Setting Goals and Managing Expectations

Listen: “These Dreams” by Heart

“Pursue your dreams” is an American mantra. “Expectations are premeditated resentments” is a slogan which apparently originated in the 12-step programs. Is it possible to follow your dreams without having any expectations? How do we manage the potential joys and possible dangers of these two modern day proverbs?

 As we enter into the New Year of 2022, with Covid still raging, how do we set realistic goals and pursue our dreams, without crashing on the rocks of unfulfilled expectations? In recent years, goal-setting at the beginning of the New Year seems to have fallen out of vogue. Too many people have set unrealistic goals only to crash and burn by the end of February. Why set goals if you are only going to fail? For some, they have decided to stop setting goals in order to avoid self-condemnation for failing to achieve the goals they themselves set. No goals. No disappointments. So the reasoning goes. But is this how the human heart works? Does living without dreams, hopes, goals, and expectations have its own unique brand of disappointments?

 I have always been a planner, a goal setter, and a visionary leader with a strategic three to five year plan. In fact, early on in my pastoral career after I had earned a BA from Baylor with a double major in Business and Religion and a MDiv from Southwestern Seminary, I decided to study leadership and organizational development at Fuller Seminary where I earned a DMin. I started a church in 1990 in Kansas City and implemented strategic plans which resulted in the church growing every year for twenty-eight years to one of the largest churches in Kansas City and one of the fastest-growing churches in America.

 Needless to say, all that changed when I went through a three-quarter life crisis. Strategic plans went out the window, losses piled up, and, in the aftermath of public humiliation, I found myself trying to navigate “post-apocalyptic” living in the wasteland of my new existence. New dreams have been slow to emerge, self-confidence feels like it’s on a ventilator, and shame keeps trying to tag along for the ride.

 Yet, as I live and breath, dreams percolate. New hopes begin to blossom. Strategic plans start to emerge. So here are a few thoughts about goals and expectations as we enter a New Year.

 One day at a time. All goals, even long-term goals, need to be broken down into daily action plans. For those in recovery, it is especially important to build daily routines that support sobriety. But this is true for everyone when it comes to accomplishing long-term goals. It’s one day at a time.

 Goals tied to becoming. Think in terms of being, doing, and having. Americans like to focus on having more stuff. I think goal setting should holistically include relational, spiritual, emotional, physical, and vocational aspects of our life. Daily journaling, walking, meditating, breathing, and reading are worthy goals.

 Goals tied to community. Many times even personal goals are best accomplished in community. I highly recommend support groups and small groups for exercise, spiritual growth, emotional health, and sobriety. Build vital relationships around the goals that are most important to you. We all grow better together.

 SMART goals. All goals are not created equal. SMART goals offer a simple guideline for quality goals. Quality goals are: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-sensitive. 

 Killer expectations. Sometimes people set goals or embrace expectations which are merely wishful or magical thinking. Sometimes they have unspoken expectations in other people over which they have no control and to whom they have never communicated. Some goals like family or organizational goals are accomplished only through a process of team building and obtaining goal ownership. So it is easy to see how free-floating, unspoken expectations can simply be “resentments under construction” (borrowing a phrase from Anne Lamott).

 There is a verse in the Hebrew Bible that I have always liked: “A noble person makes noble plans and by their noble deeds they stand” (Isaiah 32:8; translation mine). Good planning and good living are noble adventures, full of ups and downs, twists and turns. May you have a blessed New Year, and in the words of Up character Charles Muntz, “Adventure is out there!”

Shalom

©realfredherron, 2022