If this is your first time dropping in here, Welcome! Please allow me to set the stage for what you can expect. I work as a transformational coach whose focus is helping women connect the dots of work, life and faith in order to live an integrated, wholehearted life.

You’ve dropped in near the end of a 40-day series encouraging you to grow your awareness and gain tools to be equipped to thrive in 2020. I encourage you to check out some of the other points on this journey. In the meantime, thanks for stopping by! Please read on for some timely information regarding finishing 2019 well.

We’ve been looking at mindset quite a lot through this series. I believe your mindset allows  you to learn, grow, change and bear much fruit as Christ-followers are called to do. Lots of questions start coming up around the whole process: how do I get to thriving? How do I bear much fruit? What kind of fruit are we talking about?

At the heart of all this transformation is the internal re-organization of expectations. With the holidays upon us I imagine expectations might be at the forefront of some of the comings and goings this season brings. What are expectations? How do we form them? How do we change ours while dealing with other’s expressed expectations of us? How do we create boundaries around our sanity when we say No to fulfilling someone else’s expectations?

SO MANY QUESTIONS!

Identifying what an expectation is isn’t that hard. Deciding whether or not said expectation is realistic or unrealistic is more subtle. Learning how to let go of the burden of unrealistic expectations is the most challenging. Moving from living driven by others’ expectations to the freedom of being in the present moment is the ideal.

Let go.

I find the first step is the awareness that something isn’t working in our life whether it’s work or personal relationships, expectations get in the way. We expect our co-workers to treat the break room with the same cleanliness and respect of others that you do. Not an unreasonable consideration until you realize that unless you can mandate behavior that expectation is unrealistic since people come from differing backgrounds and have different habits and their own expectations.

Unmet expectations lead to disappointment. Disappointment leads to bitterness. Bitterness leads to a hard heart. (See Hebrews 12) So what do we do with this realization?

Let go.

There are many ways to navigate the letting go of expectations for the freedom of your soul. You can work hard to control the break room OR you can take care of your part as a model. You can ask management to create a coalition to improve the conditions of the break room and offer to be a part. You can choose to stop using the break room and find other places to take said break.

You may not be dealing with an expectation around break room cleanliness. My hope is you might see the steps of identifying your own expectation and the power of choice as to what to do in response as an action step in which you have option to engage.

What’s next?

Lean in.

Change is hard but change is good. I’ve mentioned this quote before but it’s so good it bears repeating:

Living things grow. Growing things change. Christine Caine

What has stood out to me in the seven years since I first heard this quote is the unspoken question that follows: If you’re not growing and changing, are you truly living? If you identify as a Christ-follower, are you being transformed into the likeness of Christ?

Lean in.

Jesus invites us in His often quoted words: Come to Me.

Come to Me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

Jesus quoted in Matthew 11:28-30

 

Let go. Lean in.

This is hard work. Work we’re not meant to do in isolation. We’re meant to grow, change, be equipped to thrive in the context of community.

I want to invite you into community. A community of like-minded women who desire to grow and be equipped to thrive in 2020. Consider what it would be like for you to be able to process out loud with others who “get” what you’re wrestling with. How might that foster your own growth?

Action step: if you want to know more about what that community can look like, comment on this post or email me. I’d love to cast some vision for what #letgoleanin can look like for you.