyond our control, like what other people think, what they feel, or how they're going to react....and when that picture or movie fails to play out in real life, we feel disappointed. and sometimes that disappointment is severe and brings shame and hurt and anger with it." (44)
and goodness me, that was a big part of what was going on. by making a list (EVEN THOUGH I CALLED IT A MENU) i set some stealthy expectations for myself about what i should be able to accomplish. i'd move through the weekend and each activity would be enjoyable - whether i planned it or not - but because it wasn't living up to a sort of fuzzy idea that i had for myself that i would do all the things, i would put a little disappointment into that soup and leave feeling less satisfied without having a real reason why. and once i examined that behavior in myself, i started to see how it has always been a part of my relationships, with others, and especially with myself.
how many of us have had a "fine" day but because we didn't cross every item off the to do list, we leave the desk for the day a little deflated? how often have we planned for a big work session, only to have something else come up or have something put on our plate, and even though there's still time to adjust, we're mad about it?
or maybe you had some expectations about how an advisor would work with your writing, or how a course would go, or how a conference paper would be received. maybe you had a vague idea of how long it would take you to write the next section of your chapter, and because you finished it friday instead of wednesday, you feel behind and rushed even though you still have plenty of time.
we all have expectations about how things will go, how they'll feel, or how other people will react to us. that's part of how we, as humans, move through a world that is at times routine but often unpredictable - we have to anticipate to some degree. and often, once we express those expectations, we can manage them. once i realized that i was treating my options for the weekend like obligations, some of the pressure released and it was easier to reset my expectations for something more reasonable. many of us have a perfectionist streak in us - we maybe are noticing and supporting the places where it's showing up clearly, but brains are sneaky, and so are expectations.
so, what do we do in the face of this cloud of sneaky expectations we can float in? a few tools that might help:
check in with how you're feeling. moods are mysterious and emotions can be tricky to nail down, but it can be a good place to start. once i name what i'm feeling (i try for as little judgment as possible, but don't always get there), it often is easier for me to trace where that is coming from. if i'm ending most weekends - no matter how they go - feeling unsatisfied, then that's solid data to start with.
if you have a sharp sense of disappointment about how something went - and you're in a space where your nervous system is up to it - it can help to use these questions to get some clarity:
how did i think this was going to go?
what made me think that?
how did i think i was going to feel?
what was i imagining in terms of the other people involved?
it can be (relatively) more straightforward to handle your own expectations of yourself - it gets more complicated when other people are involved. i often work with clients who have expectations of how grad school would feel, or how things would go with their advisor, and here are some of the tools that are most helpful in that realm:
write out your expectations - even if you don't verbalize them right away. if you send a draft to your advisor, it might help to write down what you expect to get back - line edits? global comments? notes on argument? help with grammar? if/when you don't get those things, you can then either be more specific in your requests, or find someone or someplace else to help get you the support you need.
figure out where your expectations are coming from. are you seeing other people tweet about amazing conversations in their conference presentations, and then feel let down when yours are more stilted? do other people get loads of help on their job documents, and all your advisor does is send out letters of recommendation? and then you can check those expectations against more sources of data, or data sources that are closer to your situation - there is so much that's individual about our situations that it can be really helpful to check in with where we're getting our expectations, and whether or not they apply to us.
this is the work of a lifetime - like perfectionism, stealth expectations sneak in and take root before you notice them (that's why they're stealth!). but, noticing the invisible expectations we have for how things will go and bringing them to the surface can really help us stay out of the disappointment and shame that we don't necessarily even mean to welcome in.
doing it badly
It is often quoted that Gilbert K Chesterton wrote "Anything worth doing is worth doing badly" and while that is a wild misquote and completely out of context, there's some truth there I think.
