When I was 22 years old I was a dedicated runner
and wanted to compete in a race. As I was looking for a race, I anticipated going
to a nearby city on the 4th of July to visit my siblings. Every year, in that
city there is a 10K Freedom run. Since my training runs were always 4 miles and
less, I was hesitant to run in a race longer than my training distance. On the
advertisement for the race, I noticed that there was a one-mile "fun run" alternative. I had
never participated in a fun run, but I thought it would be a good chance to see
how fast I could run a mile against some other competitive runners.
As I approached the starting line
for the "fun run" I noticed one key thing. I was surrounded by kids
mostly in the age ranges of 6-12! In fact, other than my 18 year old brother
who I had persuaded to join the race, we may have been the only adults at the
starting line. Not to be dissuaded by the level of competition, I decided to
run hard anyway to see how fast I could run a mile.
The gun went off and the hoards of
kids started sprinting. I learned that most kids haven't been schooled on pacing
yet, so their over exuberance and adrenaline carried them until their legs got
tired always within a quarter mile. I must admit, it took me probably 200
meters to clear the masses and get to the front of the race. My brother who was
a 2:01 800 meter runner in high school (although I don't think he was running
every day after he graduated) stayed with me along with a 14 year old kid from
a local high school. I imagine the scene looked something like this behind me:
I eventually got ahead of both my
brother and the 14 year old. Since the race course was along a parade route,
there were people lined up along the street watching me take the "fun
run" way too seriously. As I approached the finish line, the only saving
grace for the race was that I would be able to determine how fast my mile time
was. Little did I know that the organizers weren't keeping track of the time. Consequently, for
winning the race I got a participation ribbon meant for the average 10
year old and a wild guess about how fast I ran.
The point of this story is that
expectations and reality don't always align. Even though I had very low
expectations of the race, the reality of the race was much different than I expected
it to be. I certainly learned the purpose of a fun run: it's a race to enter
your kids in, so that they get a small taste of the adult 10K run.
Not all expectations we create in
our minds are based on how events will unfold or predicting the reality of
going to an unknown place. However, our minds often work in future tense in predicting
outcomes. The less we know, the more divergent our expectations may be to
reality.
Selling
Yourself and Building Expectations
In the course of your life, you will
need to sell yourself to get into colleges, get jobs, and into dating
relationships. You essentially try to set the bar for what can be expected of
you in the future. If your presentation allows the school, employer or your dating
interest to conclude that you will most likely meet or exceed their
expectations you have a better chance to be accepted. If your presentation allows them to conclude
that you fall below their expectations, then you will get rejected.
The criteria for acceptance are different for colleges, jobs, and dating interests. For colleges, they
are judging your track record in academics and test taking ability primarily
and then other secondary factors. If the college asks you to present
yourself, it likely means that you are a borderline candidate as your academic track record didn't merit an automatic acceptance based on their applicant pool. Nonetheless,
colleges may ask for an essay stating why you are a good candidate to succeed, so selling yourself is often a pre-requisite of acceptance.
Similarly, in a job interview you
must already have enough qualifications on your resume for the employer to ask
for more. The interview then allows you to raise the expectations sufficiently to
get them to believe that you can fulfill the role you are applying for. In a
word, you are a salesman. If the pitch is too strong or exaggerated it may lead
to a short term win, but once your "real" traits or skills are revealed,
you won't last much longer.
An interview is a two way street.
You may be attracted to the company based on over hyped benefits of working for the
company. Particularly if you have multiple job offers, an employer will have to raise your expectations enough to commit to that company. If reality ends up being much lower than your built up expectations,
you are more likely to move on quicker. Over promising and then under-delivering
is not a formula for success in the business world and for the matter in any realm.
In dating, it gets much more
complicated. Getting a date means a lot of different things to a lot of
different people. Since you probably will end up on dates with people you know
little to nothing about, it may not matter whether you sell yourself as an
ideal candidate if you don't measure up to your dating interest's expectations
in areas that are never revealed to you. At the same time, you don't want to
build up a facade about what you have to offer. You also can't be so humble that
don't reveal anything of value that your date can latch onto that separates you
from other dating candidates.
Setting
Expectations in Others
I will provide the caveat before you
read this section that I don't have any children. However, I believe that it's
important to build up children through labeling and having high expectations for
what they are striving for. Kids generally try to live up or down to
expectations. Labeling a kid as a hard worker, for example, will become a part
of their self-identity if they get positive attention for living up to it. On the other hand, if you call them rebellious they are likely to conform to that label.
Of course, you don't want to feed
children false feedback, as they might grow up with a deluded view of reality. For
example, you don't want to tell them that they are great at basketball when
they are absolutely terrible. Eventually the bubble will burst and their level
of trust in you may deteriorate.
Does having high expectations work
in adults? It does sometimes in the workforce. If as a manager you provide clear and
concise feedback on how well your employee is meeting high expectations, you might see
them work harder to stay in line with expectations. If you set the bar
much lower, you may see the work ethic of the employee drop to be in alignment with lower expectations.
In
relationships with friends and dating, expectations are often kept silent about
what you want from the relationship. I imagine that the bar is much lower to
include someone as a friend versus choosing someone you want to date. After
all, dating is a one at a time endeavor for most of us.
Every relationship is actually two
relationships, how you expect the person to behave and how they behave in
reality. It can be problematic if you never state your expectations, but somehow
expect the person to come into alignment with them. To save you some heartache,
state your expectations to your significant other or expect "reality"
to be less than the standard you have in your mind. It's common sense.
Getting
Spoiled and its Effect on Expectations
It can be a major psychological advantage
to come from a lower socioeconomic class. You get used to life not having material
things. Your expectations have been lowered sufficiently that even small things
are appreciated. This is a good thing.
I've already seen two of the world's
best waterfalls (Victoria Falls and Iguazu Falls). I was in awe and impressed
with the scenery in both instances. The downside to seeing the two best waterfalls
in that other really grand waterfalls that I would normally be awestruck by are
no longer as special. Fortunately, there are things in the world to see besides
waterfalls. Here's a picture I took of Iguazu Falls last year:
I know someone who dated someone "out
of their league" as the first person they ever dated. After the
relationship ended, it was challenging psychologically to accept anyone not as
great as that first person. The bar had been set and expectations had become
unrealistic about who that person could attract. There is applicability in a lot of realms where you've already seen the gold standard on day one.
Self-Expectation
If it's important to hold others to
high expectations, it's infinitely more important to hold yourself to even
higher expectations. If you want to be the best, you have to sacrifice and work
hard and smart to become the best. As David O' McKay would say "Find a
purpose in life so big it will challenge every capacity to be at your best."
It isn't enough to coast along and
just do the minimum to appease your obligators. You need to challenge yourself
consistently to have a chance at reaching your potential. We each have a lot of
unused capacity that could be used to accomplish great things if we exert enough
effort. "It's a funny thing about life. . .If you refuse to accept
anything but the best, you very often get it." --W. Somerset Maugham
Even if we don't reach becoming the
best, we'll be better than we were if we hadn't exerted effort to start on the
journey. Life is too short to waste time and to settle for mediocrity. Whatever
your expectations are for yourself, they will probably have a significant
impact on where you end up in the future.
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