Hopeful Expectations
I meet new people all the time. Some become donors, volunteers, confidants, friends. Sometimes things just don’t click. Our values don’t align. The timing isn’t right. Other priorities interfere. Sometimes, despite our best intentions, a relationship simply doesn’t become what we hoped it would be.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the difference between hope and expectation. Our core characteristic this month is High Expectations, and I still believe deeply in the power of expectations. I believe people often live up—or down—to the expectations we have of them. That applies equally to ourselves. Raise the bar of what we expect from ourselves, and we are often capable of achieving more.
But I’ve also been wondering: Can high expectations lead to a crash, burnout, and generalized unhappiness? I think they can. For me, this becomes an important difference between hope and expectation. I hope for a perfect outcome. I expect a good-enough outcome. When a hope isn’t fulfilled, there can be disappointment. A realization of not this time, or not this person, or not this way. It can sting, but there is something spacious about hope. Hope leaves room for another possibility.
On the other hand, when an expectation isn’t met, it can feel like something has gone wrong. And all too easily, the question becomes: What did I do wrong? What should I have done differently? Why didn’t this work?
Expectations can create pressure—even when we never intended them to. And lately I’ve been wondering if I’ve done that to my staff and others I interact with. I do expect a lot. I expect people to show up for their work and give it their all. I expect them to care about the people we serve. I expect them to be accountable, to keep learning, to be willing to stretch, and to do their best work.
I don’t want to lower those expectations. But I do want to create a place where we can be gracious with one another—and with ourselves—when we miss the mark. Because grace is not the same thing as excusing poor performance. Grace doesn't mean that standards disappear. It means that when someone falls short, we can address it without making the failure a judgment of their worth. We can ask, What happened? What can we learn? What needs to change? We can hold people accountable and still hold them with compassion. High expectations and high grace complementing each other.
I recently watched a TEDx Talk by Gina Jeenafu. Her speech about High Expectations without High Pressure helps me think about this in a new way. Jeenafu makes a distinction between expectations around things we can control and things we cannot. I can have very high expectations for what I can control.
I can expect myself to show up.
I can expect myself to do my best.
I can expect myself to work hard.
I can expect myself to be honest.
I can expect myself to have fun along the way.
But I cannot expect someone else to respond the way I want them to.
I cannot expect a potential donor to say yes.
I cannot expect a new relationship to become a friendship.
I cannot expect someone else to see the world exactly as I do.
And I certainly cannot expect life to follow the script I have written for it.
That distinction feels important. It suggests that the answer isn't to lower expectations, but to be more discerning about where we place them.
The Philippines taught me something about confidence. I saw again and again how confidence is contagious. And maybe expectations are contagious, too. If I believe in myself, I am more likely to believe in you. If I believe in you, you are more likely to believe in yourself. But there is a difference between believing in someone and expecting them to fulfill my particular vision for them. One says, I believe you are capable. The other can sound like, I need you to do this exactly the way I expect. The first creates possibility. The second can create pressure.
I think about that a lot as a leader. I want my staff and everyone who interacts with the Momentum Center to know that I have high expectations of them because I believe we are all capable of extraordinary things. I want them to stretch. I want them to grow. I want them to do work that matters.
And I want them to know that missing the mark doesn't mean they have failed as human beings. The bar can remain high. We just need to remember that the bar is there to help us grow, not to beat ourselves with.
I believe my life will continue to unfold in beautiful, poignant ways. Is that hope? Is it expectation? Is it both? Maybe I can have high hopes for the outcome and high expectations for how I participate in creating it—while leaving room for the universe, other people, and life itself to have a say. Which takes me back to a song from my childhood: High Hopes. I love the idea of keeping our hopes high. Of believing that something wonderful might be possible even when we can't yet see how we're going to get there.
So perhaps this month's lesson for me is not to lower my expectations. It is to put them where they belong.
High expectations for effort.
High expectations for integrity.
High expectations for courage.
High expectations for joy.
High expectations for ourselves.
And high hopes for the outcome.
With enough grace to remember that sometimes the outcome will be not this time, not this person, not this way. And that’s okay. Because I still believe that life will continue to unfold in beautiful, poignant ways.
Maybe the best that we can do is to hold our hopes high, our expectations wisely, and our hearts open.
I tried my hand at another poem this month:
Between hope and expectation
lies possibility.
What is possible?
Everything!
Namaste,
Barbara Lee
Experi-Mentor
Barbara@MomentumCenterGH.org
