Expectations vs. Agreements for work and family life…..

These words, learned from Steve Chandler prove more and more useful the more they are practiced.

Please contact me if these prove useful for you. (or not)

We have two choices in life when we relate to human beings

• Have expectations: toxic and ruin people’s chance at a good relationship (leaders have expectations about job performance, quotas, target to be hit… People themselves try to live-up to expectations they consider unreasonable). Doesn’t work in the workplace… people do not like to live up to expectations… they rebel against expectations; they don’t like it that you expect things of them. You need to agree with them. Expectations are reactive, fear-based, cowardly (allow you to put the blame for everything on other people).
• Create agreements: Do we agree to do this? So much stronger than an expectation. Agreements are creative because they are designed together in cooperation, it’s more fun than to walk around with expectations (anxiety, disappointments, sense of betrayals). Agreements are courageous.

Most of the people and leaders walk around with expectations not being met and need to be coached about problems they have with different person. They need agreements, not expectations.

Human beings will love to keep an agreement co-authored with you: sit down with them and allow them to ask you for the help they need from you to make the promise, and wonderful things will happen because you can find out in advance why certain things are not going to occur (you don’t have to fix them after and resent people who do not live up to your expectations).

If you have expectations of people, one of two things can happen and neither of them is good:

• You can have an expectation of someone and they don’t live up to it: you are disappointed, betrayed in case of serious expectation… a life of disappointment.
• You have an expectation of someone and they live up to it: you are neutral, you expected it… so what? Nothingness… life of empty nothing, boredom. This is the most tragic, a world devoid of appreciation and the positivity which accompanies recognition.

It is possible not to have any expectations of anyone… and just have agreements when needed.

The whole concept of expectation vs agreement is even more important in personal relationships than in work. In personal relationships, the more expectations you have about the people you care about the more anxious, fearful and depressed you will be throughout your life when it comes to your family.

No expectations mean nothing negative to say. Go home and have absolutely no expectations of the persons at home… the only possibility is a pleasant surprise!

A no-expectation way of life leads to more self-esteem, a more forgiving attitude, and an agreement (courageous and makes life move quickly). If someone is not showing up on time, saying sarcastic things… what you could do is seek an agreement during a happy time: can we have an agreement about a basic line of kindness in our relation, like we have with our friends. We wouldn’t be sarcastic or late with our friends, that’s not what the relationship is about… shall we have the same thing in our relationship?

If you have negative feelings… it’s not healthy to attack, or to say it… it’s a shift from the hurt in me to hurt others… That is not sensible and loving. Decide you don’t want to indulge in that kind of behavior and don’t do it. It’s not useful to fight… only divorced people think fights are good to purge the air… fights are mean and selfish, like two babies scratching their eyes out.

Expectations leads to fights and judgments of other people.

Without expectations, but only agreements, that won’t occur.

Even in personal relationships expectations are toxic, and cowardly.

If you are a true leader, it’s on if you to have a team who arrives late in meetings, a team who thinks it’s OK to be late at meetings. That’s lack of leadership.

Let’s say you show up late for a meeting and I say I expect you to be on-time for these meetings (or I call you later because I don’t want to embarrass you in front of the whole room).

Whenever you hear about what other people expect of you, get in touch with the feeling in your body, is it warm? Does it open you? Do you feel like you want to embrace that person? No… when you hear the word “Expectations” you have a knot in the stomach, you clench-up, you get tight, you contract… and you start to build up your defense against those expectations.

Human beings are not on this planet to live up to expectations of others, they know that deep down, they have a rebellious free-spirit in them.

Whenever you use the word “Expectation” you create rebellion, you create less likelihood to get what you want, you chase away what you want.

It never works… it never makes a partner more faithful… it only damages when used in the human system. It’s like a cancer in the human body.

People with expectations expect others to make them feel the feeling they expect to feel.

What works is agreement… let’s you and I create an agreement, and I’ll tell you why I would like to create that agreement: I would like to have you at the meeting from beginning to the end, because you are valuable to me. You are important to the rest of the team. You strolling in late doesn’t work for me… it’s not wrong or unjustified, it just doesn’t work for what I am creating. Let’s talk so we have that agreement that also works for you.

And then you can understand the other’s person concerns (another meeting ran late) … you agree not to have that again and shake hands.

Human beings do not like breaking their words (honor)…

You can even  have the agreement to keep your word if that is also an issue, that can be a powerful conversation: can I count on your word? If we don’t have that how can we have a relationship? It’s a basic social contract.

It works the same way in personal life and in the professional life… it’s more intense in family, more charged up (because expectations are higher: I expect you to make me feel loved, romantic and attractive). If you expect something, then you can’t be surprised and open… you even lose out on opportunities to have fun.

If you don’t like a situation, go create an agreement that changes it. Do not simmer in the cancerous juices of your own expectations, or you will be miserable and won’t be able to produce at the levels you could, and live an unexpectedly happy life (as life is to a child).

It’s not necessary to have any expectations of anyone ever. Everytime you do you let yourself down. You are less innovative, less creative, and you have less energy for the problems of life and you have no sense of adventure.

If you walk through the typical organization, you’ll find a lot of people telling you what they are frustrated about. What they are disappointed about. If you switch the topic to their family, be ready to cross few hours off your calendar because they will go on for hours. You will hear a litany of disappointments about their family, retroactive expectations about their parents, when then were younger (expected more warmth from their dad, or more attention from their mom…).

Great news: none of this is necessary… communicating with other human beings can happen without expectations. It can happen on agreement or no agreement, it can be totally open to being surprised by this human being, being curious, to be interested.

The beauty of shifting from expectations to agreement is to shift away from being at the mercy and the effect of everyone else… to taking full responsibility for your happiness, financial success, health, energy levels. It’s back on you… which is great because you are the only one you can work on anyway.