There are many, many hard skills to learn in the course of graduate work, but one of them is to tolerate the discomfort of creating something (a draft, an email, a course session, a syllabus, whatever) and knowing that it isn't the ideal version of that thing. I can see what it could be......but not how to get there in that exact moment. I feel it in my body - it makes me anxious, it makes me doubt all kinds of things like whether I'm smart enough or whether this is done. It doesn't even really matter if I tell myself that I DO know things and that I am capable of learning and growth - I still HATE the feeling of doing something imperfectly - even if it's just a draft, or for me.
So, if just saying to yourself "anything worth doing is worth doing badly" works to help you get out of your head and into your work - awesome!!!!! yes!!!! Feel free to stop reading and use the extra four minutes to listen to a good song or doodle or something!!
But if that wasn't enough, here are a few ways that I put that idea into practice and tolerate the discomfort! Feel free to mix, match, or add your own in the comments!
Opposite day! - Sometimes, I need a sharp reset out of a perfectionistic swamp, so I do the complete opposite! If I've been ruminating over the same sentence for two days, I try and write as many new sentences as I can in two poms. If I can't decide how to respond to an email, I write six drafts in six different ways! Let's be real, I don't have time for opposite day all the time because it is a lot of labor but if I have a little time, it appeals to the inner eight year old in me that enjoys doing things on opposite day.
Track "failure", not completion - This is popularized in the 100 rejection challenge, but the idea is simple - swap what you're tracking for a better sense of how your work is actually going. If you are aiming for x number of acceptances in a year, it's really easy for your brain to be like, "okay, divide that by 12, that's the number I need to hit a month, it's currently the 25th day of this month and I haven't gotten any therefore I'm going to need to do double next month and that's a lot of work wow better get on Twitter!" (or at least that's how it goes for me!) By tracking the effort rather than the outcome, you can get a better sense of how much you're showing up. So maybe you track the number of books you skim and don't include, or the number of words you freewrite and don't use, or the amount of writing you cut from a draft. If you have books you've skimmed, you've freewrote, or you've cut things from the draft, that means you had material there to work from, and that means you're showing up, and that often means that things are progressing, even if it isn't a straight line.
Find the sneaky gremlins and ask them some questions - I work with clients all the time who are perfectionists, and I myself am one, and one thing that's really hard is that rarely is my brain saying "well, I can't be perfect so better go hang out on Twitter!" My gremlins are A LOT sneakier than that! They hang out in plain sight, or they say things that SOUND helpful but actually keep me stuck in the swamp, like:
Because I'm so behind on this draft, I don't have time to do anything but a really clean first try.
I don't have time for this to be in rough shape because it's due in x days.
I don't have time for a messy freewriting process because I have 1223898231 things to do.
I don't have enough useful material to send this out and get feedback on it.
What's the most efficient way to do this? I have to be efficient!
Almost all of these gremlins sound logical and clear! But the result is that they often keep me locked up in the stages before I actually try something - the research, the planning, the task creation, etc - because my brain feels that if I just nail the thinking, the doing will be effortless, flowing, and efficient. But, I also have SO MUCH DATA that I think really effectively WHILE I'm doing things - and that often that learning and growing happens way more effectively when I'm trying at things rather than thinking about how to try at things.
So when my gremlin says "we don't have time for a bunch of messy drafts of this" I ask it: "would we rather have lots of time to polish and play with a messy draft, or more time to perfect the plan and maybe risk having less time to polish it?" And sometimes, let's be honest, it does say PLAN MORE - but more and more often, it sees the logic in the discomfort, and I'm at least a little more willing to try.
Sometimes, the best way to do something is to do it, rather than think about it. When so much is feeling stuck, sticky, and frozen - I like to move where I can. I believe that objects in motion tend to stay in motion (so does Newton.) It's rarely comfortable! I don't leap out of bed in the morning excited to confront the uncomfortable space between something that exists in my head and the first (or fifth) version that I create that isn't anywhere close to the ideal! But, the more I practice, the easier it gets. And the more I practice, the better I get, too. <3
good, better, best: setting some parameters for goals/tasks
Have you ever looked at something - a goal, a task, a project - and thought:
I guess I'll just make something up? All I can see is the perfect option or doing nothing at all?
