Managing Expectations: How Showing Up Wins the Day

I don’t usually dabble in poetry, but a wrote the following poem a few years ago. It highlights the importance of managing expectations, which can seem as daunting as climbing a mountain. Take a look.

The Show

Big and small
Short and tall
Things said
Promises made
Hope constructed

Easy out

Words sprout
No remorse
No recourse
Excuses overflow

Hurts bleed

Doubts seed
Silence hurled
Commitments unfurled
Selfishness prevails

So tough
So rough
Too fickle
Too flimsy
Wounding no show

Managing Expectations

While I may not be much of a poet, I do know a little bit about managing expectations. As someone who practices self-awareness (a great skill I can always be better at…) and has a tough temper, God blessed me with the ability to see how responses in a situation may alter circumstances down the line. My mind frequently travels a few steps ahead to make sure that the events in my life won’t spin out of control inadvertently.

Now, obviously this isn’t a perfect science, but managing expectations goes a long way to keeping life on track.

One of the biggest ways to manage expectations is not to promise any more then we are willing to deliver and stand in our integrity, aka Showing Up (I expand on this principle in my book Ten Iron Principles, amazon link at the bottom of the post).

Pleasers and Poor Time Managers

Some people are pleasers and love to make everyone happy. This is a noble approach but can cause conflicts when pleasers promise everything someone asks of them to avoid having to say no.

To pleasers everywhere, I give you permission to say, “no.”

Others are poor managers of their time (I’m in this bunch). Poor managers tend to think they can fit anything into their schedule or they routinely underestimate how much time every task will take. I always think, “Oh, I have a few more minutes, I can do *blank*” only for the task to take longer then I anticipated, and I arrive late to my next commitment.

I’ve learned to have margin in my life for no other reason than I know my “guess how long it will take” Spidey sense is broken. I anticipate that I will run late and now try to factor this into my plans.

To Poor Time Managers, I advise you to add 20 minutes to everything you plan to do.

Why are these things important?

Only saying “yes” when we really can do something and appropriately managing our time are part of Showing Up and managing expectations. These are things that are meant to avoid the parts of the poem which read, “Promises made” and “Excuses overflow.” Right? Even God agrees!

But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one (Matthew 5:37 NKJV).

Avoiding the hurt when someone disappoints us or lets us down can have lasting effects. And, while sometimes this is unavoidable, many times it is. We need to do our part to ensure confidence in our relationships.

This is also something we need to do with ourselves (why do we always keep our word to ourselves last?), but that’s another blog post.

Love, K.

Author of Ten Iron Principles, Contributor in The Power to Make a Difference