Unrealistic expectations.
Every one of us has a blind spot about the things that come easy for us. When something is very easy (when I can see a strategic path forward, or when I can know what someone is feeling, or when I can “pull up my big girl pants and just do the work”), it feels like the task itself is easy.
But what’s really happening is, you as an individual have a natural propensity for this thing that has made your doing of the thing easier for you and has created a deeper neural pathway for you in that particular skill.
The skill itself is not easy. It’s only easy for you.
(Granted, it’s not just you. There are others like you. But on a standard distribution, it’s not the “majority” of people. We’re talking the outer distributions here, in terms of how many people it is “just that easy” for.)
The problem is, of course, that the people who most need to read this post are going to skip it because it’s me talking. But I am getting increasingly more and more frustrated that the way a lot of people push back on the “individualized success” approach by saying, “well, just suck it up and do the work” or “just suck it up and learn it” like the people who aren’t able to do whatever thing you want them to do aren’t actually doing the work. Or that they aren’t trying, still.
When we don’t realize just how biased our approach is to what comes naturally for us… we really do the world a disservice.
But let’s be honest, none of those people are listening to me, so I want to talk to you, the people who are listening.
Even when we’ve fully bought into individualized success as the common rule that governs success on any level, we can still hold unrealistic expectations because of our blind spots.
I still, for instance, have an unrealistic expectation that people with high Consistency and low Individualization are going to naturally take to the process of valuing each individual’s differences. Even when I have literally seen the math. That’s not their job in the world. (And praise to all the high Cons/low Indy people who do this work… I still think it’s the best way to generally consistent excellence across the board, but it doesn’t seem that way at first, because of the friction.)
But where are my unrealistic expectations hampering me? Am I spending too much time talking to those people when they’re not listening? Am I ignoring an audience of people who very much want to listen, because I’m frustrated that I can’t change everyone’s minds? That’s my Individualization working against me. (And Sig, let’s be honest.)
What about you?
Are you expecting people with no Empathy skills to anticipate everything you need and want, just because you are able to do that for them?
Are you expecting people without Learner to get as excited about the possibility of learning as you are? And are you expecting them to take easily to the process and dive in deeply to learning this new system or concept?
Are you expecting people with no Achiever to be as enthusiastic about working hard as you are? Are you expecting them to be driven and hard-working because “that’s just what good people do”? Are you judging them when they don’t show ambition?
Are you expecting people with no Communication to initiate conversation as often as you’d like to? And if someone isn’t interested in talking, are you being hurt that they don’t want to talk to you because “if they liked me, they would talk to me”? What if that’s not how they’re wired?
I know some of us are going to be tempted to push back on this, because that wiring is just so deep. The instinct is so much a part of who we are.
Anytime you find yourself using the word “just,” that can be an indicator that there’s a Strength behavior at play. Something to watch for, anyway.
But what if we started doing the work to surrender our unrealistic expectations? What if I remind myself that I have to use my words when I need something from someone, because they’re not going to be able to read my mind?
What if I remind myself that people show love in other ways besides talking, and allow my very introverted partner to have the silence they need? (And then go talk to another person, because, hey, if you have to talk, you have to talk.)
What if I remind myself that not being able to put patterns together quickly doesn’t make someone stupid, and my coworker’s need to have things spelled out to them is not a reflection on my leadership?
What if I remind myself that a person not being good at learning is not a fault of theirs? It’s only a difference in how we’re wired, and there are other ways we can connect.
What if I remind myself that my partner’s driven behavior is not a bug in their personality? They need less rest and they thrive in times of high action, and that’s something I think is cool about them, even if I don’t need it.
This is part of the work of developing your Strengths. Recognizing where your “3000 words per minute” speed is not shared by the people around you. And we can’t do work on other people. We can only do work on ourselves. So if we need soothing because there’s friction, we need to develop the skills for that resilience.
Everyone, in every relationship, needs some sort of validation (from their friends, partners, coworkers, etc.) that they’re not broken. Even if the way we do that isn’t verbal. It’s like the signal that we belong in relation to the other person. (Whatever the relation is. Right-related is a big alignment.)
Anyway, I know those are big thoughts for a Sunday morning, but I’ve decided I’m not going to not-share when I have these thoughts anymore. My fear of saying something that will make people not want to listen is getting the boot this year.
It’s unrealistic of me to expect that everyone will like me or want me around. That’s the unrealistic expectation I’m working on this year. What’s yours?
Becca