Great Expectations ... or Goals? | The Reschool'd Podcast

Welcome to the Reschooled Podcast, the show that discusses all the things that schools

may have missed with your hosts, AJ Couttee and Jason Gordon. Welcome back to the show

We are the Reschooled Podcast, the show that discusses all the things that schools may not have prepared you for. As always, I am AJ and sitting across from me, Jason

Jason, how are you doing on this lovely, lovely morning? Well, I'm enjoying the weather, AJ

It's beautiful fall, like you said, but man, it seems like this time of year, things get busier

Oh, gosh, you have no idea. Well, yeah, I guess you do. You do have an idea. Yeah

You told me what you were going through earlier, and yeah, you have a lot on your plate, too

Yeah. I mean, you know, kids, work, side work, projects, Halloween, everything coming up

I mean, of course, you were telling me on your side, too

You got 10 different things pulling you in different directions, right? Yeah

And if I knew what I was doing, it'd be different. But having to learn this stuff that I don't know, it just becomes stressful

Yeah. Uncertainty, right? Well, you know, on last episode, we talked about the life, midlife pivot, you know, transition from one kind of direction that you're going to a different one later in life

I think in this one, we're going to be talking about the concept like expectations versus goals, you know, kind of how to set them, how to understand what they both mean and the differences between the two

So that worked for you? Perfect. Absolutely. Before we jump in, though, remind everybody, please hit us up on our website, Reschool.com

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Yeah. And share with your friends, too. That would help tremendously. All right. Quick question

What were your expectations? Actually, two parts. What were your expectations for your life when you were in college

And then how have those expectations changed to reflect your life now? yeah that's uh that's a heavy one that's a heavy one for going coming out of the weekend man but

yeah i like it that's that's a great topic start make us do you know we're 40 years old or at least

i'm 40 years old uh 41 to be precise uh you know that's uh you're starting to get into those um

those, those midlife introspections, right? Well, I'll, I'll start it. My expectations when I was in college was I wanted to have, I didn't have, granted in

college, you don't have a whole lot of responsibilities. So it was just to have a fun life

Everything I did was built around the concept of fun. um you know the the way i chose my degree was because i thought it would be fun um the way i

ended up choosing my job was to be i thought it was going to be fun um the expectations that i

have now in my life they're still fun um they i still have that focus on fun and trying to

my mind doesn't do like with ADHD, your mind doesn't do steady. Your mind kind of, it doesn't

it creates the chaos at times. And the fun aspect gives me that ability to focus on things to

certain extent, hyper-focus on things that doesn't need to be. But there's that extra element of that

that responsibility. I mean, you've got people that rely on you. You got little people

um you know your kids your wife um you're working together with your your spouse uh so it's it's the

the expectations change i would say that for me the best way i could put it is my expects my

expectations changed in one area it's it's still fun but it's from the focus of not being selfish

not being soul like on myself the individual but being fun for the group that would be what i would

say my, how my expectations has changed. It's changed from an individual perspective to a group

mentality. So what about yours? Well, as much as anything, I was always just improve, you know

it was pretty easy for me to recognize early on everything that I was missing

or at least the immediate things I was missing. So it was, it was just a constant

you know, expectation for myself, like constantly, constantly be moving forward. Just keep growing, you know, and I guess any frustration was more related, I guess, to goals

you know, like, was I accomplishing something that I could, that I could look back on? I always

I mean, I think there were a couple of periods in my life where I didn't, where I didn't feel like I was accomplishing

And there were a couple of periods where I felt like I wasn't necessarily growing

and that those were frustrating periods. But by and large, most of my life, at least

because I always kept something on the plate, you know, I always felt like I was growing

And still, I mean, I still feel like that, right? As long as I keep something ahead of me, whether it's school or whatever

And, you know, I talk to students about that all the time. You know, we talked about in that prior episode we had on the life plan

And, you know, in that one, we focus so hard on goals. You know, I talk to them about setting goals and making certain they're always there because that will keep you oriented towards the next thing

Right. Right. But more so than goals, this whole expectations thing. Right. It's easy. Once again, I would say to to lose track. Right. Expectations are kind of what keep you on track

