How to Declare "Expectation Bankruptcy"
What to do when our expectations become an anchor
IMPORTANT! My new book, How to Try Again, is now out!
All versions (kindle, hardcover, and audio) are currently 30%+ off on Amazon. It’s also available through your favorite local retailer and bookstore!
All bonuses details are at the end of this essay.
Let’s get to it.
I have high expectations for myself.
There are things I hope to accomplish, and events I hope turn out a certain way.
Sometimes this is a good thing! It gives me something to work towards, it makes me keep my focus and effort targeted. But sometimes, those expectations can become an anchor: when I tell myself I need a certain outcome,
That voice in my head that tells me how things should be. How they have to be. That I should get a certain outcome simply because I want it really badly.
And then there’s the reality of the situation, much of which is completely out of my control. (Oh, and the fact that reaching an arbitrary goal won’t magically solve all my problems and insecurities!)
So, what do we do when healthy expectations for improvement eventually become unhealthy and unrealistic and unhelpful?
We embrace a nerdy accounting strategy for running businesses and governments.
I promise this will be liberating and enjoyable, with no math required.
This portion of the essay adapted from Chapter 9 of How to Try again:
Let’s Zero Base-Budget our lives
Peter Pyhrr was an accountant working for Texas Instruments in the 1960s.
Yes, the company that made the TI-83 calculator us millennials used in high school calculus (but really only used to play home-brew video games).
Pyhrr came up with a new strategy for budgeting that radically transformed many businesses. It was so revolutionary that it led to Pyhrr consulting for the state of Georgia and its governor (and eventual US president) Jimmy Carter on their budgeting.
It’s called zero-based budgeting (ZBB).
Let’s say each department of a business has a certain budget. This year, that budget is $1 million, so they spend $1 million. Next year, that department just slaps a 10% increase onto its budget and now it’s $1.1 million and they will find ways to spend every penny. Each year, this budget grows a bit bigger.
Over time, these budgets and projections become permanent.
The company does things a certain way simply because they’ve always been done that way.
And at some point, the company will decide they need to cut expenses, and they’ll look to each department to trim costs.
With Pyhrr’s ZBB accounting system, instead of starting with the previous year’s budget and looking for areas to scrape off some savings, each department starts the year with a budget of zero. They have to then justify why each expense is important to be put back on the list for the following year.
Instead of working backwards from the top, we build up from zero.
Let’s set aside whether or not this actually works for governments or large businesses. We’re just using it as a framework for our own personal lives and expectations.
Rather than starting with how life should be, and all the ways we’re coming up short every day, let’s preserve our sanity.
ZBB tells us to wipe the slate clean right now.
We start at zero and build up from there.
We set aside the sky high expectations we have for ourselves. We start with a blank slate instead of weighing ourselves down with expectations that may or may not be in our control.
And then we take action from there.
Let’s declare “Expectation Bankruptcy”
Today? Right now? This is the only thing we can control.
Here’s why this is so front and center for me:
I have a book, How to Try Again, coming out in bookstores around the world this week. I devoted the last four-ish years of my life to this.
I also went through a complicated few years while writing it:
I I fired myself to focus on this book, and spent an extra 18 months creating something that people will hopefully read, feel a connection to it, and tell others about iot.
I gave myself permission to ask for help, and reached out to every friend I’ve made over the past 17 years asking for their support. I’ve spent the last six months recording podcasts and writing guest posts and making new connections.
I’ve been sending a free weekly newsletter (this one!) to my audience for 17 years, and I’m asking them to support my writing.
I even attended the Kit conference last week with Coach Matt (who now runs the day-to-day at Nerd Fitness), where all 450 attendees got an early copy of my book. So I had this shirt made to make sure people could connect me to the book:
(And yes, the shirt was BIG hit, ha!)
And yet, at the same time, I cannot control much of this outcome.
Luck plays such a role in success, especially when it comes to books. I’m not a social media influencer, I don’t have a massive YouTube channel, I’m not famous. I’m just a dude who loves writing about stuff that makes people feel less alone.
This is why I have declared expectation bankruptcy.
I have channeled Steve Carell’s character, Michael Scott, in The Office and literally yelled out loud, “I declare bankruptcy!”
Making things and sharing it is hard enough already; I don’t need to also put additional pressure or guilt on top of it by retaining unrealistic expectations when so much of this is out of my hands.
Maybe you can relate to having expectations that maybe freak you out?
What can we do instead? I thought you’d never ask!
Add up what we CAN control
So, how the heck do we get ourselves to still do “the thing” we’re trying to do without expectations attached?
We narrow our focus to parts of it that are actually within our control.
(Yes, this is so damn cliché, but only because it’s true.)
No matter what we’re trying to accomplish, it can help to give ourselves some visual representation of all the work we’ve done, instead of only focusing on an outcome or how far we still have to go.
A popular technique associated with this includes a glass jar and lots of items or tokens.
At Nerd Fitness, we call this the “Jar of Awesome,” because we are incapable of giving normal names to anything. Every time we complete an experiment, workout, or challenge we’re working on, we simply add a marble or LEGO piece or widget to the jar. The goal is simply to add more to the pile, as often as we’re able.
When we worry about how far we still have to go, when we start to focus too much on the outcome rather than the process, when we worry we haven’t done enough…
We can look at the jar.
We can see all the work we’ve been doing that’s within our control. This might be enough for us to decide to keep going and keep our focus on just doing the task as often as we can, for as long as we can.
Personally, I can’t really control how many people buy my book. It might become a hit or it might not.
This is where I got into trouble: I found myself panicking over the past few months that I wasn’t doing enough, that I was falling behind some arbitrary number, that my publisher would be mad at me if it doesn’t sell XYZ copies.
(Did I mention I have really really strong people pleasing tendencies?)
Sometimes this panic and anxiety would get so overwhelming it stopped me from doing any work at all. It also stopped me from enjoying the fact that I wrote a book I’m proud of that will be on bookshelves worldwide.
So, I’ve given myself permission to declare Expectation Bankruptcy and just do the work without that weight.
Here’s my own Jar of Awesome:
Every time I record a podcast episode, write a guest post, do a Live Q&A, I write the details on a mini ping pong ball and add them to my mason jar.
I think I’m at about 50 ping pong balls so far, with another 25 balls already queued up. Over the coming months and years, I hope I can fill this jar up by sharing the concepts and philosophy of How to Try Again with a larger and wider audience.
To borrow another lesson from my book (and mental golf coach Josh Nichols), I’ve “pre-accepted any outcome” for this book.
I’m going to bust my ass to share these ideas, and add ping pong balls to my jar. And damnit, I’m going to have fun along the way, because that’s all I can do.
I want to hear from you:
What’s something you’ve put unnecessary pressure on your shoulders for?
How can you narrow your focus to something that is in your control?
Where can you declare “Expectation Bankruptcy?”
Do you have a “Jar of Awesome?”
I’d love to hear from you!
-Steve
PS: This essay is adapted from How to Try Again, which hits shelves in the US and Italy tomorrow (June 16th) and in 8 other countries on Thursday (June 18th)!
There are free book bonuses that you can get if you order the book before the end of this week. It would mean a lot to me if you purchased your copy in whatever format works for you!