Michele Woodward

Powerful Coaching. Powerful Results.

expectations

Christmas Expectations

By Leave a Comment

 

I wrote this in December, 2007, and Mary H. tells me it’s her favorite blog post. So, with her in mind, I bring it back for you now:bigstock-family-christmas-x-mas-wint-53829334

At this time of the year there are so many expectations. It’s as if we’ve bought into a collective fairy tale, and it goes something like this:

It’s Christmas morning. A large, happy, healthy, attractive, educated, polite, loving family gathers in tasteful bathrobes and slippers under a tastefully decorated tree in a tastefully decorated, expansive home. Beautiful little children are appropriately excited, and the well-behaved, well-groomed dog lazes nearby. A fire crackles in the hearth.

Let’s put you in the scene, now. Your handsome, loving spouse sits with you on the couch, your head on his shoulder, his arm around you. He pulls out the most beautifully wrapped box. You open it, eyes wide. It’s perfect. You kiss passionately. Your attractive and healthy parents link arms and smile in appreciation for such a wonderful son-in-law. His equally attractive and healthy parents beam smiles in their heroic son’s direction.

And everyone lives happily ever after, having had The Perfect Christmas.

Nice story, huh? But real life often fails to match up to this fairy tale, and we feel somehow cheated, disappointed, less than, or maybe even mad.

Because real life can be messy.

Maybe this is the first Christmas you’ve had to plan, organize and shop for — because your wife will be in Baghdad this year.

Maybe this year you won’t get a gift from your spouse — because his Alzheimer’s has robbed him of the ability to think of you as anything but that nice woman who visits him every day.

Maybe this year you’ll be alone on Christmas morning, because it’s your ex-spouse’s turn to have the kids.

Maybe there won’t be a perfect present under the tree because there’s not enough money for the tree, let alone gifts.

Maybe you’ll be missing your mother, who passed away in the spring. Maybe you’re, once again, the only single person in the room on Christmas morning. Maybe you’re in the middle of chemotherapy this Christmas.

There are plenty of ways your life is different from the fairy tale, huh? No wonder so many of us are snappish, moody and melancholy.

Because our lives don’t match the fairy tale.

And that, my friends, is OK.

Because if your wife is in Baghdad this Christmas, you can still give your kids the best Christmas you know how to. And your spouse with Alzheimer’s? His gentle wonder that such a nice lady is there with him is a precious gift. And when your kids spend Christmas morning with your ex-spouse, you are telling your kids that their own relationship with their dad is important — can you be more loving than that?

In all of our real lives, there are great challenges — and great gifts. When you feel angry or depressed or unhappy that your real life doesn’t measure up to the manufactured, unreal fairy tale — take heart. Just accept your own, unique life — messy, loud, fractured, silly, disorganized, untasteful. Because it’s all yours. And it’s perfect, just the way it is.

Honestly, would you have it any other way?

So, love it because it’s yours. Love it because it’s very real. Love it because love is what Christmas is all about.

 

Power Talk

By Leave a Comment

Last week our Results Club session featured a fascinating conversation (if I do say so myself) with John Kador, author of 201 Best Questions To Ask On Your Interview, among plenty of other books.

John was talking about how to answer that old job interview chestnut, “So. Tell me a little about yourself.” John’s suggested response? “I’d be happy to tell you about myself, but first, may I ask a question?”

If you were the interviewer, what would you say? I’d say, “Sure, go ahead.”

And, guess what? By asking a question first, you’ve effectively changed the course of the conversation. You have the full attention of the interviewer and you are now in charge.

Don’t blow the opportunity.

John suggested you ask a question that is eerily similar to my Best Job Interview Question Ever: “What expectations do you have for this position?”

Great question. Because the answer tells you exactly what you need to focus on when you talk about yourself, your strengths and your skills.

And, I was thinking.

As I am wont to do.

Today, it’s as much about keeping a job as it is getting a job. And to keep your job you need to make sure people know how you’re contributing and how you’re fulfilling their needs.

Why not use this question — “what are your expectations for me in the coming months?” — with your boss, or your board, or, if you’re brave enough, with your subordinates? Why not use this question to touch base, and to “sell” yourself and your abilities?

Wouldn’t it be great to deliver exactly what someone wants and needs?

Wouldn’t that make you completely irreplaceable?

The best in life coach tips and useful suggestions to help you get the life you want to live.

