Managing expectations is a crucial concept that will be used nearly every moment of every day of your entire life. In order to succeed, we often need goals to pursue. Those goals will require smaller benchmarks along the way, in order to keep us on the proper path. We need to expect when we will most likely reach those moments and failing to consider a timeline can lead to failure.

When it comes to our physical pursuits, injuries are one barrier that is presented often and unexpectedly. It is hard to consider how we will deal with these injuries before they occur, but once we sustain them, we must change our expectations to consider how they impact our lifestyle. If you are, for example, using weightlifting to develop explosiveness and you sustain a shoulder injury, you need to accept that your shoulder strength will decrease over time, since you cannot perform intense lifts.

At the same time, however, you must adapt in order to prevent losing too much progress. You must harden your mind, avoid being defeated and focus on recovering that shoulder injury, as quickly as possible, while maintaining other aspects of your physical being that aren’t necessarily impacted. For example, find ways to strengthen your core and legs, so that once your shoulder is recovered, you will be able to push beyond your previous limits.

Recently, I felt as though I mostly overcame an adductor/quad tear and a soleus/gastroc tear, as well as some significant elbow and lower back pain, only to more recently injure my neck and right shoulder. Nevertheless, we must adapt and push forward, all while managing our expectations and staying on our path.