The other day I came across this across a post on reasonable limits from The Thinking Mother, Christine. Usually, when we mothers talk about reasonable limits, we’re talking about the limits to our children’s behavior.
But that’s not what Christine means—she’s talking about reasonable limits for her expectations of herself. She felt like she was pushing herself so hard, expecting so much of herself, that she had a hard time enjoying her life (emphasis added):
Some people think I do too many things. I feel like I don’t do enough.
Some people think I have accomplished great things but even when I win something that I’ve worked to earn I don’t always “feel” like anything is to be celebrated. I’m on to the next thing.
One impact that having a too-busy life had with me was I suddenly realized I had no time to feel gratitude for the good things that I was experiencing. . . . I started making some changes to try to slow down to enjoy this life I’m living rather than just moving on to the next appointment and the next and the next.
I totally agree—and this is something I can work on, and maybe we all can. I think that we have to set reasonable expectations of ourselves—recognize what we really can do in a day, what we know about a situation, where we are, allow for our challenges. Sometimes we’re pushing ourselves to do eighty, when we should really only do thirty—and we’re utterly disappointed in ourselves when we “only” get sixty. We have to reevaluate our self-expectations regularly, too.
What are your unreasonable expectations of yourself? How have you adjusted your expectations to match your limits (physical, mental, emotional, etc.)?
Photo by Rebekah
2 replies on “Reaching a mother’s limit”
This is a very–kind of off topic answer– but it is the first that came to mind. just 2 days ago I was telling Eric how it frustrates me when I can’t keep our weekly grocery budget under 50 dollars, even when I’m being frugal and not getting anything except necessities (weeks with diapers and formula take such a huge chunk… how am I supposed to afford apples too?). I told him I was so PROUD of being under 50 every week and I get stressed when I can’t do it. He reminded me that being proud of an arbitrary number that doesn’t truly reflect our families needs is kinda silly. So I can proudly declare we only spent 50 bucks but we’re hungry? Time to reevaluate what I expect of my grocery purchasing power…
I think that’s a great example. We expect so much of ourselves—and no one else does! We’ve set these standards for ourselves that don’t always make sense and may just be an arbitrary stricture that’s not reflective of reality.