In Episode 12 of The Fosgail Mindset, Myka Kennedy Stephens and Kelly Campbell talk about inherited expectations, the difficulty of letting go, and making room for what matters now.
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Transition has a way of changing the conditions around us before our expectations catch up. The role changes. The team changes. The resources change. Yet we may continue measuring ourselves and others against standards formed in an earlier, more stable season.
That gap can become a quiet source of frustration and exhaustion. We tell ourselves we should be able to maintain the same pace, complete the same projects, or give the same level of attention to everything. Instead of helping us move through transition, those expectations leave even less room to adapt.
As Kelly writes in her recent article, “Adjusting your expectations isn’t a new task added on top of everything else—it’s what makes room for everything else.”
Notice where “should” comes from
Expectations do not appear from nowhere. Some are explicit requirements of a role. Others come from institutional traditions, social pressures, family values, or assumptions about what a capable leader ought to manage. Some are expectations we place on ourselves without realizing that no one else has asked us to carry them.
Kelly encourages leaders to begin with a simple question: Why? Why does this project need to happen now? Why must it be completed at this level? Who set the timeline? Is the expectation connected to the organization’s mission, or is it simply familiar?
These questions are not a way to avoid responsibility. They help us distinguish what is essential from what has become habitual.
Let go without losing the essence
In the conversation, Kelly and Myka reflect on William Bridges’ transition model: endings, the neutral zone, and new beginnings. The stages can overlap, but transition still asks us to release something before new patterns can take shape.
That is especially difficult in long-established institutions. “We’ve always done it this way” often signals more than resistance to a new method. Familiar practices may hold history, identity, relationships, and meaning. Kelly offers an important distinction: “It may not be the method, but it’s the essence of some of that that we can see in a new way.”
The task is not to discard the past carelessly. It is to ask what must be preserved—and whether the old form is still the best way to carry it forward.
Return to what is essential
When several transitions are happening at once, trying to adjust everything can become one more impossible expectation. Kelly describes returning instead to the basics: the mission, the people being served, and the work that truly needs to happen today.
That return can also change how leaders define quality. “My best is 100,” Kelly observes, “but sometimes sufficient is okay.” Not every task needs our highest possible level of effort. A result can be thoughtful, responsible, and fit for purpose without being perfect.
Accepting “good enough” for nonessential work creates capacity for what matters most. It also makes space to process the transition itself—something no one can do well while maintaining an unsustainable pace.
One expectation at a time
Adjusting expectations does not require resolving the whole transition. It can begin with one expectation loosened this week.
- What “should” are you carrying into a situation that has changed?
- Is that expectation grounded in today’s reality or an earlier season?
- What is essential right now?
- Where might “good enough” be both responsible and wise?
Transition will continue to ask something of us. We can meet it with greater curiosity and compassion when we stop demanding that everything—and everyone—perform as though nothing has changed.
The quotations above have been lightly edited for readability from the recorded conversation and Kelly Campbell’s related article.