The fact that someone is virtually always going to be mad or at least disappointed with you is inevitable because while you’re busy trying to please one person, you’re often disappointing someone else. Even if your intentions are entirely pure and positive, you simply can’t be in two places at one time. So, if two or more people want, need or expect something from you – and you can’t do it all – someone is going to be left disappointed.
When you have dozens, even hundreds of demands on your time, and requests being fired at you from all different directions, a certain number of balls are going to be dropped. Mistakes are going to be made.
Four people asked you to call them before five o’clock. The second call took much longer than anticipated. The two who didn’t receive calls are probably going to be upset. If you hurried the call you were on, you risked upsetting that person. Either way, someone’s left upset. Or you go the extra mile to do an excellent job on one project – but only have time to do an adequate job on another project. Again, you let someone down.
When you make peace with this fact of life, a huge weight is lifted off your shoulders. Obviously you would never intentionally hurt or disappoint someone. In fact, most of us will do everything within our power not to, yet it’s still going to happen. And when you know it’s inevitable, your gut reaction to the disappointment is going to be much more peaceful.
Comments