3.6 take a fine day and make it trash - stealth expectations
have you ever had - objectively - a decent day, but it still doesn't feel satisfying? i talk all about stealth expectations - and how they might be impacting your work and relationships - on this week's episode!
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If you have ever had a really good day and then wrecked it with the power of your mind, this is the episode for you.
📍 Welcome to Grad School is Hard, But... A Thrive PhD podcast. I'm Dr. Katy Peplin and this is a show for everyone who's doing the hard work of being a human and a scholar.
And in season three, I'm demystifying some of the most important, but often invisible parts of grad school that learning about might just make your life a little bit easier. And make sure you check out the link in the show notes for my working more intentionally tool kit. Which is available for you totally for free. Now let's get into it
Most Friday afternoons or sometimes Saturday mornings and make a list of all the things I want to do over the weekend. It's a menu of sorts. I can get easily overwhelmed with decisions. So having a range of options to pick from encourages me to remember to do some of the 1000. 472 hobbies that I have.
And it 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 like a peach every time. And then something else started to happen. As soon as it became clear that I wasn't going to do everything on that list. I'd be annoyed with myself for not quote, maximizing the weekend.
And if something unexpected came up, it starts to worry about how I would fit everything in. Even if there was just so much time. And if my husband had plans of his own, that impacted mine. Well, that could be the spark that lit a whole powder keg of yuck.
Altogether. It wasn't even a pattern that registered as a problem. It was just an intensifying sense that my weekends were less fulfilling than they had been. It wasn't until later when I was reading Atlas of the heart by Bernay 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 they often lead to disappointment. When we develop expectations, we paint a picture in our head of how things are going to go and how they're going to look.
We set expectations based not only on how we fit into that picture, but also on what those around us are doing in the picture. And 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 movie or picture fails to play out in real life, we feel disappointed.
And sometimes that disappointment is severe and it brings shame and hurt and anger with it.
And wow. Oh, goodness. Was that a big part of what was going on? By making a list, even though I called it a menu and set out to make some choices from it. I set some unhealthy expectations, some stealthy expectations for myself about what I should be able to accomplish. I'd moved through the weekend and each activity itself would be enjoyable whether I planned it or not.
But because those activities weren't living up to some fuzzy idea that I had for myself that I would do all of the things I would put a little disappointment into the soup. And leave feeling less satisfied without really having a reason why. And once I examine that behavior and myself, I started to see how it's always been a part of my relationships with others, but especially with my work day to day.
How many of us have had a quote fine day, but we, because we didn't cross everything off the to-do list, we leave the desk feeling a little bit deflated. How often have we planned for a really big work session only to have something come up or have something else put on our plate. And even though there's still time to adjust more 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, 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 and how other people will react to us. That's a part of how we, as humans move through the world. A world that is at times routine, but often unpredictable. We have to anticipate some of these things 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 was released and it was easier to reset my expectations for something that was 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 these stealth expectations?
All right. Katie you've outlined the problem. I get it. I'm there. I'm with you. What do we do about it? What do we do in the face of this cloud of sneaky expectations that can float in here are a few tools that can help. Check in with how you're feeling. Moods are mysterious and emotions can be tricky to nail down, but sometimes it can be a good place to start.
Once I name what I'm feeling. Frustrated annoyed, disappointed, excited, flat deflated. I try to aim for as little judgment as possible, but I don't always get there. It's often easier for me to trace where that feeling is coming from. And if I'm ending most weekends, no matter how they go with feeling unsatisfied, then that's some solid data for me to start with and start exploring.
Okay. If you have a sharp sense of disappointment about how something went and you're in a space where your nervous system feels up to it. It can help to use some of 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.
And what was I imagining in terms of the other people involved?
These questions can help us really get to the root of what we were picturing and what actually happened. And that space in between the space of south expectations is often fertile ground for more exploring. Okay. It can also be relatively more straightforward to handle your own expectations of yourself.
It obviously gets a little bit more complicated when other people are involved. I often work with clients who have expectations about how grad school would feel or how things would go with their advisor. And these are some of the tools that are most helpful in the realm of working with these expectations with other people.
Step one. Write out your expectations, even if you don't verbalize them to anybody else right away. If you send a draft to your advisor, it might help to write down what you expect to get back. Line at its overall comments notes on the argument, help with grammar. If or when you don't get those things, then you can either choose to be more specific in your requests or find someone or someplace else to help.
Find someone or someplace else to help you get the support that you need.
Too. Figure out where your expectations are coming from. Are you seeing other people tweet about amazing conferences? Are you seeing other people talk about amazing conversations in their conference presentations, and then you feel let down when yours are a little bit more stilted. Two other people get loads of help on their job documents and all your advisor does is send out letters of recommendation.
Then you can check those expectations against more sources of data or dirt or data sources that are closer to your situation. There's so much that's individual about our S our situations or relationships with our advisors, with faculty members, with other people. But it can be really helpful to check in where we're getting our expectations and whether or not they actually apply to us.
For example, a chemistry PhD student might not have the same kind of relationship with their PI that a humanities one does. Just for one small example. Overall, all of this is the work of a lifetime. Like perfectionism, stealth expectations sneak in and take root before you notice them. It's exactly why we call themself, but noticing the invisible expectations we have for how things will go and bringing them to the surface.
I can really help us stay out of that disappointment and shame that we don't even necessarily mean to welcome ourselves into. This has been really helpful for me over the last couple of weeks is I deal with my own expectations about what I should be able to do. During the course of the day. And I hope that it's a little bit helpful for you too.
See you next week.
📍 Thank you for listening to Grad School is Hard, but... You can find more information and resources in the show notes and at thrive-phd.com. Every month, I'll select one reviewer for a free 45 minute session with me. So please subscribe, rate, and review to help spread the word about the show. Thanks so much and I'll see you again soon!