Close the “Expectations Gap” to Reach Your Fit-Life Goals
Changing your diet or activity level is rarely easy. Making long-term changes to achieve the fit and healthy life you desire can be especially challenging if you don’t have the understanding and support you need from key people in your life. There are a host of issues that might underlie this lack of support (a conversation for another day). One of them may be an expectations gap between the support you expect from others and what they’re actually giving. Clear communication is essential to narrow or even close that gap.
You may never be able to fully close an expectations gap, and that’s OK. It’s not always likely (or, in some cases, realistic) that other people will behave a certain way because we ask them to, no matter how important it might be. But your relationships—with family, friends, romantic partners, and even close colleagues—can play a vital role in meeting your fit-life goals. These relationships often comprise mutual respect, admiration (or love), open communication, honesty, trust, support, and understanding. Think about how your expectations around some of these elements might impact achieving your fit-life goals.
Say, what?
You’ve told your closest friend that you’re planning to exercise four days a week. Her reply: “Ha! I’ll be impressed if you exercise twice a week—or last more than two weeks if you do start exercising.” Although she’s being honest, she’s certainly not showing you the admiration (that you’re capable of this achievement) or support you expected from her because she’s usually your biggest cheerleader.
If her support is important to you, you’ll need to communicate that to her. Be clear on what you would like in terms of encouragement. And, just as important, ask your friend what she expects in this situation. Maybe she expects that you would be accepting of her honesty and wouldn’t be offended by her use of humor in sharing her opinion, because that’s typical of your relationship.
Hopefully, an honest conversation will help to close the expectations gap for both of you. If not, perhaps you can team up with a coach or an accountability partner to get the support you need.
All the food, all the time
You’ve told your mom that you want to lose 20 pounds. You expect that she’ll stop bringing you sweets and snacks when she visits and will stop pushing food when you visit her. But she does neither.
Here again, you’ll need clear communication. Express that you’d like her to respect your goal and try to understand why it’s important to you. Of course, you’ll need to be clear on that, as well.
Ask her what she expects in your relationship with her around food. It may be important to her that she nourishes you and all the food pushing is the way she does it. In that case, perhaps you can give her recipes you’d like to try that fit into your weight-loss plans. Maybe you could even bond over cooking and trying new dishes together.
Be your own best support system
Of course, just because you ask for something, doesn’t mean you’re going to get it. Look back on your relationships and be honest with yourself about whether your expectations will be met—even when you’ve clearly communicated the support and understanding you’d like and why your goals are so important to you.
People have their own expectations, and theirs might be that you’ll always want to eat cake with them or watch TV with them instead of going for a jog. Opening a dialog to learn their expectations is essential to understanding their motivations and determining whether you’ll get support you’d like.
So, be prepared. Communicate your expectations early and, if necessary, often—with the understanding that others will have their own expectations. You may need to adjust your expectations. Or you may just need to have a plan for what you’ll do if someone important in your life can’t give you the support or understanding you’d like or need from them.
Whatever you decide, know that there might always be an expectations gap. The size of that gap, however, is likely to be much smaller when you communicate openly and clearly with the people most important to you.
One final thought:
Ultimately, the person whose support and commitment are most important to achieving your fit-life goals is you. Having support from others is gravy. So, as John Kim, The Angry Therapist and author of Single on Purpose, says “Stand on your truth, knowing you don't have to have someone else standing next to you.”
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