Steven Chandler (a professional life coach and published author) has helped me to make a helpful distinction between agreements and expectations.

"Creating agreements works wonders.  Up-vibe your personal and professional relationships by learning to create agreements instead of expecting others to do things (and then being disappointed when [if] they don’t)."

(excerpted from https://www.stevechandler.com/choices.html)

I'll give a generalized example of this for added clarity of understanding whilst keeping confidentiality from my own life coaching career (I've been certified as an Elite Life Coach by Mitch Matthews and David Nadler).

Upon becoming sure or certain about a desired future that both a possible client and I concurred would be worth striving to achieve, I sometimes made an offer to support them in a scheduled way such as with a phone or Skype call every week.

I was paid for this and learned to ask for feedback to be sure that my clients were at least somewhat satisfied. Many times they were!

I didn't use overly verbose, ten page contracts; I relied upon verbal agreements summed up with a paragraph or so in an email.

Once when someone did not want my services and I had already spent her money on much needed rent and groceries, I worked for months to pay her back.

It was difficult to do so yet I knew I would have to to be respected for any further agreements. And so, I eventually did refund her in full.