Episode Summary

It might sound controversial to say that having expectations can be limiting. However, when we hold a tight grip over how something ‘should’ unfold, whether that’s in our spiritual journey, calling, or business those expectations can close our vision to other possibilities available to us and in some cases leave us feeling disappointed. Join Julian Crosson-Hill on this episode of the Anwer Your Unique Calling Podcast to take a look at the ways in which you could be setting yourself up to be limited by your expectations, and how you can relax into the possibilities and experiences that present themselves along the journey to your goals.

Today we’re talking about:

• Approaching your journey as an adventure, not as a means to an end
• Relieving the pressure of expectations by setting intentions instead
• Living in the present
• Spotting signposts that you’re on the right path
• What this means for Soulpreneurs
• Your goals are not final destinations

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Episode Transcript

Julian Crosson-Hill 0:15

This is the answer your unique calling podcast. This podcast provides tips, tools and inspiring stories for creating clarity around your calling, opening your heart to infinite possibilities and enabling you to have the greatest impact on the world. I’m Julian Crosson-Hill, a certified spiritual life coach, meditation teacher, Human Design Specialist and founder of Priest of Inanna. And most recently, I’ve joined the faculty at star seed Academy coach training. It’s my mission to teach and guide others in living a spiritually aligned life that answers their unique calling. Welcome, and thanks for listening.

Julian Crosson-Hill 1:01

Welcome to this episode of answer your unique calling. I’m your host, Julian Crosson-Hill. So, let’s talk about expectations. That’s the topic I feel I want to talk about today. And I want to talk in particular about the ways that our expectations can limit us.

And I know that sounds a little controversial to say that having an expectation is limiting. But I want you to think about it for a minute, when we have strong expectations about how something’s going to happen, about how something’s going to unfold. For instance, whether it’s our spiritual journey, whether it’s answering our spiritual calling, and how that’s going to unfold for us, or even whether it’s our spiritual business and launching a program or doing something in our business, when we come with certain expectations, when we’ve already decided what the outcome should be, and how we’re going to get there, we set ourselves up to be disappointed. And we set ourselves up to be limited by those expectations. 

And the reason that those expectations become limitations for us is because we can’t see beyond the expectation. We get so attached to the expectation that we don’t have an openness to allowing other things that may be even be better for us to come in. We miss the opportunities to have a different experience than the one we expected. And possibly even an experience that would be better for us in the long run. I’m as guilty of this as anyone.

So one of the things that kind of really helped me understand this idea of expectation is if you really think about any, anywhere that you’re going in life, whether it’s building your spiritual business, whether it’s defining your spiritual calling, and claiming your calling, whether it’s growing your career, anywhere that you’re going in life, if you can think about it as a journey, a lot of us when we go on a journey, and I often think about road trips because I enjoy road trips. I really hate to fly. And driving has always been something that I enjoyed. And I like to take road trips in a sort of meandering way. And what I mean by that is I like to go to the off the beaten path like attractions along the way, I’ve gotten to see the largest wind chime in the world in Illinois, my husband and I have stopped in seeing the Largest Rocking Chair. So those are the kinds of things that I like to do on a road trip. And I also like to take some times where roads that aren’t the main road, I don’t like to necessarily get on the highway and just drive to where I’m going. I like to sort of explore a little bit, I like to pop into little shops along the way and just see what I can find.

And if we can take that sort of same mentality and apply it to our journey where whatever that journey is, if we can let go of the destination a little bit and let go of the expectation of the route that we’re going to take to get to that destination. We can approach the journey more as an adventure. We can approach it more like we’re going to explore. So we’re on this journey and Hey, there’s this fork in the road. Let’s go to the left and see what happens. Let’s see what’s over there. And by doing that, we create more openness for the universe to bring opportunities and experiences into our lives that are going to help us grow in very unexpected ways. Part of the expectation of course, So what the journey is, is the expectation of what the destination is going to be. When we get so fixated on the destination, we attach a lot of expectation to the journey, we get expectation about the route that we’re going to take. And that expectation, then starts to limit us, we’re in a hurry to get to the destination. And we don’t stop along the way to notice the things that really make the the journey worthwhile. And that really helped us grow in the journey so that when we reach that destination, we can plan for the next phase of our journey, because our journey is always going it is always unfolding. There is no final destination. 

Julian Crosson-Hill 5:46

Even when we pass from beyond this realm, we’ve just started another journey. On the other side, there is no final destination and just trying to get there. Some people go through their whole life just trying to reach the destination. And their whole experience is about moving to get to the destination about just moving through things as quickly as possible to reach that end point.

And I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have a destination in mind. But rather than seeing it as a destination, maybe we think about it as an intention, I intend to do this, or I intend to get to this point in my growth. And if we can see it as a destination, rather our as an intention rather than a destination, it relieves a lot of the pressure that we feel, to really be pushing to get to the destination to be moving through life in a way that isn’t really aware and isn’t really enjoying the stuff along the way.

What I want to clarify here is, it’s still good to have goals, we still want to have goals in life. So, I’m not saying you don’t have a destination. I’m not saying that you just sort of wander aimlessly through life. Because obviously I believe in goals. I think goals are very important. But I think that goals, when we set them as a destination and not necessarily an intention, when everything is about achieving this one goal, we can get into a pattern where we can only see one way to achieve the goal. And we don’t see as we move towards the goal. And we do it in a way that’s very sort of blind. We don’t take the time to enjoy the sights and the sounds and the stops along the way on that journey towards that goal.

