As my wonderful wife made her way out the door Friday night for a rare and fun night out on the town, I saw it as an equal opportunity – or perhaps excuse – for me to stay up late watching movies.  As one who is typically sound asleep no later than 10:00, late is somewhere in the neighbourhood of midnight, maybe even a minute or two past.  Of course, where her reasons for being out to such an hour seem far more justified, mine were not without their merits – the opportunity to indulge in something that is my own, sans kids and with a bowl full of chips I didn’t need to share, well, I don’t know that a greater justification exists if we’re being honest here.

With that in mind, with great indulgence comes a great price. It doesn’t matter how late I stay awake – my body and my mind are wired to start stirring a little after 4:00am, and, however much I may attempt to resist it,  I’m up and out of bed by 6:30; 7:00 if I’m lucky.  Even if I could push that longer, my kids are up around the same time, so ‘sleeping in’ to counter the later night is not actually a thing for me, and this break in routine, while great in the moment, is certainly less than ideal.  I am cranky, slow-moving, unmotivated and ‘some’ may even say irritable.  Truth told – I’d much rather share my chips than lose out on sleep.

That seemingly inconsequential experience of staying up late without any foresight led me to  thinking this morning about expectations.  It’s a topical subject in my life these days, as events both personal and professional seem to come into play when considering what pressures, deadlines and events seem to be unfolding.  It’s not uncommon or unexpected, for example, to have ambitious deadlines in a place of work, but what my years of project management and education have taught me is that ‘ambitious’ cannot stand in for ‘realistic’.

There is a triple constraint that can be associated to any project – be that at work or at home – the ‘time, cost, quality’ principle.  Generally speaking, leadership wants all three of these elements: deliver beyond perfect results under budget and ahead of schedule.  In truth, without a proper plan in place, you can have only two of those things.  If that is not accepted, then the mounting pressures and expectations build, and something needs to give, i.e. burnout. And burnout isn’t unexpected – it’s the result of pushing past what we know is realistic. I stayed up too late to do the thing I wanted and ended up unable to function the following day.  Had I thought it through, I would have realized that movie – and the chips – weren’t going anywhere and I could have found a better opportunity, without paying the price.

Expectations are undervalued in my opinion.  When they go unsaid or avoided altogether, it’s rare that any good comes out of it.  I am far better suited to have a realistic vision of a net result before I get started than I am to sit the regret of “I wish I had done it this way instead” feelings that come later.  At work that can be a struggle because we aren’t always in charge of the moment, the task or the project, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t still raise our voice or put our recommendations in writing.  A certain amount of pressure and challenge can be a good thing, but when it’s not thought through it can become a dangerous thing.

The same can be said at home – be it preparing a meal or parenting your child, I have to set my expectations early on to quell the feeling of failure later on.  Granted, baking a cake and raising a child are two very different levels of responsibility, but the principle is no less applicable.  If I envision in my mind (which I very often do) that my cake design is going to be worth of an Is It Cake submission, then when it comes out looking more like an “Is It Even Food” pile of batter and icing, I’m only going to be disappointed.  Knowing my skill, ability and tools at my disposal, I am better suited to accept what’s coming out of that oven before I even start to work.

In raising my children, I try my best to put that level of expectation on display for them to subconsciously absorb, but I’m also purpose in being explicit in this approach when I talk to them.  I don’t need them feeling that ‘straight As’ are the bar to set.  I have never encouraged them to always colour inside the lines, and I want them to make mistakes throughout their life.  Practice makes progress, falling is learning, and, perhaps most importantly – life is built on experiences.  Some of them are going to be based in decisions and choices that a good, others not so much.  As I said to my oldest yesterday: my expectation is not that you always make the ‘right’ decisions or choice, but that you take a moment to learn from the bad ones.  Go ahead and eat that entire bag of All Dressed chips in bed at 12:00, but then remember how it felt the following day.

Of course, some mistakes we know we’re just going to make again…