I spent the first several years of my career only working on small to medium transactions. One year another broker in our office, who I considered an equal, closed a couple of large transactions. Curious, I asked him how he did it. He answered confidently, “Why not work on the big transactions – they take as much effort as the smaller ones.”
After much thought I decided to take on the challenge and risk of working on bigger deals. It changed my whole career. With help from a great support staff, a great company and a rapidly-expanding economy I worked on larger and larger transactions. One, the sale of the Montgomery County Air Park Business Center site, was voted the Outstanding Real Estate Transaction for the region in 2004.
It is important not to sell yourself short, as I initially did, when setting your expectations. But it is equally important not to set your expectations too high. You can avoid this by being patient with your career development and taking an honest look at your progress and capabilities. As the old saying goes, you have to “learn to crawl before you walk and walk before you run.”
If you set your expectations too high you will become frustrated at your apparent lack of progress as you struggle to live up to those too-high expectations. But how do you set realistic expectations? I use short-term, realistic daily goals. I focus hard on my goals for each day and celebrate each one I meet as an accomplishment. If you are patient and honest with yourself in setting these goals, you will find that they will help lead you in positive directions that often play into your longer-term goals for your career.
On the personal side, it has always amazed me how we frequently raise our expectations of other people so much that we end up with a very limited pool of people from which to choose. When we focus so much on whether or not a person lives up to our high expectations, it usually keeps us from getting to the point where we can have a meaningful relationship with that person.
One common example is women who only want to date guys who are over 6 feet tall. A quick search pulled up quite a few different statistical estimates for the percentage of the male population over 6 feet tall, but none of them were higher than 15%, with most being closer to 5%. Even if you go with the higher number, a woman who holds that expectation has just ruled out 85% of the male population on the basis of height alone!
Men’s expectations of women can be just as limiting. If you asked most guys what they want in a woman they would probably tell you they want some combination of a perfect figure, model looks and a great job. Going into percentages on this one might get me in some trouble, but you get the idea. It’s much harder to find that “special someone” when only a very small percentage of the population even meets your basic criteria.
The bottom line is this: Reasonable expectations help you get to a satisfying place in both your career and personal life. Don’t set your expectations too low, but don’t set them too high either. And make sure when you set them that it is actually possible for a human being – yourself or someone else – to live up to them.
Have a great weekend,
Ro
For a lighter take on too-high expectations, here’s a joke that’s been making the rounds of the Internet for a number of years, approved by my wife, daughter and numerous female clients and co-workers:
A store that sells new husbands has opened in New York City, where a woman may go to choose her husband. Among the instructions at the entrance is a description of how the store operates:
You may visit this store ONLY ONCE!
There are six floors and the value of the products increase as the shopper ascends the flights The shopper may choose any item from a particular floor, or may choose to go up to the next floor, but you cannot go back down except to exit the building!
So, a woman goes to the Husband Store to find a husband. On the first floor the sign on the door reads:
Floor 1- These men Have Jobs.
She is intrigued, but continues to the second floor, where the sign reads:
Floor 2- These men Have Jobs and Love Kids.
‘That’s nice,’ she thinks, ‘but I want more.’
So she continues upward. The third floor sign reads:
Floor 3- These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, and are Extremely Good Looking.
‘Wow,’ she thinks, but feels compelled to keep going.
She goes to the fourth floor and the sign reads:
Floor 4- These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Good Looking and Help With Housework.
‘Oh, mercy me!’ she exclaims, ‘I can hardly stand it!’
Still, she goes to the fifth floor and the sign reads:
Floor 5- These men Have Jobs, Love Kids, are Drop-dead Gorgeous, Help with Housework, and Have a Strong Romantic Streak.
She is so tempted to stay, but she goes to the sixth floor, where the sign reads:
Floor 6- You are visitor 31,456,012 to this floor. There are no men on this floor. This floor exists solely as proof that women are impossible to please. Thank you for shopping at the Husband Store.