Can you believe we are less than 2 months away from the END of 2014?
I don't know about you, but this is typically when the overwhelm and panic starts to set in for me. Checking in with the lofty goals I declared at the beginning of the year, I realize that these "promises" were not all met... in fact, there were many that dropped off the map altogether. My mind begins to race to try and rectify lost time in the hopes that I can somehow "achieve" everything on my list: lose 15lbs, finish my book, make six-figures, become an expert baker, (insert 20 more things), all to be completed in 4 weeks! Follow this moving train of anxious thoughts and I arrive at the next stop... "Everyone who's headed for Defeat and Disappointment please exit the train here."
As I started, once again, to spiral into the "unaccomplished dread", I stopped myself and looked at all the things I actually DID do this year. There was A LOT of growth, a lot of movement, and a whole lot of change. There were actually MANY things to celebrate, so why was I not giving myself permission to do so?
One word: Expectation. Expectations can serve a really valuable purpose when they are limited to the essentials. In relationships, "respect", "honesty", and "trust" are necessary and important expectations. But it's when we start getting specific and elaborate with our expectations, hoping they will fulfill something within us that is not filled. And those kinds of expectations always come with strings attached. For so many years, I have had my happiness riding on the back of those dang expectations, hoping that in the achievement of great things, I will inevitably reach complete bliss. That is a pressure cooker disaster.
Here's the deal. Happiness is not for "when", it's for Now. Fulfillment is not only in great achievement but in the appreciation of every moment we get to be here. The goals we set for ourselves are really only markers for how we want to feel once we've accomplished them. If weight loss is the goal, the intention is to feel happy and healthy in your body. If six or seven figures is where you are aiming, the desire is for freedom. When we look beyond the goals themselves to the state of being we are craving, the weight from our expectations falls away, and we realize it's a whole lot simpler... that joy and freedom and peace are accessible always, if we choose them.
So the question remains... what will YOU choose? Hanging your happiness and lingering thoughts on the expectations you had for yourself, or complete abandonment of "the plan" and, instead, being in harmony with what is, right now? Because true peace is not in the achievement of your expectation, but in the acceptance and celebration of life, in all its moments.