“Exhausted.”
That was my neighbor’s response when I asked how she was doing after the first week of school.
She is an elementary teacher in a public school district confronting a budget crisis, teacher layoffs, and the imminent closure of a school.
“The whole year is going to be a constant state of transition,” she lamented.
I could relate to the feeling, even though the circumstances of my own work are different. I have heard something similar over the last couple of years from clients and from librarians participating in the leadership development program I co-facilitate with Kelly Campbell.
Transitions are exhausting.
They place us in the space between where we were and where we are going. Familiar ways of working may no longer fit, but whatever comes next has not yet taken shape. We spend energy searching for our bearings, testing where we can connect, and trying to understand which of our previous assumptions still apply.
This is where adjusting expectations can help.
When I chose Adjusting Expectation as our theme for the quarter, I was thinking about what happens when our goals meet a reality that has changed. Looking back over the past couple of months, I’m noticing that expectations sit even deeper than goals.
Goals are usually things we name. Expectations are often less visible.
They remain in the background, quietly influencing the goals we set, the pace we try to maintain, and the standards by which we judge ourselves. We may carry expectations about what our colleagues should contribute, what our organizations should provide, or what we should be able to accomplish—even when the circumstances that shaped those expectations no longer exist.
Revisiting a goal, then, may require more than changing a deadline or rewriting an outcome. It may ask us to uncover the expectation beneath it.
What did I assume would be possible?
What support did I expect to have?
What am I still asking of myself, even though my circumstances have changed?
Adjusting an expectation does not necessarily mean lowering our standards or abandoning something that matters. It can simply mean paying closer attention to what is true now—and allowing that knowledge to inform what we ask of ourselves and one another.
Even this final reflection looks different from what I originally planned for the end of the quarter. That feels appropriate. Adjusting expectations has not given me a tidy answer or a finished process. Instead, it has become a practice of noticing, naming, and recalibrating.
As this quarter draws to a close, I hope these reflections have created some room for you to do the same.
A couple of questions worth sitting with this week:
- What expectation are you carrying that no longer fits your present circumstances?
- If you loosened or revised that expectation, what might become possible?
I would genuinely like to know how this theme has landed for you. Has something from the past couple of months stayed with you, challenged you, or helped you see a situation differently?
If you’re comfortable, I invite you to share your reflection via our contact form. Your response does not need to be polished or complete. I would simply be glad to hear what you have been noticing.