Reframe Your Inbox (Unrealistic Expectations Edition)

Hey everyone—after a brief hiatus last week (for which you can blame both the topic of today’s newsletter, described in the First Thing below, and the topic of next Sunday’s newsletter, which is burnout), we’re back.

Here are three things for the week: 1) a reflection on my proclivity for setting wildly unrealistic expectations in pretty much every aspect of my working life; 2) some book-related updates; and 3) some quality internet content.

FIRST THING

One afternoon in June 2018, I found myself at a McDonald’s in the Dallas airport. I was en route from the UK to Ecuador for a week of adventuring with my brother and our friends Ben and Brian. By then I’d been writing down my thoughts about work and life for a number of months and was pretty sure I wanted to turn some of those ramblings into a book… so I decided that I would finish the manuscript before I landed in Quito.

Even before I knew that writing Reframe the Day would ultimately take another year and a half, finishing the manuscript that day was an outrageously impossible and unachievable expectation. Yet I worked the entire flight from London to Dallas, squinting at my laptop screen, determined to make it happen despite 100 percent of the available evidence (and common sense) telling me it wasn’t going to happen.

I continued working furiously at McDonald’s during my layover, sweating profusely while inhaling a breakfast sandwich (I’d been awake for probably eighteen hours by that point, but whatever, it’s called the “All Day Breakfast Menu” for a reason), getting increasingly stressed out as it dawned on me that my completely unrealistic goal of finishing the book on that journey was just that: completely unrealistic. I tried to push that realization aside and keep the illusion of potential completion alive after taking off from Dallas, before finally slumping back in my seat, overwhelmed by exhaustion and disappointment.

Then, suddenly, I decided it was ok not to have finished the book that day. I made a conscious choice to stop striving for an impossible goal, and I gave myself permission to bring my expectations back to reality. Immediately, I felt a sense of relief as this self-imposed burden lifted. It was a reminder that, yet again, I had manufactured all of the stress, anxiety, and irritation I’d been feeling about meeting a haphazard deadline.

I share this story because it’s a telling example of something I do constantly, especially over the past few months: set wildly unrealistic expectations for how much I can accomplish in a given amount of time. Intellectually, I know that I can’t “do it all.” No one can. Reframe the Day includes the sentence, “You will not be able to do it all.” Yet every time I sit down to work on a project or think about what I want to get done in a given day, there’s still some part of me that hopes that this time—just this once—I can do it all.

This mentality is problematic for all sorts of reasons. When I think I can do far more in a certain amount of time than I actually can, I’m less likely to prioritize the most important stuff. I’m almost always running late because a) I thought I’d have time to finish whatever I was doing before, and b) I’m seemingly incapable of accurately predicting how long it will take me to get anywhere (because, of course, I have unrealistic expectations for how quickly I can get from one place to another).

I say commit and “yes” to things I don’t want or need to do because I think I’ll be able to get everything done that I want to get done—and still have time left over for the things people ask me to get done. I convince myself that the real problem is that I don’t have enough time to work or don’t work efficiently enough, which leaves me searching for productivity and time-management hacks instead of, say, tackling the root problem of setting unrealistic expectations (or the deeper problem of equating productivity with self-worth).

Most fundamentally, because I always think I can do more than I actually can—sometimes to a laughably unrealistic degree—I’m always trying to get stuff done (or thinking about getting stuff done), and I’m always coming up short. Then I get stressed and irritated and lose my focus when I inevitably discover that I can’t get everything done that I hoped to, even though it was impossible from the beginning.

This isn’t a plea for pity or sympathy; it’s just a realization. And the more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve begun to recognize the extent to which unrealistic expectations are at the root of so much of my self-imposed suffering and stress.

I suspect I’m not the only one. While the causes and consequences of this pattern of thinking are too numerous and too complex to cover in a single email newsletter, the key point is this: Setting impossible expectations for how productive we’ll be and how much we’ll get done doesn’t help us accomplish or achieve anything more than we would otherwise. All it does is set us up for failure. It makes us exhausted and miserable. Over time, it leads to one place: burnout.

Brad Stulberg, one of the co-authors of the “Peak Performance” email newsletter, noted recently that “studies published in the British Medical Journal and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that at any given moment your outlook, mood, and stress levels are a function of your reality minus your expectations. If you know something is going to be a protracted grind—and you go into it with that expectation—odds are you’ll feel a lot better throughout the entire ordeal.” As Stulberg puts it, “Having a high bar is great—until it becomes the very thing that makes you miserable. Pay attention to what is going on in your head. Pay attention to what is happening in your reality. And adjust accordingly.”

I don’t expect that I’ll suddenly become a master expectation-setter. (That, in itself, would be a pretty unrealistic expectation.) But I can try to be more aware of my tendency to set these unachievable expectations and, as Stulberg suggests, “adjust accordingly.”

(Have you read any good articles or books about this challenge? How do you narrow the expectation-reality gap? I’d love your input. Just reply to this email to get in touch.)

SECOND THING

Creative on Purpose. Last Thursday, I joined Scott Perry, host of the podcast “Creative on Purpose,” for a really fun conversation about Reframe the Day. We covered a lot of ground—lessons learned as a political speechwriter, what it means to have a creative practice, the Stoic and Buddhist influences on my thinking, and much more. You can listen to the convo here, or just search for “Creative on Purpose” wherever you get your podcasts.

Instagram Live. I also had a great chat about the book with bookstagrammer Matt Hutson (@bookmattic). Our full conversation is on YouTube, or you can stream it on Instagram TV.

Amazon reviews. For those of you who have received your copy of the book already… would you consider reviewing it on Amazon? No review is too short or too honest. It really, really helps get the word out about the book. Thank you!

Missing books. It’s been nearly a month since Reframe the Day hit (virtual) shelves, but it sounds like a number of people still haven’t received copies that were ordered well before then. I think/hope/trust that the covid-related delays in distribution and shipping are still the source of the issue, but please let me know if you think your order may have been lost in the lockdown chaos.

THIRD THING(S)

“There’s something uniquely misery-making about days spent in a Makework Matrix of ceaseless digital communication that doesn’t seem to generate much beyond additional digital communication—we’re simply not wired for this as a species.” That’s Cal Newport, author of Deep Work, Digital Minimalism, and more, on his blog.

“Give up. You can look and look for something more in him, but it isn’t there. I wish I could tell you that there is some secret thing that he really believes in, but he doesn’t.” Jane Mayer’s April New Yorker profile of the most cynical and toxic force in American politics today, Mitch McConnell, is amazing (as is all of her writing) and absolutely infuriating (as is everything about McConnell). Reading it is a good way to practice some mindfulness, though—read a paragraph, feel the rage and frustration build, acknowledge it, let it pass. Repeat that for 11,000 words. (In an article a few years ago, I tried, and failed, to figure out McConnell’s vision of public service.)

“Video games are a to-do list you play. … No matter the game’s subject matter, style, or story, my favorites all have one central element that feels deeply familiar: a never-ending stream of busywork and chores.” That’s Katie Heaney in The Cut. Erin knows as well as anyone how much I love a good to-do list. She came across this piece and said something along the lines of, “I found an article that’s going to speak to you…” She was right, of course.

That’s all for now. As always, thanks for reading.

—Adam