So even if you're not accomplishing what you thought you were accomplishing at one time, you know, as long as you feel like you're continuing to move forward type scenario, at least for me, that's what it was

And for me, it was personal growth, right, as much as anything else

So anyway, that's kind of where it was for me all along and along

And I think I don't know that much has changed in that way. I feel certainly like I have grown a lot, but I still do feel like I have a lot more

growing to do. Yeah. Hopefully not physically but you know at this point you know just just keep it calm I lose lose some of the physical stuff I been growing the weight been growing All right well let get to the main topics Okay

Let's get into this, this concept of, of expectations versus goals. So let's start it off with the, the, you know, the underhand toss

which is what is the difference between setting goals and setting expectations

Or is there, is there a difference? Yeah, I guess before yammering on, I should have, uh

I should have just laid that out there that there's a difference. I always looked about it, you know, as well, I guess I could use the ogy of, you know, life is a journey, not a destination type thing

You know, destination is the goal. Yeah. Expectations is kind of what guides the entire path, you know

But if I were to say it a different way, goal is something you hope to accomplish

Right. I mean, I want to score this on a test or I want to receive this degree or I want to get this job

All goals. Right. Expectation. I guess it's easiest to think about it

You know, you set goals for yourself. Other people might set expectations for you

Right. It's what people want to see from you. And if you set an expectation for yourself is is what you want to see from yourself

So it's constant. Right. The expectation, a goal, finish line expectation is just this constant thing that's there. Right

If your expectation is diligence or stick to it, it is or whatever

Well, that's something that needs to be present all the time. That needs to be present every day in a hundred different scenarios, a million different scenarios. Everything you encounter from rolling out of bed to, you know, playing with your puppy, right? To getting your kids up to whatever, right

Um, so, you know, you, you, for example, you're, you're going through school, right

That's you, you set an expectation of how you go through the process and everything

but you set goals as to passing classes and getting a degree. Right. Yep

So anyway, that's the way I define it. Um, do you have any, any different insights there

No, I'm right on the same page with you. I think there's, there's, there is a difference and kind of like what you were saying that

I guess the best way I can say it, to put it in almost a single sentence, is goals have an endpoint

Expectations don't. That would be the way I would look at it because a goal is one that once you finish it, you have achieved that goal

Whereas I don't think you ever achieve fully an expectation to the point where you stop that expectation

like you don't the expectation doesn't change from you accomplishing something the expectation

changes because something in your environment changes whereas a goal is changed or completed

once you've achieved something so that's kind of how i look at it is is it's it like you said i

think the best ogy is the the destination and the journey all the destination expectation is is

the journey. Um, and so that's kind of where we're coming from in this episode is it's, it's

we're looking at it, we're looking at both, but we're really kind of focusing on that expectations

because we've talked about the goals before, but expectations is how you conduct yourself

uh, how you choose to, to exploit certain opportunities, uh, how you, your mannerisms

these are all things that go into your, your expectations. It has nothing to do with this

end goal. It has everything to do with the, you know, what, again, how you're going to conduct

yourself. So, uh, I agree. So since there is so much, uh, unknown in life, so, I mean, obviously

we can't predict what's going to happen in five to 10 years. Uh, should we be more focused on

setting goals or more focused on setting expectations? Well, that's a good question

You know, and again, to draw on an ogy, that's a chicken or an egg question, right

So I don't know. Right. I mean, it's all going to be your perspective or point of view. I will say this. Goals are going to inform your expectations. Right. And expectations are going to largely influence whether you ever reach your goals

So, say, you know, say for me personally, I probably started with goals and said, look, I want to accomplish this

And I had some short short run stuff, meaning I want to get into school

I want to pass these classes. I want to get a degree

I want to get a job. I want to do these things. Right. And you set these goals and lots of times those vary

All right. The goals will change. And over time, especially as you accomplish one, or at least for me, it did

You accomplish one or you don't accomplish one and you realize that was a dumb goal. That shouldn't have been my goal from the start

Right. I should have had a different goal. So you start to pick up some, lose some type thing

So that always changed. But the expectations were kind of, I would guess, I would say moderated

