Important Difference Between Goals & Expectations

May 17, 2012

Interview with Phillip Moffit, author of the book Emotional Chaos to Clarity: How to Live More Skillfully, Make Better Decisions, and Find Purpose in Life

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Mike Carruthers:
We all have goals and expectations, goals are good and expectations can cause trouble.

Phillip Moffit:
Expectations are like goals that are fossilized. So we expect ourselves to be a certain level of success, we expect ourselves to be super mom or the best dad or whatever it is.
 

Phillip Moffit, author of the book Emotional Chaos to Clarity...

And these expectations actually get in the way of the goals because they don’t take into account the facets of our lives. There’s a drama to life and expectations sort of ignores the truth of those dramas.

So often we beat ourselves up when we don’t meet the expectations we’ve set for ourselves. The problem with that is…

It creates a story that you start believing about yourself that is such a negative story because you’re so busy beating yourself up.

What Phillip suggests is a technique called starting over so when something goes wrong rather than beat yourself up over it you simply start over.

It’s a critical skill just starting over. You make your mistakes if you focus on how you’re making the mistakes nothing changes. But if you go, “Oh lost my path getting back on it” you just start over. You don’t waste your energy in self-judging or feeling sorry for yourself you just start over.

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here.