who are you disapppointing?

One of my favorite poems is "The Guy in the Glass", it reminds me that the only person who will be disappointed in me, is myself. Not my parents, not my friends, not by my boss, not the JCI members, only myself. Of course - other people can be disappointed if I promise something then don't do it, or forget, but that's not the kind of disappointment I'm talking about here.

I'm talking about the more serious kind of disappointment, the am-I-fulfilling-my-expectations-to-life disappointment, the one that can lead to serious self-doubt and self-confidence issues.

One of the first things I say to members that want to get involved in JCI activities is to not disappoint themselves. In general, JCI members are ambitious young people, we see something we don't like and we fix it, we get ideas, we implement them, we go for our dreams, go-getters, sometimes even overachievers - you can call us a lot of things. And sometimes you can call us disappointed. Not in each other, but in ourselves.

Sometimes we think we can do everything, we'll spend an hour each and every morning working on JCI things, we'll get Richard Branson to come speak for us, we'll do everything, go to all meetings, travel...

And its a killer.

How, as a leader, do you deal with disappointment in a team? From an email saying "I'm sorry I didn't do what you expected", to someone who is so discouraged by their own efforts they don't even want to come to meetings any more? We've all been there - the project you don't even want to think about, the contact you should have emailed ages ago and now its too late, the note to yourself telling you to follow up on that lead...

So I do my best to not have to deal with it, telling my directors to not set themselves up for disappointment. I tell them that I will never be disappointed in them, in JCI we all participate as much as we can, but that they can be disappointed in themselves, and its a lot worse. It is better to give more than expected than less.

Yes - I am only disappointing myself, but is that really an "only"? Are we not the harshest judges of ourselves and our accomplishments?

I don't believe in living without expectations, I believe in following your dreams, being your best, but also keeping it all within reality. You should have a big hairy goal, an ambition you think is only 50% achievable, a dream to work towards and live up to. Just keep it --- you know ---- semi realistic.