No Match!

My legs burned as I slogged through the dusty, energy-sucking sand. All we had seen for hours were the straight depressing rows of plantation pine. Monotonous and hard! It’s never an appealing combination.

The problem was not the walk itself, it was a mismatch between expectations and reality. My friend had told me it was mostly single lane walking through unspoilt banksia forest with magnificent sweeping views. There were short sections that matched his description and then more grinding through plantations.

Expectations are the thief of joy. I’ve heard the statement attributed to Theodore Roosevelt or Buddhism. Whoever said it, it has a ring of truth. When we expect something different from reality, the mismatch causes disappointment. The problem is, our expectations are often not even clear to us. We experience disappointment, but usually take aim at the situation we are in, not the expectations we hold. And it shows up in traffic, in teams, in delegation, in customer service, in relationships. Kinda everywhere!

We could guard against disappointment by never having expectations. But there’s a human superpower in expectations.

George Bernard Shaw said “The reasonable person adapts themselves to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to themself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable person.”

When have you been disappointed by expectation?

Learning Outside the Box

Each year I deliberately seek an opportunity to learn with 2 criteria. 

  1. It will be new.

  2. It will be challenging.

This year I did a yachting skippers ticket. I could write a post about what sailing taught me about business and leadership, but I can already imagine your eyes rolling! Sure there are some parallels, and mostly they would be either naff, obvious, or wonky long shots.

The most useful part of deliberately challenging ourselves outside our comfort zone and usual area of operation are:

  • It helps us stay adaptable and fresh

  • It provides a platform for looking at transferability - What do we already know/do that serves us well in a different environment? What can we learn from that environment that translates back to our ‘real world’? What assumptions do we usually make that either serve or hinder us?

One of the biggest confirmations for me on the course was to make objectives and communication as clear as possible. Hunt down ambiguity and break things down as much as needed. Oh, and when things go well, say so, it really lifts team focus/morale and sets the bar for what comes next.

Where and how can you test yourself in 2025?