The Expectations Of Others

By Leave a Comment


Shannon does a great job at work. Everybody says so. Her performance reviews are always “Exceeds Expectations” and she’s been steadily promoted to a position of major responsibility.

So, why isn’t she happy? She’ll tell you she’s burned out. She has no personal life. She has no time. She can’t think. She forgets the birthdays of friends. She’s productive at work, but still very, very stuck in a life that doesn’t fit quite right.

What would she like? “I guess I would say, ‘Peace’ — time to hang with my friends. Time to maybe even have a boyfriend. Time to do quilting (which I love). Time to play with my nieces and nephews. Time to work out and get healthier. Time to do a really good job, too.”

What’s keeping her from that vision of a life? I ask her about her job and her eyes get glassy. “I work 10-12 hour days, probably six days a week,” she says. “But there’s always so much to do.”

Any way she could delegate, or get more staff to help?

She pauses. “Well, I could try that, but I’m afraid I won’t find anyone as committed as I am,” she says. “I have pretty high expectations for others.”

Hmmmn. I sense an avenue for exploration. I ask, “Shannon, what’s ‘success’ mean to you?”

After a bit of hemming, hawing, inner cheek chewing and stolen glances toward the ceiling, Shannon says, “Success is not disappointing others, I guess. When I’m successful, I’m meeting the expectations of others.”

“So,” I start. “Other people get to decide how successful Shannon will be, and you have do what they say? You have no role in that? Because that’s kinda what I hear you saying.”

Tears well in Shannon’s eyes. “I never thought about it that way,” she says quietly.

“You can have a life of your own design, Shannon. It is possible. But you have to figure out what’s most important to you and live by that, rather than accepting that assignment from others.”

We take a look at Shannon’s underlying fears and beliefs and began the process of eliminating and revising those that don’t fit with the life Shannon would like to live.

It comes down to that idea Shannon has — that success means meeting the expectations of others. Is there another way to cast that sentence in a way that allows Shannon to get the life she wants to live? After some poking and prodding, we come up with:

“I am successful when I meet my own expectations.”

Which is true. One of the best pieces of advice I ever received was from (shout out here) my friend Grey Terry. In a very difficult period of my life, Grey looked me in my perpetually red-rimmed eyes and said, “Michele, just do things today you can be proud of a year from now.”

It was in my power, then, to have the expectation that I would face a great challenge as a person of integrity, responsible and respectable, a person of honor. And have my actions flow from these values. As a result, there’s very little I regret having done from that time of my life. Which is quite nice.

Shannon came to see that she, too, has the power to make and set her own expectations for how she will be in the world — that she will make time for the things that nourish her whole life, such as relationships, interests, exercise and a healthy diet.

Attempting to live by the expectations of others merely held her back. Now, she feels free.

And you? How do you feel?

Life’s Little Aggravations

By Leave a Comment


A lovely man of my acquaintance rang me up this week and told me he enjoys what I write. I demurely blushed. Then, being the genial problem-solver extraordinaire that he is, he added: “Could you write something about living with day-to-day problems? Not everyone, you know, has problems in the workplace.”

No, it’s true that not everyone has problems in the workplace. Plenty of my gazillion-and-twelve readers don’t even have a workplace! But nearly everyone is vexed by daily frustrations that add up to make them feel stressed and overwhelmed.

You know what I mean: The fellow at the baseball game who’s drunk, spills everything and screams obscenities in front of your kindergartner. Your upstairs neighbor who seems to walk the floor in golf spikes every morning at 2am. The gal yakking on her cell phone while the traffic behind her piles up because she’s not taking the right turn on red. The woman in the express checkout with a full basket, who, at the last minute, can’t locate her checkbook or pen.

How, indeed, can one deal with those issues in a positive and purposeful way?

Ah, now we’re getting to Michele’s Big Vision Of Life. Prepare yourself — there are several tenets we’ll have to cover.

First, you can never know what’s going on in another person’s head unless they tell you. The woman in front of you in the checkout line may live alone with 56 cats, and that trip to the store may be her only interaction with another human being in the whole week. Her momentary connection with the clerk, and you, may mean more to her than you can ever know. The gal on the cell phone? She might be a doctor racing to the hospital, making sure the emergency orders she’s issuing are absolutely understood by the oncology nurse on the other end of the line.

Since you can’t know what’s in another person’s mind, you have two choices: decide they’re purposefully making your life difficult, or, they’re doing the best they can.