I have! Because there are a lot of things (like word count goals, levels of doneness, how many vegetables to eat) that vary widely! And when we set 1 (singular) goal for those, it turns into a binary - we made it, or we didn't.
Recently, I've started using the good, better, best framework to set some goals or plans for the day.
For example, I want to move more, and if I write "run" in my schedule, I either do that, or I don't. Mostly I don't! Because lots of things sound better the process of learning how to run longer distances! And that leads me to not do ANYTHING to move my body, and then it just gets harder the next day. So instead, I write down three things:
Good - a walk around the neighborhood with podcasts
Better - a YouTube exercise video
Best - a run
and that way, I have choices - and I can see which I have capacity for, and I don't set up a situation where I either have to do a very hard thing (for me), or not do anything at all.
You could try it with writing goals, like this:
Good: open up document and address a few changes from supervisor
Better: do some changes and write the new paragraph
Best: restructure the other section
That way, when you sit down and your brain NOPES right out of a big, complex text like restructuring, you have other options. Or, if you really want to BE THE BEST!, you can aim for that.
Don't like the good, better, best hierarchy? I totally get that! Ranking causes all kinds of anxiety, so you could also try naming them in these ways!
Choice 1 / 2 / 3
Cool / Warm / Hot
Shallow / Medium / Deep End
Strong / Stronger / Strongest
Toe in / Dunk / Swim
(whatever colors feel useful to you! colors are very personal!)
The goal is to give yourself choices and ways out of the all or nothing paradox - especially when perfect / all / best might not be available! Because something is almost always better than telling yourself that perfect and nothing are the only two choices!
perfectionism: or the danger of being pretty good at most things pretty quickly
Hello, my name is Katy Peplin, and I'm a perfectionist. I've been in "recovery" for about a decade, but this is one of the biggest battles I've faced yet. It's a mental pattern that I (still) easily fall into, and that, when I really dig into it, touches the very core of what I believe about myself.
Here are some of the ways that perfectionism pops up for me:
Extremely high standards for my own work
Tendency to "redo" the work of others to make it fit my standard (assuming that it's the best, of course)
Mismatch between the level of frustration I feel about a task and the actual level of challenge/difficulty I'm facing (for example, feeling mega frustrated when a small thing doesn't work the way I think it should)
Mistrust in my own evaluation of my work - constantly seeking outside opinions and validation, consciously or otherwise
Fear about letting others see my work before it's ready
Missing deadlines because the work isn't ready to be seen
Constantly shifting definition of what "done" is
Hitting one goal and immediately setting another, even higher goal without pausing to feel good about meeting the first one
Abandoning activities if I'm not instantly competent/proficient
Taking activities that were expressly intended to be hobbies and turning them competitive/measurable (focusing on stats for exercise, extremely critical about things I make for fun, from dinner to doodling)
Inability to take compliments gracefully because it feels uncomfortable to get praise for something I'm not satisfied with
Needing to obsessively plan out and make milestones/goals/targets for big projects and being immediately and deeply discouraged if I'm forced to be flexible with those internal deadlines
(and probably a lot more!)
When I list them out like that, it's easy for me to see that perfectionism is more than just "wanting to do well" - it's a coping mechanism that is designed to protect me against the uncertainty and possible pain of not doing well. Brené Brown describes perfectionism like this:
In the research there’s a significant difference between perfectionism and healthy striving or striving for excellence. Perfectionism is the belief that if we do things perfectly and look perfect, we can minimize or avoid the pain of blame, judgment, and shame. Perfectionism is a twenty-ton shield that we lug around, thinking it will protect us, when in fact it’s the thing that’s really preventing us from being seen.
Perfectionism is also very different than self-improvement. Perfectionism is, at its core, about trying to earn approval. Most perfectionists grew up being praised for achievement and performance (grades, manners, rule following, people pleasing, appearance, sports). Somewhere along the way, they adopted this dangerous and debilitating belief system: “I am what I accomplish and how well I accomplish it. Please. Perform. Perfect.” Healthy striving is self- focused: How can I improve? Perfectionism is other-focused: What will they think? Perfectionism is a hustle.
