Great expectations

For the first time in a long time I have been able to tell people that I had a great Christmas and New Year. No lying, no slight nod of the head with a strained 'ok'. Not that I don't like the season, in fact I love it, Christmas in particular- our decorations went up on 1st December this year. But perversely it is my love of Christmas and the new year season that leads me to have such a disappointing time each year. Not Christmas, but my expectation of all that Christmas and New Year should entail. Expectation, and in particular my expectations of myself have been something I have been working on for many weeks with my therapist. It is not just about Christmas, but my expectations invade many aspects of my life and leave me feeling like a failure. For many years I have felt like I have 'failed' at Christmas because it hasn't lived up to my ideal of what I think a family Christmas should be. What I have discovered, which is probably obvious to most people, is that it isn't necessarily my expectations that are the problem. There is nothing wrong with having high expectations of an event or yourself, in fact this outlook is encouraged by many in the life coaching business. No, the expectation is fine, it is the way I deal and process the reality if it doesn't live up to the vision that is causing the turmoil. It isn't much fun believing you are a failure at most things. It doesn't do much for your self esteem, and in my case it stops me from trying or continuing with new things. For much of my life I have simply not tried or quickly quit at anything that I am not immediately good or satisfactory at. That has ruled out musical instruments, languages, crochet and knitting- all things that require practice, little and often and at which most people start at a fairly low level. It means that I avoid situations where I might be asked to be 'creative' and make things, as I am useless at it and hate showing this. Not healthy. There are many other areas of life this trait has invaded, including Christmas, birthdays, holidays and days out. All deemed failures, and therefore me too, if they do not live up to the picture postcard ideal in my head. So what changed this year? I am going through the process of trying to reprogramme myself, so that I can deal with the expectation in a different way. It involves keeping a kind of journal, and constantly reminding myself of little phrases. This Christmas I did not get myself all knotted about what we did and when, and what is involved in a perfect Christmas day. Instead I let go, lowered my expectations; in fact made the expectations realistic. High expectations are good, unrealistic ones are just setting you up to fail. Which I was doing over and over. So I went for a run on Christmas day, because I wanted to and Christmas should be about doing things you like, not fitting in to a list of ideals. I watched TV and I hung out with my husband, sister and brother in law and didn't get twisted up about not playing a board game. Because it was fun chatting with them, and board games can be played any time. These might seem insignificant, or even a bit bonkers to many of you, but it has been so important to me. Not to over analyse everything and measure myself against what I am supposed to be or do. My only resolution for 2014 is to make my expectations more realistic, not lower, just achievable.