Are you trying to build your confidence, and go to complete a task, but the outcome wasn’t what you expected? Do you automatically think that you’ve failed?

Maybe you feel defeated afterward and start to get down on yourself?

Enter → expectations: the #1 confidence killer.

Let’s say we’re going to write a blog post or post a picture on Instagram. Maybe we have the expectation that it’s going to get 100 views or 1,000 likes.

But when we post it and it only gets half the attention we expected, we feel like we’ve failed. 

The outcome was not what we anticipated and therefore, we don’t feel good enough.

Now, what if I said you could build your confidence just by the way you manage your expectations?

Think about it…how many of us grow up telling ourselves we’re going to marry the love of our life at 25 and have all of our perfectly healthy children by 30?

And when we grow up and that “plan” we had for our life isn’t panning out, what happens? We stress and feel like we’re failing. 

SOOO many of us set unrealistic expectations for ourselves. I am 100% guilty of this and it took a lot of therapy for me to fully understand the damage this causes.

Back in episode 10 of my podcast, Stephanie Powell and I talked about meditation and setting unrealistic goals for our practice. 

For instance, say I wake up and tell myself “I am going to listen to a guided meditation for 30 minutes and not have a single thought cross through my mind.”

Then, I go to do the actual meditation and I last 5 minutes before thoughts start running through my mind. 

Because I set that expectation of a perfect 30-minutes, I would feel like lasting 5 minutes was a failure. And then what, our confidence goes down!

But isn’t even one minute of meditation good enough, too?

We have to work on our expectations guys because expectations = perfectionism, and perfectionism kills dreams.

I honestly got called out on this the other day. I was talking to my therapist and told her I want to journal more so I suggested that I journal for 30 minutes 3 times a week. 

Right off the bat, she said “do you think you’ll actually do that?”

I said “no” without hesitation and *immediately face-palmed.* 

We all do it guys. It’s SO important that we take active steps to make sure that we don’t set unrealistic expectations that kill our confidence. 

I want you to be mindful next time you set an expectation.

Ask yourself, “Is this realistic? Can I realistically accomplish this?”

If the answer is no, then adjust the expectation.

Don’t hesitate to say, “I am going to do 5 minutes of meditation today.”

If you want to go past the 5 minutes while you’re practicing, then by all means. But if you make it to 5 minutes and want to stop, you won’t feel like you’ve failed. 

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If you’re interested in more confidence tips, here are 4 podcasts to listen to that will make you feel like a million bucks!