Doing what you’re expected to do isn't enough. If you know exactly what to do because everyone else is doing it, you’ll hardly reach any new goals nor dominate your field. Things are constantly changing. Formulas to successes never work as the market is never stagnant. Yet we like to stick to things that are working, and shut our eyes to the changes that are occurring in the market. This becomes a problem as standard expectations promote you to think and act averagely. Far-reaching and across-the-board expectations on the other hand, push you to think creatively!

“Everything popular is wrong.” - Oscar Wilde

Guts & Perseverance

The opportunities to reach your goals are as immense as your imagination lets. You’re the only one in the way of your own success and it depends on how hard you’re willing to push yourself.

In school we usually learnt to do what our teacher told us, more isn’t required. Even if you would like to cross some limits, the teacher probably wouldn't like your attempts to do so. There’s limitation in school, you can’t receive a better grade than A+ and you can’t break too many rules inside a school’s frames. This has a way of making us believe that even knowledge and imagination have restrictions.

American businessman, David Ogilvy, said “Don’t bunt. Aim out of the ball park. Aim for the company of immortals.” Your actions will depend on how high your expectations are, and how much you believe you can accomplish. A person that set out goals he already has experienced he can handle, and a person that set out outstanding goals, will act in completely different ways. They will find solutions from two different perceptions, two different visions, one is demanding more from himself than the other.

Passion dares To Answer Questions

To make sure that you have high expectations, you need to ask yourself a couple of simple questions:

• What are my goals?
• What am I going to accomplish? What is nobody doing that I can do?!
• When have I accomplished these goals?

Even though these questions are very easy to ask, they are much harder to reply. For the reason that this is the time where you decide how much you are willing to push yourself to actually reach them. This is all about taking the responsibility and committing to get the results, not just working to be active.

Another aspect is that you probably know that you’ll become unhappy if you make high expectations and then later don’t reach them. The entire exercise becomes scary and most people end up lowering their demands of themselves so that they later don’t get disappointed.

High expectations are directly connected with how strong and solid your vision is. The more comprehensible your vision is, that is the clearer you can see your final result, the easier it becomes to pressure yourself to become creative and solve each and every problem that gets in your way, you have no choice. When you've created a vision that you believe in, you’ll do everything to accomplish it, you’ve already made a promise in which you can’t break. So in short, have the guts to require more from yourself than you personally believe you can and then make sure that you do everything in your power to accomplish it. You can also think about how you can be in a position where there is no turning back, then you must go forward.

Speed of Action

"What is essential in war is victory, not prolonged operations." - Sun Tzu

Not only should you set up high expectations, but you also need to reach them quickly. Even if you have very high goals but aren't sure if you’re going to strive for them today, they’ll constantly be overlooked and never put to action. Do things quickly! So that you rapidly can see what works and what doesn't. There’s a Japanese proverb that says: “If a bonsai stops growing, you know it is dead.” A company needs to grow fast, which means that you and your team must learn and explore fast to find your weaknesses and strengths. This will most rapidly be done if you demand it from yourself, be audacious.

High Expectations, You and Your Team

The result becomes that you’ll get more done than if you had set lower goals. If you tell your team members that they only need to reach certain goals, you restrict them. Generally many organizations have a dim vision of where the organization is heading. The vision is not spoken about enough in the organization. It is necessary to create an exciting vision which makes things clear about its future mission and the team members’ roles in it. When the vision is clear, as you have communicated the organization’s expected results, it becomes easier for your team to open up and become creative. As a leader you need to make sure that everyone feels free to use their own imagination, and really be comfortable in giving you and each other new ideas and solutions.

"You cannot stop innovation." - Sun Tzu

Ensure that you can bring a bold vision into your team members’ perception which states the importance of change, as change is actually more than just scary, but also vital. Create a steady and solid momentum step by step and make sure it picks up the pace.