High Expectations

[clarke54321]

Hi everyone,

This is my first year sitting 3/4 exams and I have put quite high expectations on myself to achieve good study scores. Is this detrimental in any way?

[heids]

Put simply, if you fail to live up to your expectations, it'll hurt.  You may well start beating yourself up and hating yourself, and if you're the type that internally puts on high pressure and is perfectionistic, you're more likely to do this.  (I speak from experience.)

So I'd just say, be careful.  Imo it's impossible to tell what a certain study score 'looks like' in terms of study habits and performance, so I don't think it should really be the target you're having high expectations about; instead, have high but not too high expectations about how much you work today (or more importantly, how smart you work/what you achieve), or what score you get in the next minor test.

In terms of actually motivating you and thus impacting the score you achieve, it can really have two main effects:
a) motivate you to push yourself more and work harder
b) cripple you because you realise you'll never live up to your expectations and thus spend more time stressing or panicking than actually doing

If it's the former, then you're okay, as long as you don't use it to push yourself *too* hard (--> burnout).

I'll probably post later with some ways to try and reduce your pressure (which is mainly self-talk), but I'm hardly one to preach on this topic

[pi]

Put simply, if you fail to live up to your expectations, it'll hurt.  You may well start beating yourself up and hating yourself, and if you're the type that internally puts on high pressure and is perfectionistic, you're more likely to do this.  (I speak from experience.)

...Is this some sort of sarcastic joke? :/

In regards to having high expectations, not necessarily a bad thing. I think what's most important, is that you continue to learn from every experience you have. If you meet or exceed your expectations, you've learnt that perhaps if you aimed higher you could have done even better (unless you get a cheeky 50, then just chill LOL). If you don't happen to meet your expectations, then you can reflect on your year and try to answer why that was.

Going a little off-topic here because it's important, but in reflection, I think it's a good idea to write things down. Physically make a list of what did and didn't go down so well for you, so you have things to learn from for next year. I strongly advise against beating yourself up too much, it's not productive and leads to more trouble, always try to approach any 'failure' with the mindset of 'yeah ok that didn't go to plan, but how can I do better next time' rather than 'omg I'm such a failure panic panic panic how will I succeed in life panic panic panic'. Some people tend to migrate to the second naturally, and that's a shame, but once you start forcing yourself to positively reflect on any situation it gets better and more productive. I should also add, that 'beating yourself up' isn't a totally bad thing either, if you didn't beat yourself up just a bit I'd argue you didn't care about whatever you 'failed' at in the first place. If you do poorly (but whatever standards), I think feeling temporarily bad about it is part of the learning process too. But it has a limited scope of learning, you need to reflect to gain more from the situation.

[EEEEEEP]

Hi everyone,

This is my first year sitting 3/4 exams and I have put quite high expectations on myself to achieve good study scores. Is this detrimental in any way?

No. It wouldn't detriment you in any way but you do need to be aware that sometimes things don't go your way.

When that happens you do need to have a little self compassion and not put yourself down too much (it will hurt if you don't meet your own expectations). Acknowledge that whatever happened and learn from it. But by no means, extrapolate that result  to predict future results.

[clarke54321]

Thanks for all the advice 

[wyzard]

Having high expectations and aiming big is not a bad thing, many successful people have high expectations

With that said, it can be detrimental if you only see what is too far ahead of you without looking at where you are now and figuring out the steps to get there; this is why setting goals and coming up with an action plan is important, where you work to improve and achieve the next level. It's like if I want to get fit, I can't just expect and wish for a fit lifestyle, I'll have to work out a workout regimen, and work my way up. I've written about setting goals in my blog which you can check out here: http://www.nerdofpassion.com/reading/goal-setting-how-to-do-it-properly-to-achieve-your-goals

By breaking down the steps to your high expectations, you'll know what you need to do, and if things does not go your way, which will happen frequently, analyze what went wrong and think of ways to ways to improve. In other words, instead of beating yourself up, ask yourself "What can I do better next time."

[clarke54321]

Having high expectations and aiming big is not a bad thing, many successful people have high expectations

With that said, it can be detrimental if you only see what is too far ahead of you without looking at where you are now and figuring out the steps to get there; this is why setting goals and coming up with an action plan is important, where you work to improve and achieve the next level. It's like if I want to get fit, I can't just expect and wish for a fit lifestyle, I'll have to work out a workout regimen, and work my way up. I've written about setting goals in my blog which you can check out here: http://www.nerdofpassion.com/reading/goal-setting-how-to-do-it-properly-to-achieve-your-goals

By breaking down the steps to your high expectations, you'll know what you need to do, and if things does not go your way, which will happen frequently, analyze what went wrong and think of ways to ways to improve. In other words, instead of beating yourself up, ask yourself "What can I do better next time."

Thanks for this. It's a great blog page! 

[heids]

...Is this some sort of sarcastic joke? :/

No, I was serious; I should have clarified that I wasn't referring to just 'high expectations' (which are good) but 'overly high expectations' (unrealistic ones) which can be absolutely crushing to someone with low self-esteem, zero self-compassion and crippling levels of perfectionism.  It's different for different personality types really, but for these people, saying 'don't beat yourself up, try to improve next time instead' doesn't... actually work, even with consistent positive self-talk.  (I repeat, merely speaking from experience.)

That's why I always warn against high expectations even though they're generally great

However, if you're like this, I can only say that you just need to keep surrounding you with that positive self-talk - focus on reading/watching uplifting writing/videos, recognise each time you beat yourself up unrealistically and ask if that's really realistic, reiterate the fact that failure isn't bad but a means of learning to succeed, etc.  Also taking concrete steps forwards even when you feel it's useless can really reassure you - you've just got to START.

[Tyleralp1]

I'll try shed some light on this too..

Having high expectations can be a good thing. If you set yourself with a high goal, it would be natural for you to fight for it. This would entail working hard, making sure you can do the best you can and not making excuses for as to why you didn't/can't/couldn't do something. It almost serves as a motivation factor at times to strive for the excellence, and to make sure don't become complacent which could actually yield a unsatisfactory mark to you. If you didn't aim high, you wouldn't know how capable you are and could be left wondering how much more you could've done/achieved. They say, aim for the stars as if you fall short, it's better than aiming for the sky and just getting there.

However, there are some negative aspects to having high expectations. Firstly, if you don't initially start off on track to achieve them, it may leave you feeling deflated. This feeling of not being good enough, or feeling of failure so early may be detrimental to the long term goal and your future performance. Equally so, having these high expectations can actually also make you put unnecessary pressure (the negative type) on yourself to do well, and then possibly beat yourself up if you don't, which can once again spiral downwards.

Personally, sometimes try not to think about what you NEED to do or what other would expect from you. Rather, just put in the most amount of time and effort you can, and back yourself. Trust in what you've done, and take things as they come. It can help with the stress and the rest (grades and rankings) will simply take care of themselves provided you did what was necessary for you.

[vox nihili]

I think perhaps you're not really asking the right question in many ways. It really can't be said whether or not having high expectations is detrimental, because ultimately that's an individual thing, largely determined by how you manage those expectations.

Certainly, you should be encouraged to challenge yourself. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that and is a really critical element of succeeding. You've just got to keep reflecting and making sure that your not putting so much pressure on yourself that it's keeping you from meeting the expectations you have of yourself.

It can be really tricky to strike that balance between challenging yourself and looking after yourself, and no doubt it will take some time to perfect. At this point though I wouldn't really worry about whether having high expectations is detrimental; you're better to put your energy into learning how to manage them

[wyzard]

Thanks for this. It's a great blog page! 

Thank you! Glad you like it, it really means a lot to me