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There’s one lesson the universe keeps serving to me, it’s that everything happens in it’s own time. As a type A, over-planner, this is the hardest lesson to accept and come to peace with. You see, I love timelines. I love goals. I love efficiency. And I love planning my life to optimize all of those things. If my average Q rate is X, and I need Y Q’s to qualify for this event then I should be able to attend Z trials and get my Q’s done while still balancing other priorities and minimizing entry fees. Or if I tend to accomplish A on any given weekend, then I should be able to expect to accomplish B at tryouts.

But, life doesn’t work that way.

The results don’t come on our timelines. We don’t have control over the course design, the judges, the surface, or 10,000 myriad other factors that are essential to our sport. Hell, we certainly don’t have control over our dogs. And while I can understand that fact logically, sometimes there’s a huge gap between knowing it in my brain and knowing it in my heart. I know, the moment I start expecting specific outcomes at tryouts, or any competition, is the moment the universe is going to hit me hard with the opposite.

So what’s the answer? Do we start lowering our expectations? I hear a lot of folks doing that. “Oh I’m just fortunate to be here” or “I just want to make it through a course” when you can see the passion in their eyes and know they are lying to everyone around them to try to fool themselves into believing they’ll be satisfied with anything less than their best. If they’re anything like me, then they’re too afraid to look at the shiny reality of their dreams, too afraid to even think about the chance of being on a podium or making the team, for the fear that they’ll jinx themselves. Which is really just another way of saying that they don’t want to be disappointed. So instead, they put blinders on, secretly shouting “don’t stare at the pink elephant” while trying to convince themselves that they can be happy with sub-par performance. The answer isn’t to lower expectations. It’s disingenuous to yourself, and you can’t kid a kidder.

If your best performance comes from a flow state, that beautiful place where the 10,000 hours of training and mastery simply flow through your subconcious; where time seems to stand still and it feels like you and your dog are reading each-others minds, then you need to tap into your subconscious brain. Lowering expectations doesn’t do that. It engages the conscious brain as you actively work to rewrite your most heartfelt desires.

Instead, you need to drag your expectations into the light. Hold them there, stare at them. Allow yourself to revel in the joy of how amazing that accomplishment would feel. Don’t shy away from them, don’t let all the “I’m not good enoughs” bubble up. Just sit there and be with them.

Then let your expectations go.

You see the key to tapping in to your subconscious is not to lower your expectations or change them, but rather to have no expectations at all. LeBron can’t make a winning free throw if he’s worrying about all the possible outcomes of missing, or thinking about what making the free throw could mean. Instead, he needs to be present, grounded, in the moment, and needs to engage his subconscious to let his body do what it knows best. But of course, it’s easier said than done.

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Everything in It’s Own Time