Lowering expectations isn’t always a bad thing
He’d walk onstage to a big ovation, acknowledge the crowd, and then tell them: “I think it would be in the best interests of everyone if you could lower your expectations. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, about 20 percent.”
We’re used to doing that – lowering our expectations. We do it on a daily basis.
If you buy the same bottle of ketchup you’ve always bought, but suddenly discover you’re paying more for a bottle that has less ketchup inside, you have to make adjustments.
Adjustments should come with lifts so we all can raise and lower them more easily.
Lowering expectations isn’t always a bad thing.
Take the Gonzaga men’s basketball team as an example.
A year ago, the Zags entered the NCAA Tournament with sky-high expectations. Could they reach the Final Four? Is an Elite Eight finish a disappointment?
The Bulldogs had a great run in the tournament, but there were those who were disappointed with the season because they lost to Duke in the regional final.
Imagine that.
Every win was filled with anxiety over not reaching those lofty expectations.
We do that all the time. We set incredibly high expectations for parts of our lives, for parts of our children’s lives. And we, in essence, set ourselves up for disappointment at the very least.
The expectation game can be a double-edged sword. Setting high expectations, high standards for our lives is a key to success. It gives us something to strive for and inspiration to work hard toward lofty goals.
But high expectations can also be a heavy burden, especially when we try to pile them on our kids. Make them too heavy and the cost of not meeting those expectations turns into lack of self-confidence.
We need to keep a rational perspective on those expectations.
One of my favorite baseball players of all time is Edgar Martinez. For my money, he is the finest right-handed hitter of our generation and certainly the best I’ve seen in my lifetime.
Gar finished his 18-year career hitting .312 (are you paying attention, Hall of Fame voters?). Given the fact that the only thing I really know about major league pitching is that I can’t hit it, I find a career batting average over .300 awe-inspiring.
But the thing that you have to remember about a career .300 batting average is that it means you failed to get a hit 7 out of every 10 times. There are hitters in the National Baseball Hall of Fame who failed 7 1/2 times out of every 10 at-bats.
It’s not just baseball that teaches that lesson.
“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career,” a professional basketball player famously said. “I’ve lost almost 300 games – 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
The player? Michael Jordan.
It’s a good thing to set a high standard, a high expectation, for work ethic. Good things happen to those who work hard.
But you see sports parents out there who feel their child should win every game they play in – especially when they’ve invested a great deal of time, energy and money in that sport. Or whatever pursuit their child is chasing.
And that’s not doing the kid any favors.
Unrealistically high expectations can lead to poor sportsmanship (from both parents and kids, sadly), cheating and willingness to experiment with performance-enhancing drugs.
We need to learn to work hard toward our goals, but let it be OK if we sometimes fall short.
Sometimes you just take it on the chin. Northern Iowa nails a shot from midcourt at the buzzer and you lose. And sometimes Texas A&M scores 12 points in 44 seconds to beat Northern Iowa in double overtime.
If you get all tied up in your overinflated expectations, you miss the “Wow Factor” in life.
This year, without the sky-high expectations, the Zags are a win over Syracuse away from matching last year’s Elite Eight finish – with a team that might not have made the tournament without winning the Western Athletic Conference tournament.
Admit it.
This year’s ride has been just as much fun – and a lot less anxiety-ridden.
Contact Steve Christilaw at steve. christilaw@gmail.com.