Last, perfectionism is not the key to success. In fact, research shows that perfectionism hampers achievement. Perfectionism is correlated with depression, anxiety, addiction, and life paralysis or missed opportunities. The fear of failing, making mistakes, not meeting people’s expectations, and being criticized keeps us outside of the arena where healthy competition and striving unfolds.
So much of this resonates with me, and with what I see every day with my clients. This is not a well-balanced desire to do well - this is an unconscious (or sometimes conscious) belief that we ARE the work, and therefore the work must be evaluated well by others because that means WE are good in the eyes of others.
As an experiment: imagine that you were working on a big project - a dissertation chapter, a journal article, a book, a website. You work on it for months under the impression that you will eventually share it for feedback with an advisor, editor, supervisor, or boss. Then at the very last minute, that person says "no need for me to look at it,” and asks you to move onto the next task. How would that make you feel?
Would you still celebrate a job well done? Would you be able to look at your work and know how to feel about it without the feedback? Would you feel completion, accomplishment, pride?
This isn’t, of course, to suggest that all feedback is evil and that we should just do what we want without ever asking for anyone to evaluate it. That’s not how this works. But, I find that that exercise helps people see that in the absence of validation from others, many of us don’t have robust mechanisms, or any mechanism at all, to consider, appreciate, and evaluate our own efforts.
If you’re in grad school, or if you’re an academic, or if you have a PhD, it’s more than probable that some things came easily to you. Maybe you were pulled out in elementary school and given books from the next reading level, and it felt good to be special. Maybe you were valedictorian. Maybe good grades got you ice cream at the end of the year. Maybe you could write papers the night before (or morning of) as an undergraduate and they still got glowing comments from your TA. That’s not all we are, obviously, but if we come to associate parts of our identity with academic or intellectual achievement, grad school is a natural next step.
It is also a perfectly designed system to turn that perfectionism and expose all it’s toxicity. For me, something broke down when I made the jump between 15 page papers and 50 page chapters. I simply couldn’t organize my thoughts clearly enough - my writing wandered and I couldn’t fix it. My perfectionism SCREAMED at me all through my dissertation process - don’t let people see this! They’ll think less of you! They’ll take your acceptance away! You’ll never get a job! Everyone else figured out how to do this! Why haven’t you??
But under that noise was the reality: I wasn’t immediately good at writing dissertation chapters, and I hadn’t had much experience with having to work to get better at something in the “school realm.” I wasn’t used to "SEE ME” comments. I was completely unhinged when faced with the idea that I wasn’t good at school, because such a huge part of how I saw myself was “a person who is good at school.”
So I did what I’ve always done: worked as hard as I could to be good so that I wouldn’t have to feel “not good” at something. I went to the writing center, I got involved in writing groups, I worked with editors, I had friends read my work, I turned into the most ruthless self-editor. And unsurprisingly, this did not go well. I became so anxious at the very idea of writing that I would sit down at my desk to do it and feel nauseous.
Looking back, I know that it didn’t feel good to work at writing, even when I was getting better, because I wasn’t interested in the process of being a better writer. I was working that hard to avoid bad feedback, and so my sense of myself hinged on what others thought of me. It would have felt more empowering, I’m sure, to be working hard to be a better communicator, to improve my writing so more people could access my ideas, but instead, I was working hard so other people would think I was good. And even when the feedback came, because I had no inner foundation to see my own value, I was utterly dependent on what other people thought of my work. Negative feedback was crushing. Positive feedback was regarded with suspicion. I never felt good about it.
