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People and Expectations

Guest post by: Jim Stovall

Article Overview: As you have already discovered, the world is full of all kinds of different people. Some of them mesh well with our personalities and expectations and others simply do not. This is not a problem in and of itself because all of these people put together make up our world as it exists. The difficulty arises when we expect people to be other than what they are. For example, we all have a friend or acquaintance who is habitually late. If this is the only problem with a particular person, it can be dealt with. Over the months and years, we simply learn to build in extra time, because we know that they will continue to be late. The problem arises when we expect that late person to be punctual.

People and Expectations

As you have already discovered, the world is full of all kinds of different people. Some of them mesh well with our personalities and expectations and others simply do not. This is not a problem in and of itself because all of these people put together make up our world as it exists.

The difficulty arises when we expect people to be other than what they are. For example, we all have a friend or acquaintance who is habitually late. If this is the only problem with a particular person, it can be dealt with. Over the months and years, we simply learn to build in extra time, because we know that they will continue to be late. The problem arises when we expect that late person to be punctual.

We can worry and fret over their being late, and they will still stroll in a half-hour past the agreed-upon time. This becomes problematic, because invariably the person who is late is calm, relaxed, and doesn't have a care in the world while we-the person harboring the expectation that they will

be on time-have made ourselves into a nervous wreck. It is a unique balancing act to expect the best of others while allowing them to be the people they have proven themselves to be.

Certain people will never be neat, thoughtful, polite, professional, or on time. This challenge is nothing compared to the one we face ourselves when we build a world of our own expectations that makes people what they are not. We cannot expect people to live up to our standards. We can

simply point out what we consider to be a deficiency in their performance and make ourselves available to help them to the extent they really want help.

Most times, people who are late, rude, messy, unprofessional, etc. are that way because somewhere in life they have learned there is a payoff for this kind of behavior, or the penalty is not sufficient enough for them to change. If instead of always complaining about your friend being late, you simply went on without them, they may begin to change their habits. Obviously, your complaints and your stress level have not worked up to this point.

Resolve to always expect people to do their best, but give them the latitude to be who they really are. In this world, there is only one person's performance that we can impact. Focus all of your energy on that person's performance, and allow other people to seek their own level.

Today's the day!

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Article Tags: expectations, focus, Jim Stovall, personalities



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