How To Let Go Of Unrealistic Expectations To Avoid Burnout

Why do we set bad expectations on ourselves?

The setting of unrealistic expectations on ourselves starts with an unreal idea of who we are. This idea probably was not built by us but by the people around us.

People always want us to be who they want, not necessarily consciously. They push the idea they have of you onto you. And whether you are influenced depends on your ability to be strong enough to be yourself unapologetically.

If you are not, don’t worry most of us have been there. These ideas have been placed on us since we were children. We don’t realize they are not original until we explore who we really are.

So we grow up trying to be someone that we think we want to be but in reality, your dream lies somewhere else. 

For example,

When growing up everyone would treat you as the smartest kid. They would always tell you that they know you will probably be a scientist.

So by the time you have to decide you assume that what you want and what you are good at is science. Then you set yourself to go to university to learn physics.

You are so sure that this is what you are until you allow yourself to be creative and explore other things in life apart from what everyone thinks you should be. 

Keep in mind that we don’t have to be talking about a career path. It could be your personality, maybe hobbies that have, or even relationships.

When we start to explore new things in life we might feel guilty for not following the path that we originally wanted in life.

Or thought we wanted…

This might make us start setting unrealistic expectations of ourselves. Making us want to put more effort into our original plans. This leads to burnout. 

How does society impact us in this?

Capitalism seeks a productive group of people. It is more convenient for them to have people not enjoy their lives and then want to buy fixes for it.

So when we want to be someone who we are not, or simply working past our limits we burn ourselves out.

Being productive isn’t the pinnacle of life but we have been set to believe so. When we are not we feel like we are a failure and that we aren’t fulfilling our expectations. 

This is specifically harder on women because the world runs in a 24hr cycle in which you are expected to be the same person every day and have the same amount of energy and drive every single day.

Female bodies don’t work like that, we work on a monthly cycle along with our reproductive cycle. Our hormones dictate the levels of energy that we have and our mood.

So naturally fulfilling the unrealistic expectations becomes harder on us. And don’t forget to add to that all the beauty standards and personality standards that have been shoved upon us since we were kids. 

The problem is that even when no one is looking we are still pressing those expectations on ourselves. So meanwhile instead of trying to focus on how to change society so that it doesn’t demand all of this from us, let’s start small.

How can we stop demanding all of these things from ourselves, even in a private setting? 

What does burnout look like?

In order to start feeling better, we first need to recognize what burnout looks like in order to avoid it. My idea of burnout consists of physical, emotional, and energetic areas.

The physical one is easy to describe. How are we straining our bodies? Do we spend our day doing heavy work and then expect ourselves to go to the gym and do a 2 hr workout? Or maybe we are not giving our bodies the exercise that it needs to feel good. 

The emotional comprises all the psychological aspects. What image do we have of ourselves? Our relationships with other people, how we treat ourselves on a day-to-day basis. Do we judge ourselves? 

The energetic are pretty much encompasses all of it. Before we can describe what we are feeling emotional we feel it energetically. What burdens are we carrying? Who are we trying to be that is not aligned? Why are we not listening to our bodies?

I can’t lower my expectations and I’m burning out, what should I do?

I’ll share with you a few steps that are important to make sure that you are not burning out during your day-to-day activities. 

1. Practice mindfulness

 I feel a little bit weird giving you this tip as the wellness industry has pretty much-shoved mindfulness down our throats.

But it is important to be aware of our actions and thought during the day to know what activities that we do are burning us out the most.

2. Analyse expectations

 Once we have spotted some activity we do that is draining our energy we can analyze which is the expectation that we have that is making us do this.

For example, working extra hours is what is making us be burnout and we don’t even need the money.

Maybe I am doing it because my parents ingrained the idea onto me that if we are not busy all the time we are not successful.

3. Say bye to the expectation

To do this we can have a little ritual in which we put those unrealistic expectations away. This could be writing them down, giving thanks, and burning them.

This way you feel the release of not having those in your hands. You could also journal about (for the example above) what actual success means for you and what you truly want in life. This will help you adjust your expectations of yourself. 

Follow these steps on a daily basis with every expectation you have on yourself that is causing burnout and feel how it releases tension.