Managing Expectations

Today I have a very special guest, author and woman extraordinaire, Karen Walker. We met a few years ago through a blog tour class and I soon discovered we’d lived in Albuquerque for a whole five months together - although we never met. Karen’s book, Following the Whispers, is a powerful memoir, and I recommend that everyone pick it up. It recently became available as an EBook, so I asked Karen to share today about managing expectations.

First of all, I’d like to thank Diane for helping me format “Following the Whispers” so that it could become an e-book. She is awesome to work with. It’s funny how you come to love people you’ve not met in person through an online relationship, but it’s true.

This is the first stop on my virtual book tour and the topic is managing expectations.
Expectations get me in trouble. If I expect to either: have a good time, have the best vacation ever, meet the man of my dreams, lose those 20 pounds, fill in your own particular thing here, I’m doomed. Because we cannot control results.

What we can do is have a dream and hope for a certain outcome. We can set our intention and place our energy and attention on whatever it is. But to expect to get what we want sets us up for disappointment and for me, puts me on an emotional roller coaster--one that doesn’t stop.

As a writer, I wanted to be published. I had dreams of being on Oprah. Those dreams were dashed when I couldn’t even find an agent after almost two years of trying. I had to ask myself what I hoped to achieve by publishing my book. The answer came: I wanted to share my story with others in hopes of helping those struggling with similar issues. It wasn’t about making a lot of money or becoming famous. If I had expected those things as a result of publishing, I would have failed.

So dream away, hope all you want, set goals and take the steps to reach them. But don’t expect anything, accept what does occur, and your emotional journey will be a bit more peaceful.

Blessings,
Karen

BTW - you should hear the spunk in Karen’s voice! Matches that red hear perfectly.

Karen can be found blogging at Following the Whispers

Following the Whispers can be purchased at:
Amazon or SmashWords