On my day off last week I spent eight hours up to my elbows in flour, confectioner’s sugar, and food coloring.  I baked two hundred assorted cookies, including fifty shaped like Bevo, the University of Texas longhorn mascot, each iced and colored burnt orange. Bevo cookies are a baking challenge:  the delicate horns have a tendency to break if the cutouts are rolled too thin.  Penn State Nittany Lions, Michigan Wolverines, Wisconsin Badgers, or even Maryland Terrapins would have been  much easier to create out of dough. But because the cookies are going to be served at a reception in Austin, where my music-major son will be performing a recital, Bevo was it.

I’m sharing this because despite my labors and the pleasing fruits of them, I had the vague feeling that I’d wasted the day.  This is distorted thinking, to say the least.  Fortunately, as a professional expert at spotting this type of cognitive error, I was quick to recognize it and nip it in the bud.

Why, after literally slaving all day in front of a hot stove, did the thought,  “I didn’t accomplish anything,” pop into my head?  The answer lies in my expectations.

I usually clean, shop for groceries, and run errands on my day off.  So, despite the mounds of carefully shrink-wrapped Bevos, brownies, and biscotti crowding my freezer, I felt disappointed because the weekly chores were left undone.  I clearly needed to do a little shrink rapping with myself to untwist my thinking.

To paraphrase Homer Simpson, our expectations are the cause of—and the solution to– many of life’s problems.  (The original quote was about beer.)  Expectations create conflicts in relationships.  Think about the last time you felt angry at or let down by a spouse, partner, child, parent, or boss.  I’m willing to bet it was because the person failed to live up to your expectations.  Expectations can also lead to disappointment in ourselves, as my cookie story shows.

Now the solution.  Take stock of your expectations.  Are they realistic?  Helpful?  If not, then modify them or let them go altogether and focus on accepting what is rather than on stewing about what should be.

I realized right away that my expectations were making it hard to feel satisfied with my baking.  So I tossed them aside along with the extra scraps of dough and gave myself permission to admire my handiwork instead of fretting about the dog hair on the living room rug.

To keep my thoughts about how the spread for the reception “should” look in check, I’m not expecting the Bevos make it to Austin this week in my suitcase without breaking.  I’ll be really disappointed if they turn into crumbs en route.  But I’m planning to bring some extra brownies, just in case.  And I’ll focus on what’s truly important — my son and how proud I am of him.