Right. by what the goals were because there was a certain amount of effort

a certain amount of activities, a certain amount of proactivity, I would say, in order to approach those goals

And to do that stuff, I had to set expectations for myself

expectations about how I use my time, expectations about what I did in certain circumstances

Particularly expectations about how I dealt with other people. Right. That was a big one because, you know, the social growth, my ability to interact with other people has continually advanced throughout my life

I've done a lot more advancement there, I believe, later in life than I did earlier

Um, so that being said, personally, I started with goals and kind of built my expectations

from there. Like I said a little bit earlier, I always did have this one expect, this one overarching

expectation is that always be tried, right? I'll always be attempting something so I could grow

And all these goals I developed did kind of try to try to move that forward. Right. Whether it was learning another language or studying abroad or taking classes that made me uncomfortable. Right. That type of thing

And so, again, it was it was a whole bunch of many goals that filled in behind the expectations after I set bigger goals

Right. For myself and what that meant. So, I don't know. Same same question back to you

You may you may have a little better insight on this. Yeah. What is it? Is it goal or is this expectation

This is interesting because I think I on the other side I think I on the setting the expectations And for the purpose of the question when we talk about you know is it is it should we be focusing on one over the other because of the unknown of life I kind of see expectations as the goals are more rigid Like you set a goal you either

achieve it or you don't. It's dichotomous. It's yes or no. Where expectations are more flexible

They are you you set an expectation and then you kind of cater the way you handle certain things based on those expectations and the expectation therefore doesn't change

And so it becomes more flexible to the point of whatever comes up in life

And so to me, my focus tends to be more on the expectation because that dictates what my goals are going to be

um so that's that's why i i'm more of the focus when you're talking about later in life like when

you're talking about the next 10 years or the next 20 years so you're just coming out of college and

you're trying to say okay this is what my next this is what my career is going to be for the next 15 20 years my focus would probably be on the expectation side now goals wise i would probably

say i would have goals for the next five years maybe 10 years uh very vague goals for the 10

year ones, but expectations, I would, I would set my expectations first because that's, what's going

to drive. And, and for the most part going to sustain over the next 20 years, whereas a goal

I can set a goal for the next, I have a goal, you know, I could have a goal for myself right now

that's for the next 20 years. And the possibility of that actually occurring is going to be slim to

none because I don't know what's coming. Whereas if I set an expectation of how I'm going to

conduct myself, how I'm going to react to certain situations, how my mannerisms, how I'm going to

make decisions on certain opportunities to come up, that's probably not going to change. And even

with the quick question that we had earlier, where we said, you know, how has our expectations

changed from college to our life now, which college was 20 years ago, or no, not 20, but

you know, 15 years ago, somewhere on there, that it's, both of us said our expectations really

hasn't changed. I said mine has changed from the perspective, but it's still the expectation is

still have fun. It's just looking at it from a group perspective, not a, an individual perspective

because it was just by myself when I was in college. So I, to me, the expectation is the

thing, the common denominator that's not changing over the long haul for the most part. And so

that's why I would focus on the expectations and then to build my goals around that

yeah that's a great answer you know you did just put one thing into perspective for me

what's that so i graduated from college yeah it's scary to think about this 19 years ago

i was good lord i was i graduated undergrad oh uh i can't it's the math and you would think i'd be good at math um you've got a calculator

for that, man. You don't need that. It was 13 years ago. So I graduated 19 years ago. If somebody

is listening to our podcast, they're probably making the determination as to whether to go

to college. I graduated from college longer ago than they have been alive. Yeah. Now that's

that's shocking. Yeah. We're about, I'm about to have my 20 year reunion

in high school. Wow. So that's, that's kind of a big one. Yeah. It's, it's a

it's not fun to think about that. I also have a son that's about to graduate high school

Yeah. Time moves on and it flies. So everybody out there listening, if you're a lot younger than us

you'll be older than us in no time. Don't worry about it. I read talking about life and how

how fast it runs. I read, uh, there's a, a quote or

you know, it was a simile, I guess you'd call it. It said

life is like a roll of toilet paper. You know, it's, it goes pretty slow at the beginning

but towards the tail end, it goes faster than you, but you need, you still need it. That is a pretty accurate comparison

