The holiday season is upon us. This is the time of year when visions, or nightmares, of family gatherings, business parties, and end-of-year deadlines loom large. There's a mix of anticipation, apprehension, and maybe even disbelief as you wonder where the past 10 months have gone, and then the all-important question pops up, "How will you survive the next two months unscathed?"
To help you thrive, and not just survive, this holiday season, let's look at the impact of expectations and the power you have to do something different.
We'll begin with the fact that humans are terrible at knowing what other people want, even though most of us think we're good at it. In a surprising twist, according to researchers at Imperial College, empathetic individuals are worse at predicting what others want and will even ignore data telling them they're wrong. Yet most people cruise along on auto-pilot, especially in long-term relationships (professional and personal), assuming they know what others want or expect from them.
At work, this could mean that your boss or other colleagues:
- Have lower expectations than you've imagined.
- Have changed their expectations since your last review.
- Have different expectations during family-focused times, like school vacations and holidays.
- Would prefer less communication from you.
- Would like for you to ask for help instead of burning yourself out or dropping the ball.
- Would like for you to take your vacation time because they want you to be happy and productive.
- Are satisfied with you attending only the meetings that are mission-critical for your project.
- Think you're over-performing in a non-essential area but under-performing in a place they consider critical.
Clearly, this is just a sample list. To understand what others want from you most, you will have to have the conversations to ask them. On the flip side, if you're in a leadership role, you can help your team by plainly communicating your expectations and preferences, especially as they evolve.
This phenomenon of misjudging expectations is, of course, not limited to work. And it's one of the reasons social gatherings can be so stressful. People do many things over the holidays to meet the expectations they think other people have.
This could mean that you:
- Volunteer to attend or host activities you are no longer interested in.
- Prepare fancy meals that feel like a burden not only to the people cooking but also to those who feel they have to attend.
- Spend more money than you want to because you're afraid you'll disappoint others or look bad.
- Do lots of exciting, impressive things during your time off, even though you only want to lie in bed reading.
- Participate with your friends in the same activities you did in your 20s so you can relive "the good old days," even though those activities don't feel so fun anymore.
- Carry on a tradition that should have been abandoned decades ago but continues for no other reason than that it is a tradition.
It's easy to get stuck carrying on the status quo because you imagine how disappointed people would feel if you didn't. There are many fallacies here, but let's just look at one: What if everyone else is carrying on the status quo only because they're afraid of disappointing others too?
The antidote is to remember that all the people in your circle are dynamic human beings, just like you, and they'll probably appreciate you taking the time to ask them what they truly enjoy, what's important to them, and what they'd like to do differently. (Don't forget to ask the kids — their ideas are often the best!)
Now, sometimes the expectations we blindly accept are cultural ones. I had a dear friend who was a family physician, and she let her house stay messy, even when guests were coming over. She said she used to try to clean up for others, but it was too stressful; she soon realized that her messy house made other people feel better about how neat their own homes were. It was a win-win, she got to focus on the things that were important to her (tidying up wasn't on that list), and others got to feel good about themselves.
This leads to my final point: your own expectations. The majority of clients we've worked with reserve the highest expectations for themselves. So, even though most people are: exhausted after 2+ years of the pandemic crisis, juggling more work than ever, feeling the financial impact of inflation, and still navigating the blurred line between work and home, they nonetheless expect themselves to carry on as usual. In short, they expect themselves to be superheroes.
While being a superhero would be awesome, there's something refreshing, freeing, and honest about embracing your humanness and setting different expectations which respect yourself and life's inevitable ups and downs. Reevaluating and adjusting your (and others) expectations is not a weakness; it takes far more courage, self-reflection, wisdom, and maturity than blindly rushing on in a panic, unable to see the forest for the trees.
There are many circumstances you have no control over, but you do have the power to:
- Communicate clearly with and be curious about others.
- Adjust the mental framework you're operating from.
- Cut yourself some slack.
In the end, you might find that expecting less actually gets you much more.
Artwork: Feast of the God 1948 by Max Ernst