My trouble with high expectations is that they’re met with disappointments. We aim for one thing, and it feels like a failure when we don’t achieve it, even if we’re close to reaching it.
We ignore the effort put in because it feels invalidated when it’s not enough.
And yet, when we do good work, people will expect more from us.
During college, I was told I would become a great project manager after graduation because of the work I’ve done, that any employer would be lucky to have me. I worked on various projects with different companies since freshman year. My value increased and the expectations got higher. By senior year, everyone was wondering what I would do next, almost as if they were expecting something grand.
But I surprised most of them when I said I wanted to become a fisherman in Argentina. It started out as a joke, but it became something worth considering.
And not just a fisherman in Argentina, but also a football coach for a kid’s team in South America, and an English teacher in rural Mexico; to run a 7-figure business while simultaneously growing a garden in the countryside; to live in a cabin and be self-reliant for a year and to live in a large city where I’m interconnected with various communities.
When people are raising their expectations of me, I look for ways to reset them, not because I’m afraid, but because it makes life more interesting that way.
Because wouldn’t that make for a more entertaining story?
Here’s my inspiration for the day.