They said it, but towards the end, as much as you try to save, it runs out faster than you plan

And if you have, uh, kids around, Somehow it seems to run out faster than ever

Ain't found it. Yeah. That's great. That's great. I like that. Well, all right

Next question. How can you use your expectations to guide you through opportunities that may arise or through potential mid-life pivots, et cetera

So kind of bringing back what we talked about in the last few episodes, how can we use expectations that we set for ourselves to guide us through those areas of our life

Sure. That's a good one. And that kind of brings in another dimension, right? We set goals for ourselves and say, you know, expectations are kind of what got us all the way through

It seems like the turning point or the beginning to the end for achievement of any goal starts with some kind of opportunity

And, you know, we've done an episode just on opportunity where we, and just to summarize, you know, we broke it down into opportunity, generation, recognition, then exploitation

But all of that goes into opportunity itself. So, right. So you've done the work and the opportunity presents itself. Right. Well, the expectations for yourself guide generally whether, right, you undertake the effort to create the opportunity

Now, some opportunities create themselves on their own. It was not your doing

It was serendipitous, if you will, right, or just dumb luck. Well, but in many cases, in order for an opportunity to generate itself, you had to comport yourself

You had to take the steps in a certain way to make that happen, and that was guided by your expectations

And those steps might have been related to a completely different goal

But something came up because you were meeting some level of expert expectations for yourself. Right. So with that being said, you know, what I'll say is this

If you are working towards creating opportunity, if it is a planned part of your goal, that that is a stepping stone, like if you don't create the opportunity, if you don't recognize and exploit the opportunity, you will not accomplish the goal

You set expectations of yourself for these, you know, for how you interact on a daily basis with others, how you address your work, how you manage your time, how you do all these things

Right. And hopefully if you've done that, well, as you live up to these things, as you move forward doing these things, you will start to once again generate that opportunity or some version of it or any of the opportunities that would ultimately lead you down the path you want to take

So I would say, once again, it's just one another area of, you know, another corner of the triangle, if you will

Right Between the goals expectations and you know the opportunities that present themselves by virtue of it It just a constant effort to to meet your expectations in order to have a fixed result which is yes generation opportunities but ultimately completion or accomplishment of goals

So that's how I think about those together. And I find myself constantly not meeting my own expectations

It's actually very rare, really, that I seed my expectations to tell you the truth

And maybe that's just I set my expectations a little too high. Right. The bar is so high. Yeah, right

I don't know about that, but it just seems like I've got a little wagon that is constantly overloaded

See, I see a bar so low, I always overshoot my expectations. If you can't see the bar, it's so low that it's pretty easy to step over it, right

I meet my expectations. That's the way I've always thought about the three, right

You know, they work hand in hand, I guess, as a system

I mean, how do you see it? What effect does the creation of opportunities have on your expectations for yourself

Well, I think the question you just posed is how does opportunity affect my expectations

I would almost pose it in reverse and say how has my expectations affected my opportunities

because I do think they've had a definitive impact on the opportunities that have been created

because of prior opportunities that I've taken because of my expectations. And you were kind of mentioning something and an example kind of popped in my head

When I was in college, I was presented with the opportunity to be a part of a group on campus

And again, it was a choice that I could make. I either wanted to be a part of this group or I didn't

And it was never part of my goals. It was never anything that was on my radar. You kind of said it was almost serendipitous. It is very similar to that. And because of the expectations I set for myself, which was to have fun in college and fun to me, part of fun was to be able to travel. I took that opportunity. So my expectations led me to the opportunity. And then that opportunity grew into other opportunities

and those opportunities started leading to other ones. So it was a manifestation of

of a single opportunity that was led, was decided upon because of my expectations

That to me is how I use my expectations to guide me through opportunities because it led to more

opportunities. That was, that's how I, I saw it. That's how I, I've, I've seen it many times in my

life is the decisions that I make is really dependent on, I guess most people say your

personality. My personality is I'm not going to do something that I'm going to be bored

miserable, or not have fun with. Now, granted, again, fun is a relative term and I can generally

make anything fun within reason. So what you're telling me is school right now is fun

