Expectations & Enjoyment

Recently I competed in a surf competition. It was my third ever and only my second in a sea kayak, the first being the same competition the year before. I went into the event looking forward to spending time with friends and enjoying my craft outside of work. I had been working without rest for so long that this felt like something my heart truly needed. My body was sore from a long coaching season, my mind tired from nights away from home, and my social energy already spent. Still, I showed up. I wanted to be present, to have fun, to share the ocean with friends. But somewhere between excitement and exhaustion, expectation found its way in. I began to feel that people were counting on me to perform well, to reach the podium, to live up to the image they had of me from the year before. That quiet pressure grew heavier, and no matter how much I tried to ignore it, it stayed with me. In the end, I did the best I could with what I had that day. As the event went on, I began to realize that the weight I felt was not from others but from within. It was my own expectation of myself, my own high standards, my own quiet voice insisting I should have done better. I had mistaken my personal disappointment for the feeling of letting others down; friends, mentors, and the paddlers I coach. That realization felt painfully familiar. It was the same feeling I carried through much of my youth, the sense that nothing I achieved was ever quite enough. It made me wonder how often we do this to ourselves, setting invisible goals in the back of our minds and then moving the finish line the moment we reach it.

How do we learn to see our efforts as enough? How do we allow ourselves to feel contentment in what we have already accomplished?

Perhaps it begins with grace, with letting go of the idea that joy must always be earned.