Carry That Weight

Task 24, June 6 to June 13

"The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails." William Arthur Ward

I like this quote. It's about sailing, although frankly I've never been on a sailboat. I've been on a motor boat, the kind that you use when you go water-skiing, which I have done, poorly, on the choppy waters of Lake Erie, though to be honest more beer drinking was done than skiing…

Which was probably the reason I did it so poorly.

But I digress. Back to the quote. For me, it's about giving yourself permission to be flexible, not rigid, in your decision making--both in your business life AND your personal life. Don't try to make things happen the way you want them to happen--instead, as the pro athletes say: let the game come to you.

And one way to become less rigid when making a decision is to manage your expectations. That is true when one is sailing, as Mr. William Arthur Ward noted, but it is also true in our inter-personal relationships. Let me spell that out.

Each of us, whether we are aware of it or not, creates a set of expectations for each person in our life. The expectations differ based on the relationship, i.e. the expectations I have concerning my wife are different from the expectations that I have about my boss; the same goes for every other person in my life. Some of them are boiler plate. For example: honesty (will everyone in our lives be honest with us? Of course not, but we have the right to expect it...) And some of them are specific: for example, I have the expectation that my wife will be understanding when I have a temper tantrum when the Buckeyes lose...(it's more of a "hope" than an expectation, but a man can dream...)

But I've come to realize that it's important for me to take heed of what other people expect from me.

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As a matter of fact, it's probably more important. In the case of my wife, she can expect me to be faithful, stable (except in the aforementioned case of a Buckeye loss), understanding, trusting and forgiving...

So I drew up a list. I put down the name of every person that I care about and next to the name I put down what they have a reasonable right to expect from me.

It was interesting.

TASK:

You try it. Make a list of everyone you care about and next to the names list what you think they expect from you. I think you'll be surprised at the results.