There is, you know, it's, it's so funny you say that. And when I say school, I mean your doctoral program, right

Because as much complaining as I have, I've been doing, especially this semester

there is still an element to it that has become fun. And it is not the fun that most people think of when they say fun

But for me, there is when anytime there's a challenge, Anytime that there's something that I'm doing that presents a significant challenge to me to where I can start figuring out, okay, what can I do to make this challenge easier through strategy

I've said this in the very first episode, strategy is so big to me. That element creates a sense of fun to me

And that fun drives me to go harder at whatever I'm working on

So right now, like I said, we're complaining because we feel overloaded when it comes to our assignments that we have each week

But yet my focus since the beginning for this semester is, okay, I got to figure out a way I can get ahead

Like that's been my drive. I want to figure out how I can get ahead. And so I've managed to figure that out

And then all of a sudden, you know, curveballs happen. We get some new stuff that comes up we have to do

and then it adds another challenge which becomes a little bit more fun so as much as i complain

about it it there is a in my head there is a little level of fun in there that keeps me going

if i didn't have that this would be i would be so miserable and and that's that's again that goes

back to my expectations yeah so we that's you know it's so funny and i just want to point out there

for people like AJ and I, we tend to be completely different on this

You know, I've there I usually by and large don't enjoy things as much as I think a lot

of people do. Right. AJ needs it to be part of everything. Right

To be part of what's going on on a daily basis, what he's accomplishing and things like that

where me, I'm more driven by the OK, once it's done, I'm fulfilled by it. Right

That type of thing. And that gives some level of satisfaction that takes the place of fun. And sometimes for me, things that would otherwise be fun, right, aren't

Yeah. Right. Because they lead to a level of frustration because the things, even though they are fun, they oftentimes don't have that level of contentment afterwards in it. Right

They actually sometimes have the opposite effect for me. Like I feel like I wasted time or things like that

So, you know, I don't seek them out. I think I shocked AJ a little bit when I said something about, you know, I'd rather be doing the work I do on a daily basis than go sit on the beach

Yeah, you knocked the heck out of me. Yeah, right. And that's just so you're going to get all kinds of personality types

And AJ and I are on different ends of the spectrum there. But it's so funny that in many ways we're moving towards very similar goals in the end

Right. It's just our approach for getting there. And as such, our expectations are a little different of ourselves

Right. Type thing. So anyway, it's interesting. you brought up a point because I was thinking about when, when I build things, I love, I love

woodworking. And when I build things, there's a challenge. I don't build things with specs. I don't

build things like pre pre-ordered specs that have plans that show you exactly how to do. I

I prefer doing it on my own. I want to learn. I want to design it. I want to create it on my own

Let me do the measurements and therefore let me do the mistakes

And for some reason, I get that. I get the challenges. Is there when I build something, I rarely build it again because I figured it out

Once I build it one time and it works, I figured it out. There's there's. not challenged to do it again. Now, if I build it and there's something wrong, then it adds another

level of challenge for me to go back to. But rarely do I build things multiple times because

the challenge is a lot less. I have a really big problem with starting a project of like woodworking

and getting to a point where I go, okay, I've got this figured out now and not finishing it

because I figured it out. I built something for one of my, one of my friends and he was like

can you do this? And I was like, let me see if I can do this. And I started mocking it up. I

started building it. I even got it halfway stained. And then once I realized to the point where

okay, all I got to do is put some hinges on it, put this, you know, this, this, uh, bracket on it

whatever. And it's for the most part done. It was like pulling teeth to get that part done

And that was the easiest part because I was done, but the challenge was over

Yeah. Well, that, I mean, I think a lot of us are in some ways similar to that, you know, I mean, it requires that continued motivation

And for you, it's the continued challenge of figuring it out type thing

For a lot of us, it's, you know, the same thing, right? We've done it before. We understand it

Now it's just a routine, right? Yeah. Uh, so anyway, uh, just understand folks, anybody out there, if you're listening to us and you say, well, I'm, my scenario is completely different than yours. I'm in a different place in life. Like, well, how is any of this, you know, still relevant to me

We're not giving you any specific direction for how you live your own life

We're just hoping to provide some level of context that, you know

AG and I are a couple of different types of people that are motivated largely differently

