Friday, January 9, 2026

Great Expectations

A new year provides a new chance to define success on your own terms

By Michael Reid, Representative

It’s a new year. What’s the big deal?

Isn’t the timing of the new year a totally random event based on some guy named Gregory? Perpetuated by big calendar companies?

For some people, though, the first day of a new year is the day we create our expectations for the year to come. Maybe even set some goals. Dream for the future.

“Yeah,” you might say, “goal setting isn’t really my thing.”

Studies repeatedly find that 80-84 percent of people don’t ever set specific goals, and only about 3 percent of people write their goals down and make an action plan. Perhaps we don’t set goals because we have failed so often to achieve them.

In the book Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success, the authors note that 85 percent of employees surveyed reported that they had missed a promotion or pay increase because they were unable to make the changes their boss had requested. They have similarly interesting facts about our failures to prepare financially for our future and to adopt the behaviours necessary to save our relationships.

Yet, people who write goals down are much more likely to achieve them. People who write their goals down and ask six friends to help them are way, way more likely to achieve them—or so say the authors of Change Anything.

Often, when we think about what we want, we get blocked by our feelings about the expectations of others. Do we ever complain to our friends about our spouse’s or boss’s unrealistic expectations? Complaining makes us feel better in the moment but entrenches us in a victim mentality—blaming others for our situation instead of taking action to make it better.

Your boss has expectations and should have them. So does your spouse. And your kids, your friends, and probably your neighbour and the person driving in the lane beside you on the highway.

How confidently you can respond to those expectations depends in part on how strong your own expectations are of yourself. Are other people’s expectations more powerful than your own? Do you care more about their reactions than your sense of personal integrity? More about their preferences than your unique style? Their pleasure than your own sense of excitement with life and your purpose in it?

Our expectations of ourselves create a story in our mind, and often we tell a story that is safe, doesn’t challenge us to grow, and is easily reinforced. If necessary, we will incite reactions in other people to reinforce our story. We might ask for a lot of reassurance that we are accepted. Or we might get people angry to reinforce our belief that there are too many people against us for us to succeed. Or we make friends with people who never challenge us and believe that coasting is balance.

It’s a new year. Dig deep and find your great expectations of yourself—your own expectations and not the expectations of others. Think about something you really want and what it would take to achieve it. Make a plan. Tell someone who will support you.

Here’s to your success in 2026!

Great Expectations

You might be interested in