“Manage your expectations” is useful advice. It’s the kind of advice that extends to nearly everything. Personal interactions, career paths, creative endeavors, your health, your family, your life in general.

What are your expectations? How does reality align with those expectations?

There’s another element to consider, too: legacy expectations. Think of them as ideas we formed years ago. Formative expectations.

Like looking into a mirror and noticing the hat you forgot you were wearing … legacy expectations can catch us by surprise.

The good thing is, we can let them go. We can recalibrate. We can realign those expectations if it serves us well to do so.

The ideas we formed in the past — about what’s good, what’s attractive, what’s satisfying, what’s laudable — we can choose to keep those ideas, or we can change how we see things.

“Managing expectations” isn’t just about what we expect now. It’s also about what we began to expect long ago.