Dave Kashen explains why people set unrealistic expectations that fuel anxiety: habitual conditioning, using pressure as motivation, and attachment to outcomes. He suggests building awareness, running short experiments with lower expectations, taking small steps, and practicing self-compassion to break the cycle.
Okay, question is, how do you break the habit of setting expectations that are so unrealistic they trigger anxiety and a frantic rush to deliver? I'd first get really curious what's having you set unrealistic expectations that create anxiety. Um, If I had to guess, I'd say it's probably two things. One, a way you think you need to motivate yourself. And two, um, you know, there's this quote from NLP, neuro-linguistic programming, um, specifically from Carl Bukaitis, my teacher. He said that the, the conditions we learn to survive become the conditions upon which our continued survival depends. So essentially, for our, for our neurology, for our nervous system, we sort of get acclimated to certain conditions. And so if you get acclimated to anxiety and feeling frantic, you'll, you'll unconsciously keep creating those conditions. So that already can be useful to just realize, like, oh, is it perhaps you're actually purposefully setting expectations because you're just used to feeling frantic and anxious, and so you're setting unrealistic expectations just to create that familiar experience? And so one, just awareness of that can help you start to break the habit, um, and then two You can think of it as the upper limit. Like, you can, you can be really intentional about like, okay, I want to have— I want to condition my nervous system to be okay being okay. Yeah, like, it's okay to be calm and kind of give yourself periods of calm and like show your nervous system actually it's okay. So What I would actually do is just run one experiment for one period. Maybe it's a quarter, maybe it's a month of setting a much more realistic expectation. And don't, don't tell your system— we almost have to trick our nervous system. Like, if you try to break a lifelong habit and like, I'm never going to do this thing again, you know, um, that's a lot of change for your system. But if you're like, okay, just for this week or this month I'm going to try this one experiment where I, you know, set a realistic expectation and then see what it's like. Um, that might be like the domino that then allows you to continue to, you know, change that habit. So just like any kind of pattern interrupt will be helpful, but you almost like trick your system into just like, oh, we're just doing this one small shift, and then it becomes the Yeah, like the domino. Um, just like if you're trying to, you know, build a habit of, you know, going running, you know, 3 times a week for the rest of your life, the best thing would be just like to tell your system, I'm just gonna put on my running shoes and my running gear, you know, one morning. And then you do that, you're like, well, I already have my running shoes on, I might as well go for a run. So like Find like the easiest, smallest way you can start to shift the habit or build a new habit. Um, think if there's anything else coming up there. You could also, um, like Tony Robbins would say, like you want to get leverage on yourself, like really imagining you continue this pattern, you know, for the next 10 years.
Right?
Like, no kidding, like you're just frantic and anxious for the next 10 years. And like, what would the impact of that be on your health, your well-being, your effectiveness, the people you love? And like really, really face the cost of the pattern. Um, sometimes that can help you to shift the pattern, like to just boost your, your motivation to shift it. Um, The last thing I'd say is, you know, we tend to try to change ourselves by judging and blaming and making ourselves wrong for being the way we are. So be really self-compassionate. Like, could you accept yourself for being in this pattern? Like, it— you know, whatever part of you is creating the pattern, it's— it was, um, probably very adaptive to, like, create this pattern of setting unrealistic expectations and then being frantic. Um, so like, could you accept yourself for, for being exactly as you are now and accept the pattern just as it is? And ironically or paradoxically, often that creates the spaciousness to then start to shift the pattern. Whereas if you're in a war with yourself, like, damn, why do I keep doing this? You're actually, you know, what we resist persists. So you're probably going to actually perpetuate the pattern unwittingly.
Hmm, I imagine if somebody keeps falling into this pattern, a part of them thinks that the unrealistic expectations is realistic and could be met, and then afterwards they're like, oh, that wasn't actually realistic. And so I wonder if, um, part of it could be accurately assessing what expectations would be realistic versus unrealistic. For sure.
And, and again, experimenting with different levels of stretch sort of goals or expectations. I mean, the other thing you could say is you could— one could set very aggressive, ambitious, quote-unquote unrealistic expectations and not experience anxiety and, you know, being frantic. So the other place to look is, are you attached to those expectations being met? Right? If you, if you go in, you know, this is what we talked at one point about Google and the OKRs being like, you know, two-thirds is a win and, you know, uh, hitting all of them is like an out-of-the-park, you know, home run or grand slam. So part of it is just like being clear with yourself, what are these goals or expectations? Are they meant to be realistic? Are they meant to stretch you? And, um, not being attached to realizing them, because it's really the attachment that creates the anxiety and franticism. Like, you could, you could set really ambitious goals and feel excited and inspired and reach for the moon, like, you know, reach for the stars, land on the moon, um, if you don't get attached to those expectations and make them mean anything about you. So that's usually really what creates the anxiety, is this attachment to the outcome, this thought like, it would be— it'll be bad, or I'll be bad, or, you know, it'll mean something bad about me if I don't hit them.
