Developing Realistic Expectations
Here are some tips on how to develop realistic expectations from a reformed master of over-exertion:
There are only 24 hours in a day
When you use a day planner to schedule your tasks it quickly becomes apparent just how few you can cram into a single work day with any number of reasonable hours. It’s a finite amount of time, and you can’t get any more it (at least not without sacrificing something else, like sleep). Only ask as much of yourself as can mathematically be accomplished in the time that you have.
Take your cue from the big fish
Rich and powerful people like Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and Barack Obama have more work and more responsibility than almost anyone else on earth. Yet Buffet finds the time to eat at McDonalds, Gates is a globe-trotting philanthropist and Obama managed to sit down with both Jay Leno and the ladies on The View. Find out how the movers and shakers in your industry structure their days, delegate tasks and maintain their work/life balance, and then model their behaviour to handle all of your responsibilities in a realistic manner.
Take your cue from the little fish
Some of the most realistic expectations are the modest ones. You want to have a roof over your head, clothes on your back, food on the table for you and the people you love. This is the same thing that almost everyone wants, and almost everyone who wants it manages to find a way to have it, even if it’s not always a perfect situation. Do you really need to make seven figures, drive a Mercedes or have Warren Buffet over for dinner in order to enjoy the good things in life? Simply having enough to meet your family’s needs for today and not having to worry about how you’ll meet those needs tomorrow is perhaps a much more realistic but no less fulfilling dream.
A little unreality is a good thing
Someone who only set the most realistic of expectations for themselves might have everything they need, but they probably wouldn’t be very happy. We are a species that needs a challenge, something that forces us to go beyond ourselves, something that doesn’t have a built-in guarantee of success.
Dare to dream. Take a leap of faith now and then. Developing and achieving a lot of small, realistic expectations is how you survive. Chasing after and maybe achieving the odd big and crazy unrealistic expectation is how you thrive.