Guess which choice helps you feel more peaceful.

Second, people don’t have to be exactly like you to be right. You may go to the store to get milk and eggs, but other people go there to get connection and affirmation. A little tolerance and acceptance of different motivations and expectations can go a long way toward reducing your frustration.

Folks are frustrated that other people aren’t exactly like themselves in plenty of situations. I know churches where people are frustrated because not everyone in the congregation approaches worship the same way. I know offices where people are angry because not everyone is a driven Type-A who’s wedded to his job. I know marriages in which both partners futilely endeavor to mold each other into their own shape. Each of these situations overlooks the big point — we’re all different, and vive la difference! Different outlooks, experiences and expectations bring richness and fullness to life. It certainly feels like I’m powerful and in control when I think “it would be better if everyone were just like me!”, but what that really is… is fear. It’s the fear of that which challenges my comfort zone.

Third, you can operate out of fear or you can operate out of love. When you operate out of fear, you limit your world view to that which cannot hurt you. Fear doesn’t allow you to question your own beliefs, or analyze your own mistakes, or even consider that someone else might have a valid point. Fear is a closed, keep-myself-safe approach. Fear is “if he really knew what I was like inside, he’d leave me, so I’m going to keep my true Self hidden and hope for the best.” That particular fear leads to a horrible death — the death of the sense of who you really are and of what’s important to you. It’s the death of true authenticity.

Love, on the other hand, is transparent, authentic and open. Love is all those things we’ve read — patient and kind, understanding and tolerant, hopes all things and endures all things. Love truly covers all transgressions. Henri Nouwen, one of my favorite writers, said that love exists when I create a safe place for another person to be fully himself. Even if when they’re being fully themselves they tick me off. Between you and me, that’s when I lovingly give them a whole lotta space to be fully themselves.

Because coming from love does not mean you abandon your boundaries or forget your limits. No, keeping those intact help keep you intact. Coming from love doesn’t mean you’re a doormat, either. Coming from love simply means living life with freedom from fear.

When daily life vexes you, you have a choice. You can come from a place of fear, with the expectation that you’re going to be hurt, or you can come from a place of love, and the expectation that, although you can’t know what motivates another person, you can be charitable, kind and open to learning something new from them. And about yourself.

If we could all shift away from fear and toward love, our collective vexation would diminish. Wouldn’t that be something? It would be as if the entire world stepped back, took a giant exhale and relaxed.

And that would be Michele’s Big Vision Of Life.

(How’s that, Jack?)

What Do You Expect?

By Leave a Comment


I have come to believe that expectations are at the root of the world’s ills.

Expectations put us in a rut. Israeli expects Palestinian to hate Israeli, Palestinian expects the same from Israeli. Each acts proactively on those expectations and, boom, we have war. War that lasts for years and years.

Husband expects wife will be angry when he comes home late, wife expects he has no good excuse and, bang, we have an argument.

Woman expects she will fail because she always has, and, anyway, she’s not really good enough — who does she think she’s kidding? — and, pow, she doesn’t get the promotion. Again.

All these foregone conclusions are based on expectations which may or may not be true. An Israeli might actually want to give compassionate medical care to a Palestinian. A Palestinian may wish to teach an Israeli child calculus — but because of their underlying limiting expectations, neither do.

Author Byron Katie tells a story about a walk in the desert she once took. Katie, a woman of a certain age, was out walking alone in the desert near her home. Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed a snake. She froze.

A snake. A poisonous snake. The snake was going to bite her. She was going to be bitten by a poisonous snake and die a horrible, slow death in the desert. She’d die and no one would know what happened to her. She’d die alone, painfully, in the desert. Searchers would come eventually and find a pile of bones. She’d be all alone out there in the desert — dead. Nothing but a pile of bones!

She opened one eye to see the demon snake who was going to kill her, and…it was a rope. Not a poisonous, ruinous snake. Just an old rope. Laughing, she stepped over it and continued her walk.

Expectations are like this. Expect to see a snake, and you will. Even if it’s just a rope. You’ll react to the rope as if it were a snake, when all you need to do is treat it as a rope and keep walking.

What if you lived your life if it were just an experiment? In the scientific method, there are no expectations of outcome. We do the experiment and see what happens. If it works, we keep doing it. If it doesn’t, we stop. We try something new. And, there are no mistakes. What a lovely way to live!