#Expected July 24
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Over the course of my life I have made my fair share of mistakes. One category of my many miscues is accepting a responsibility and then failing to deliver on what is EXPECTED.
As I reflected and leaned into those failures I often found the same specific reason for not meeting EXPECTATIONS.
The first and most common reason, especially early in my career was saying yes to every request that came my way. I was trying to please others and gain peer acceptance. It took time and lots of bad experiences but I learned to say no. I have often said that learning to say no has a greater bearing on success than saying yes.
Second, I was immature and unrealistic about time constraints. It is rare that any new task or responsibility will adhere to whatever schedule you put on it. It will take longer and that time has to be carved out from someplace else.
Third, I never took time to think on how accepting a new EXPECTATION was helping me accomplish the WHY for my life.
At some point in my leadership travels I learned a valuable lesson. The goal is not to meet EXPECTATIONS but to exceed them. That is how you add value to anything you are involved with.
To exceed I have learned to ask specific questions on what is EXPECTED. When someone is vague on describing the EXPECTATIONS it sends me a warning signal. The joy I get in life is trying to make a team better, providing value to someone else, or completing something for my own self-satisfaction.
A component of success for me is having a philosophy to exceed EXPECTATIONS.
Here is a link to an article related to exceeding EXPECTATIONS in a work career.
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