And I see this a lot in. Well, I saw this a lot in the software industry. When I was in that industry people had this goal for the next promotion or to get their startup company to a certain number in revenue. And everything was about driving to that goal. And they had such an expectation of how that goal would unfold. That they weren’t really listening to the other people around them, the other people who were talented or had experience and maybe we’re suggesting alternate paths to the same goal. And they weren’t enjoying life. They weren’t spending time with their family, they weren’t really being mindful in the moment. And truly living life. Everything was about hustle and work and reaching that goal. And this really is no way to live. And we’re not really designed to live that way, as we’re going through this journey.

And we’re trying to release expectation so that we don’t feel so limited by it. And we’re trying to perhaps not have a firm destination in mind, but maybe a goal or intention that we’re sort of moving to. And we want to sort of be fluid and how we approach it. What how can we how can we be guided in that.

And I think this is where we really want to talk about the heart and the role that the heart plays in connecting us to our intention and sort of guiding us towards the next phase of our growth to the next stage of our journey. Because if you think about living in the moment and living in the now really being mindful and really being present, when we are truly in that state where we are really fully present in the moment. It’s not so much our mind. That is in that moment. It’s really our heart. It’s our heart where we feel that joy in the simple enjoyment of spending time with a pet or watching children play or appreciating a beautiful scenery, you know, beautiful scenery out in nature or the scent of a flower. It’s our heart It really wells up with that sense of joy and that sense of fulfillment and that sense of delight in the world.

And so rather than really spending so much time thinking about our goals and trying to approach this journey from a very mental, left-brain logical place, we need to let our heart be our compass and guide a little bit. So that in the moment, as these moments of joy sprang up, to me, those little moments of joy, those moments of delight, those moments of surprise, that kind of rise up in the heart, those are the signposts that we’re on the right path, that we’re going the right direction. 

Julian Crosson-Hill 10:46

And often, when we’re going the right direction, in that way, it looks very different from what we expected, when we set out on the journey. At least, I found that, and I think that if you’re really honest with yourself, you’ll probably find that too.

And so, solopreneurs, and spiritual business owners, this is really important for you. Because there is a strong amount of conditioning around business. And the idea that if you are an entrepreneur in the United States, that everything is about hustle, that you basically put all of life on hold, to drive towards these business goals. And I will tell you, nothing will trigger or limit you as much as expectations about your business, absolutely have goals for your business. But I think we get set into these expectations, and I’ve done it a lot in my business, we work on a launch, and we have certain expectations that this is the launch, right? This is the one that’s going to really, it’s going to sell out, it’s the one. And then when that expectation isn’t met, we start to really judge and criticize and that sort of inner critic really starts to get geared up and wound up. And it takes us into a space of limitation. And so, if we can release that expectation ahead of time, if we can approach that logic, like, I’m going to launch this thing, and I’m curious, I wonder how this will work. I wonder how people respond to this. I’m a little curious, this is going to be an adventure, I’m going to try this out. And I’m going to have fun creating it in the meantime, and just see where it goes. 

If we can take a less expectant approach to our business. As we move towards our goals, you still want to move towards goals, I want to stress that. And I keep saying that, in this episode, because goals are still important. We need to have goals. We want to move towards goals. But we need to release a lot of the expectation around how we’re going to get to those goals.

And if there’s nothing that you really take away from this, if the only thing you take away from this is that you want to have a goal that you’re sort of moving towards. And you’re the whole purpose is to just release that expectation and allow getting to the goal to be a little bit of a surprise and a little bit of an exploration and sprinkled with moments of joy and delight, then you’ve got the idea I’m trying to get across here.

And I also just want to encourage you not to mix up having a goal with having a destination because a destination feels final, you arrive at a destination, our spiritual journey and our journey as a spiritual entrepreneur, our journey in our career. These aren’t final, we don’t reach an end point where we just stop. As human beings, we don’t stop growing, we don’t stop learning, we continue. And this journey is continuous, and it continues to unfold. So let go of the idea of a destination.

Have a goal, lean into the moments of delight, lean into the moments of surprise, lean into the moments of joy, because that’s really what’s going to sustain your journey. I hope that helps you sort of get a clearer view of that in that it really helps you use your heart more as a compass to lean into the journey and lean into the uncertainties and the surprises and the delight along the way. 

So I’d like to ask you a little favor at the end of this episode. A couple of things. First of all, you may have noticed I’m no longer just dropping these podcasts weekly, I’ve decided to start doing these weekly. I’m starting to do these weekly. If you follow me on social media, or even if you don’t through my website on my contact page, there’s a form where you can send me an email. I’d love to hear what would you like to know about in this podcast? What would you like me to talk about? Is there something on your mind that you’d like me to explore or something that I’ve covered in a previous episode you’d like me to expand on? Send that my way it’d be happy to address it in a future episode.

The other favor that I have to ask is I see a lot of people who are getting this podcast through Apple. And so, if you’re one of those Apple users, I’d like to ask you to take just a couple of minutes. And if you could rate this podcast on Apple podcasts, it would be a huge help to me. Rating the podcast helps more people discover it and hear this message that I’m trying to get out into the world. So, thank you in advance for your rating, and bright blessings.

Julian Crosson-Hill 15:43 

This has been the answer your unique calling podcast with your host Julian Crosson-Hill and produced by Priest of Inanna LLC. You can find us on priestofinanna.com That’s Priest of Inanna i-n-a-n-n-a.com .Instagram: priestofinanna.