Managing My Own Unrealistic Expectations

Once of my favourite things to do every Monday is to set my goals for the week ahead. I love writing down a list of things that I want to accomplish and then ticking them off one by one as I achieve them.  Sometimes I’m far too ambitious and commit to more goals than I could possibly achieve in seven days, but I always have this wonderful sense of pride and satisfaction when I look back at what I have actually accomplished. Unfortunately though, despite my best intentions, not every week goes to plan and very little actual writing gets done, and few goals are met. This has been one of those weeks.

I’m at the stage with my current project, Frost Hands,  where I should be crossing off those final checks on the formatting of the manuscripts. I should be looking to get things set up on Amazon. I should be giving my talented cover-designing sister the back cover blurb and other text she needs to finish off her work. The actual list of things I need to do in order to call this book ‘done’ is Becoming increasingly small, and my major goal this week was to polish them all off. I’m so eager for Frost Hands to be finished and ready to send out into the world. All my time this month has been poured into doing just that. But this week, nothing has gone to plan, and my own expectations have been wildly unmet.

Instead of crushing goals, ticking off tasks, and accomplishing amazing things, I’ve spent the past seven days laid up under a blanket on the sofa, popping in and out of doctor’s appointments, and dealing with generally being rather uncomfortably unwell. It’s been a tough week, and in one way, I understand that it’s not logical to expect that I should achieve much when I’m not sleeping well, or breathing properly, and my head is so fuzzy that focusing for any length of time has become virtually impossible. Under the circumstances, it’s hard to believe that anyone would expect me to be able to get anything ‘productive’ done.

The problem is that my expectations for myself are astronomical. If I have time off from my day job,  then obviously I should be using it to work on my book. I have all these hours where I’m just sitting on the sofa. I could be using those to tick another couple of tasks off the list. I should be dedicated and focused on my work, making extra progress in this time. Right? Not really. They’re such unrealistic expectations. I know this. I know that I don’t actually have the capacity to accomplish any of the things my ambitious and judgemental writer’s brain is telling me I ought to do. But it’s so hard to look at all the hours I’ve spent watching YouTube, napping, and reading books, and not wish that I could have used them for writing. Time is so precious that I want to grab every last moment and put it to good use.

Instead of giving in to these unrealistic expectations though, perhaps a better goal is to focus on managing my own expectations. There isn’t someone standing over me with a whip, forcing me to write when I’m not well. I should set myself the goal of allowing myself grace instead of feeling guilty, and recognising that when I’m physically unwell, it’s ok to need to take some time for myself. The time spent napping, reading, or watching hours of YouTube are an investment in myself, and ultimately my writing. How can I expect myself to do good writing when I’m not in a good place myself? It’s surprisingly easy to expect too much of myself, almost as easy as it is to expect too little.

sometimes, we need to be kind to ourselves, to realise when we’ve hit our limit. Just because we have ‘free time’ doesn’t necessarily mean that it actually is free. Right now, this time I’ve been given is for resting. For recovering. For looking after myself. Maybe I have the capacity to cover a few small tasks here and there, but it’s ok if I don’t, because right now, my priority has to be taking care of myself. Writing will wait. I just have to keep reminding myself that my own health has to come first. Not an easy task, but definitely the most worthwhile goal I could possibly accomplish this week.

Photo by Hjalte Gregersen on Unsplash