Achieving Expectations

A few days ago, I got my semi-annual performance review result back. The rating I got is Achieving Expectations, which is a three out of five on my company's performance rating scale.

I was disappointed when I received the result because my performance rating went from Leading Expectations (5/5) to Achieving Expectations (3/5) in merely six months.

After reflecting, I concluded that I received a lower rating because I am now in a new role taking on more complex challenges compared to six months ago. I felt much better about myself after realizing that at least I am learning new things and working on something I enjoy now.

Even though I was able to bounce back from disappointment fairly quickly, I still wonder how come I felt so unsettled when I got my performance rating?

I realized it was because I was still judging myself mainly based on external expectations, what others believe I should achieve.

Instead, I could have focused more on assessing myself based on internal expectations, what I believe I should achieve.

After shifting my mental model from measuring myself based on external to internal expectations, I felt more at ease with myself. However, I realize shifting how we judge ourselves is not an easy task.

Therefore, I am writing this post to discuss why it is important and how to shift the way we judge ourselves, so we could all discover happiness within ourselves.

Why are we wired to judge ourselves based on external expectations?

Before getting into how I change the way I judge myself, I want to reflect on why I am "programmed" to judge myself based on external expectations in the first place.

Growing up in Taiwan, people around me always told me the only objective in life should be focusing on getting good grades. By getting good grades, I will have a shot at getting into a good college. Once I get into a good college, I will be able to get a good job and eventually live a good life.

Since people around me laid out this "success" checklist for me early in life, I am just trying to check all the boxes as I go through life. As a result, I judged myself based on whether I was able to accomplish the items on the success checklist.

Whenever I didn't get good grades, I would feel terrible about myself. When I didn't get my dream job after college, I would feel disappointed. When I receive a low rating in my performance review, I would feel very discouraged.

My sense of worth was completely dependent on whether I had fulfilled what others wanted me to achieve or not.

Why is it important to shift our focus from judging ourselves from external to internal expectations?

Since I was always able to meet everyone else's expectations growing up, I never thought about what would happen if I couldn't meet other people's expectations one day?

The danger of only focusing on meeting external expectations: feeling lost in life

When I was in my first job after college, I experienced one of the lowest points of my life because I failed to meet my manager's expectations. I was placed in a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) because I didn't do well in one of my projects during my first year in consulting.

Until my first job, I never really experienced any real setback. I was able to study hard and get good grades. I was able to get into a decent school and land an excellent consulting job after college. I thought if I follow people's "success" checklist, I would be able to live a good life. However, everything changed after I got put on a PIP.

When I received the news that I got placed on a PIP, I was super sad and worried about my future. I was scared that I would be fired from my first job and that no one would want to hire someone who gets fired. I was afraid that people would think I was a total failure.

I was working almost every waking hour when I was in consulting, but I could still not meet my manager's expectations. I was tired and completely lost in life.

After talking to different friends and family members, I noticed I was always trying to reach the milestones people laid out for me, but I have never really slowed down to think about what I believe I should accomplish.

The benefit of following internal expectations: finding the internal compass in life

Thinking back to why I decided to join consulting: I wanted to be exposed to many projects to learn as fast as possible. Instead of focusing on meeting my manager's expectations, I started to focus on doing my best and learning as much as I could for my next project.

Once I stopped thinking about what can I do to meet other people's expectations, I felt incredibly liberating. I started to be more curious about different aspects of the consulting projects because my main objective was to learn as much as I can. I no longer felt exhausted after long working hours because I knew I was learning and growing a lot.

Deep down inside, I knew as long as I had done my best, I would be able to sleep well at night and be at ease with myself. Fortunately, after giving my all and focusing on learning as much as I could, I was able to get out of the PIP by excelling in my next couple of projects.

Looking back, going through a PIP made me realize the importance of anchoring my sense of worth based on internal expectations. At the end of the day, I believe accomplishing goals others set for you are important, but accomplishing goals you set for yourself is even more important.

How to judge ourselves based on internal expectations?

Over the past few years, I found out an excellent way to judge myself based on internal expectations is to ask myself the questions below routinely:

• Have I done my best?

This is probably one of my favorite questions to ask myself. All you can do is the best you can do; the best you can do is all you can do. No matter what we are trying to accomplish, as long as we have given it our all, we should be able to feel good about ourselves.

This question also helps me prevent me being too harsh about myself. I sometimes will set unrealistic expectations for myself, but I know I will be at ease as long as I have tried my best at anything I do.

• Am I enjoying what I am doing?

This is a question I keep needing to remind myself about. I tend to force myself to do things because I think I must do them to accomplish my goals. However, I ended up suffering and not making much progress because I didn't particularly enjoy the things I was forcing myself to do.

Life is a long journey. It's important to remember to have fun and to do things I enjoy along the way.

• Am I making progress towards realizing my destiny?

In one of my previous posts, I mentioned one of my favorite quotes from The Alchemist is:

"To realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." -Paulo Coelho

Everyone has his or her dream to fulfill. Therefore, it is essential to constantly check in with ourselves to see if we are making progress toward realizing our dream.

• Am I learning every day?

I think learning is one of the most important things I can do now at this stage of my life. Therefore, I must examine whether I am learning every day or not. I also feel rewarded and get a lot of satisfaction when learning new things.

• Am I in the right environment that would allow me to meet the right people?

Before taking the leap of faith to join my first startup, I once asked the startup CEO about what he would have done differently if he could go through his twenties again.

He responded: "I will optimize my environment. Specifically, I would choose an environment with the highest talent density concentration."

I love the idea of being in an environment and surrounding myself with the highest quality of people who could potentially help me realize my dream one day. Therefore, I regularly ask myself whether I am in the right environment to meet the right people to get closer to my ultimate goal in life.

Conclusion

We are all raised to meet the goals set by others because that's how society measures whether we are "successful" or not. Although it's essential to live up to other people's expectations, it is more important to live up to your own expectations.

If we are only chasing what others believe we should achieve, we could easily fall into letting others' expectations define our sense of worth. We could feel completely lost in life if we cannot meet others' expectations one day.

It is crucial to slow down sometimes to think about what we believe we should achieve. Let our internal expectations become the compass that guides our actions. Only when we can focus on judging ourselves based on our internal expectations that's when we could begin to be genuinely at ease with ourselves.

Feel free to share your reflections, thoughts, or feedback with me @themagichen on Instagram or reach me at themagichen@gmail.com.