We have goals that tend to be somewhat similar, but we have completely different paths for getting there And that involves you know our orientation in life our expectations for ourselves things like that

So anyway, the takeaway, I would say, from all of that is, you know, there are multiple paths to the same goal

And there are different ways of looking at things. There's nobody to say that one is right or wrong

They're just different. Right. And they both work. Last question. Is there anything you should try to stay away from when it comes to setting expectations

I've got one off the top of my head. Well, go ahead and give that to me while I think

To me, the biggest one, when you're talking about setting expectations, so again, we've talked about the difference between goals and expectations

When you're setting an expectation for yourself, you need to understand who you are

Don't set expectations based on somebody else because those are going to be way harder to achieve

you need to understand what makes you run what gives you that drive um that to me is one of the

biggest ones because i've seen too many people where they set expectations based off of somebody

else's expectations um that would be my big one my focus is always um make it

make it something you believe is achievable. Yeah. Right. If you set too high of an expectation for yourself

not in terms of what you accomplish, but how you interact on a daily basis, right

You say, well, I want to make sure that I'm so personable at this party or at this event that

everybody likes me. Right. Or, well, that's impossible. I mean, I guess it's not impossible

But not everybody's going to like you. Some people are going to be indifferent. They might not hate you, but they're going to be indifferent

That's just the way it is. You can to set an expectation that everybody like you will drive you crazy And that just one example You set expectations that are reasonable and you got to be careful setting expectations that depend on someone else

Right. So that was a good example that I just gave. You set an expectation other people like you will

You need other people to like you. That depends on other other people. Right. You can't control them. You can only control yourself

So make it something reasonable for yourself that says, OK, I'm going to my expectation of myself is to make certain I fully engage myself every day

Right. Type scenario. And maybe not fully. Right. Fifty percent of the day I need to be engaged in something, something that ultimately has a goal of moving me forward in some way or this type of thing

And at the end of the day, if you look back and say, yeah, I was on it for a good bit of the day, that is a reasonable expectation to have an expectation that says I'm going to be on 100 percent all the time

I mean, that's too difficult. Right. There's you're going to get tired. You're going to have off moments

You're going to have. And so reasonability, something that you believe is within your ability to accomplish. Right

And as you start to fully understand or measure the extent to which you are capable of something, maybe you move the bar a little bit

So for whatever expectation, you modify it just a bit to say, OK, no, this really is accomplishable

And what will this lead to? It will lead to opportunities. And what will it ultimately lead to

Yeah, it will lead to the accomplishment of my goals. So there you go

All right. Those expectations, you know, they're just just like just like values and morals and ethics all collectively

These are things that you on a daily basis live by Right How you How you carry yourself throughout So what you saying and everybody you heard this from Jason first

Put the bar on the floor. And then all you got to do is walk over it

You'll always exceed your expectations. And then move the bar up from there, right

You're like, oh, that was easy. Maybe I ratchet it up just a notch

make it till you get to the point you're like okay this is gonna work for me all right the

bar on this one uh this has been a fun episode uh this is yeah i like the expectations expectations

are something that's fairly big to me so uh you go oh go ahead hopefully our discussions are making

people think about these things yeah just well i mean at this point we're not giving advice we're

providing context. Yep. Right. And if, and if it makes people think, then we've done our job

Right. Agreed. And, and hopefully, like I say, uh, you're, you're doing some mental wrangling out there

as you're listening to us talk. So. Or you're just laughing at us. One of the two, it's just fine

Either way. If we're that entertaining. Yeah. Well, we got any parting words for you

You, you, we head out. Just remind everybody, I keep, you know, uh, bring this up over and over, but get in contact

with us. We want to hear from you. We want to talk about the things you care about. So whether it's on the social media handles or our website or, you know, whatever

But definitely promote us to your friends. Tell them to visit the app store and, you know, download our episodes

Give us the likes and things like that so we can reach more people. Yeah, man. Well, we hope you all liked the episode

We hope to see you next time. Until then, goodbye. Take care. Thanks for listening to the Reschooled podcast

Be sure to head over to Reschooled.com for news and other information on things we're getting into