For someone who cringes at the concept of expectations presented by pretty much anyone, I seem to easily fall into little traps regularly.
While at a meeting today, our new leader had a meet-and-greet of sorts with all of us and went over his expectations for our team. I’m not saying his expectations were unusual or unreasonable in any way. That’s not the point. It just got me thinking about how masochistic is it to have any expectations of anyone for anything whatsoever. You’ll invariably end up disappointed and jaded.
I learned long ago to avoid having expectations after being bitten in the ass countless times by people not fulfilling said expectations. So of course I do not make a habit of expecting really anything other than from the petite handful of trusted people who’ve somehow never let me down.
But here’s the thing; you should be able to expect people to keep to their word, so I never really looked at ‘people keeping their word’ as much as an expectation but more of a given. I mean, why would people explicitly tell you they will do something and not follow through? It makes no sense. If I have any doubts on whether I will do something, I’m not going to commit to doing it, thereby eliminating the need for others to have an expectation of me. You create an expectation by committing.
I’ve recently fallen into this trap of taking people’s word for something, only to have the exact opposite occur later. I think my new rule will be no more taking for granted that people do what they say. The only thing I’m going to expect is to be disappointed. That way, the actual outcome can only improve.