The first step in the perfectionism recovery journey is being aware of it. I read two books that changed how I think about perfectionism: When Perfect Isn’t Good Enough: Strategies for Coping with Perfectionism, and I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn't): Making the Journey from "What Will People Think?" to "I Am Enough". I got into therapy to deal with my anxiety, only to find out that my perfectionism was kerosene thrown on the fire of my brain chemistry. And then I did the most radical thing of all:
I tried to be bad at things on purpose. I told my students in class when I didn’t know (and promised to look it up and report back.) I opened up and told people when I was struggling with something. I tried to get better about accepting help. I did things just for fun, like knitting, and brush lettering, and gardening. I put things up on my walls that I made, so that I would look at both their mistakes, and my hard work, at the same time. I focused explicitly on my processes for work, rather than the results. I focused less on the time it took me to do things, or any other metrics I was using to measure my work, and focused more on how I felt WHILE working. I made messes. I learned that screwing up wasn’t the end of the world.
And now, a few miles down the road, I can work with clients around their perfectionism. In Thrive PhD, we talk a lot about feeling good about what you’re doing, while you’re doing it. Turning in your dissertation proposal is a MASSIVE deal, even before you get the feedback on it! Showing up to work regularly is a HUGE accomplishment, even if the work wasn’t perfect or you were in your pajamas. We track our days so that we can see that “good days” and “bad days” productivity wise tend to balance out if we show up regularly. We remind each other that trying again is the key to everything. We try to improve for our own sense of pride, because it feels good to try your hardest and do your best, not because we want our advisors to swoop in and shower us with praise. We practice the skill of viewing feedback as suggestions for improving for THE WORK, not suggestions for improving OURSELVES. We cheer when people do things for fun.
It isn’t easy. But it feels better than carrying around that armor all the time. Sometimes you don’t know how heavy you feel until the weight is gone.
Did you make the most of [whatever is ending right now?]
Sometimes we reach the end of something (the year, the Thrive session, the term, the month, the project) and when we expect to feel accomplishment, we instead feel disappointment. It's hard to look back and see all the places where, if things had been different, we could have excelled, we could have made the most of something, we could have gone farther and faster than we did. We focus on all the opportunities we missed, and it does not feel good, especially if others are posting about how wonderful it feels to completed something.
I get it. I feel that way! A lot! When I sit down to do my end of month, end of quarter, and end of year reviews, I first see all the things I didn't finish. All the habits I tried to start, all the goals I didn't accomplish, all the ways I fell short. My perfectionism is well documented (here and here) and there is definitely always an element of setting expectations that aren't realistic. I set impossible goals and then beat myself up when I don't meet them, and when I try and consciously set realistic goals, I'm only moderately successful. Somewhere, deep down, I set these goals because I believe that I need the push, that I'm not at my potential yet, that I can (and should!) be better.
So I've learned to do the impossible: hold two contradictory truths in my head at the same time.
1) I, minute to minute, tried to make the best decisions I could regarding the conditions (physical and mental health, life circumstances, whatever) I was working with. I did my best with what I had.
2) There are some parts of my life that do not promote my best living and working conditions; there are still places where I can do better without sacrificing myself.
Or, put another way. I am proud of what I accomplish, and I can see ways where I can do better.
It is so hard to feel good about what you did do, while also not turning a blind eye to places where you can improve. It's hard to feel good about being partway. It's hard to feel good knowing that, actually, there is no real finish line. Life is always changing, we're always adjusting, but most importantly:
We are always growing.
So, when you approach your next period of evaluation, try and hold both views at once:
What went well? What do you feel proud of? What did you accomplish? Give yourself credit for what you did and what was going on when you did it.
What is your next step? What are one or two things you can work on to improve? What is one area that you would like to focus on growing, supporting, or starting?
That's how you grow without guilt. You feel good about what you're doing even while you see the path to follow next. You give yourself credit, you show yourself compassion, you still see where you can improve. Make a done list. Remember all the challenges you overcome that didn't make your planner or your goal planning sessions. Find other ways to measure progress. Write three things that you love about your work or your project or yourself. Make a list of everything you're grateful for until you're out of ideas. Find the good even in the growth.