Managing the Expectations You Have for Yourself

This month we’ve been writing a lot about your prospects’ expectations of you, your business, and your product or service. But there is another set of expectations you should be concerned with—your own. How do you manage the expectations you have of yourself?

There is no dearth of opinions, suggestions, and adages related to setting expectations for yourself. I like the one from Norman Vincent Peale (although the idea behind it goes back at least to the 1630s). “Shoot for the moon. If you miss it, you will still land among the stars.” Obviously, Peale did not have a very accurate understanding of the relationship between celestial bodies, but the message is a good one.

I have to admit, though, that I like this version better. “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars. Of course, then your eyeballs will boil and your lungs will explode from decompression, but that’s what you get for being a damn showoff.”

So, which is it? Are we supposed to shoot for the moon or aim a little closer to home?

SET THEM HIGH OR SET THEM LOW

If you Google anything having to do with setting expectations for yourself, you’ll get some mixed messages. Half of the articles say you should set expectations high because that will motivate you, and if you set them too low you won’t work as hard. The other half of the articles say that we are setting ourselves up for failure when we set our expectations too high—we end up disappointed and then give up completely.

A Harvard psychologist, Robert Rosenthal, conducted a study in the 1960s to look at what effect external expectations had on students. A group of teachers were told that specific students were expected to be high achievers because of their high scores on a test. In reality, the students had been chosen at random. Researchers studied these students for several years. The students that teachers expected more from did indeed make larger gains in their academic performance.

So just by their teachers expecting more from them, the students excelled? Think it and it will manifest into existence? Not exactly. Rosenthal coined the term Pygmalion effect to explain the phenomenon—when people expect a certain behavior, they are more likely to act in a way that makes the behavior more likely to occur. The teachers spent more time focusing on the students they thought would excel. They gave them more time and attention, and if they got something wrong, spent more time giving them detailed feedback so they could learn from it.

So, you can act like the teachers, setting high expectations that lead you to invest in yourself, and voilà: success! Not so fast. It turns out that there is a downside to setting high expectations. It has to do with how our brain reacts when we don’t achieve something that we expected.

THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON EXPECTATIONS

Let’s say it’s the end of the quarter, and you have so many deals in the pipeline that you expect to exceed your sales quota. Even anticipating this will cause your brain to release some dopamine (which makes you feel good). Now, let’s look at three possibilities:

1. You close the deals you expected. Your brain releases more dopamine and you feel good about yourself.
2. You close even more deals, raising your compensation even more than you expected. This causes your brain to release even more dopamine than in scenario #1. You feel really good.
3. You get about 90 percent of quota. This causes a huge dopamine drop. You feel horrible.

Basically, we feel good when we get something we thought we would, we feel great when we are happily surprised by more than we expected. The problem is that when we don’t meet an expectation, even if we just miss it by a little bit, we feel really lousy.

So, is it better to have really low expectations of ourselves so that we can always be pleasantly surprised? Stanford Professor of Psychology Carol Dweck says that “having low expectations for yourself is a recipe for feeling good about yourself at any particular moment, but not getting anywhere.” If you want to grow in your career, your relationship, or at any skill, setting low expectations isn’t going to get you there.

SO WHAT ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO DO?!

Do you want to be happy but going nowhere, or aspirational but frustrated? Luckily these are not your only choices. There are several things you can do that will allow you to set high (but realistic) expectations for yourself without becoming miserable.

CONTROL WHAT YOU CAN CONTROL

Why did those students in Rosenthal’s study achieve more success? Because their teachers were controlling everything they could to help these students. They set up a better learning environment for them and gave them more attention. Be your own teacher: invest in giving yourself the best chance for success.

Are you trying to reach your sales quota? You’ll need to put in the time researching prospects and developing question trees. Do you want to get better at yoga? Make sure you have a good place in your home to practice and sign up for a class. Do everything you can to make it more likely that you’ll reach your goal.

MITIGATE RISK

Some things are in your control, but others are not. While you can’t completely avoid obstacles, you can be prepared for them. Mitigate the risk of the road bumps along the way as much as you can by thinking of all of the obstacles that you might possibly face. Then, make a plan for what you’ll do should you encounter one.

This is what creating question trees is all about. They help you think through any objection you might face. You’re mitigating the risk of not knowing how to respond to a prospect.

PROMPT YOUR BRAIN FOR NEW EXPECTATIONS

You might not even realize some of the expectations you have, but everything we experience is impacted by our expectations. When I hear my alarm in the morning, my brain expects me to hit the snooze button and go back to sleep. If I hear my alarm and get up to go for a run, my brain will be confused (as will my husband).

If you’re trying to set new expectations for yourself, you need to help your brain along the way. If you want to start running in the morning, set out your clothes the night before. You’re training your brain to expect something new.

Are you trying to remember to write three things down for all of your calls? Leave out a sheet of paper and write 1, 2, and 3 on it. You’re training your brain to remember to fill it out before you get on the phone. Pretty soon, that’s what your brain will expect before every phone call.

THINK BIG, ACT SMALL

You should set high expectations for yourself, but you also need some dopamine along the way. Once your larger goal is set, break it down into a series of smaller milestones. Remember that you get some dopamine just from setting your end goal. Each milestone should be able to be achieved in a short enough time frame that your dopamine-induced enthusiasm hasn’t worn off.

If you’re training to run a marathon, you have to recognize some accomplishments before you get to running a full 26 miles. Similarly, even if your end goal is to increase the number of clients you bring in by a certain percentage, your first milestone might be scheduling a certain number of demos per week.

The number one rule about setting expectations for yourself has more to do with your mindset than anything else. Don’t expect perfection. When you make a mistake or fall short of your goal, rather than dwelling on failure, look at it as an opportunity to learn. In fact, maybe one of your goals could be to view your failures as learning opportunities.

At Maestro we truly believe in learning from failure and trying again. That’s why the sales method we teach is named for the phoenix. To learn more about our Phoenix Sales Training and other workshops we offer, email us at mastery@maestrogroup.co.