Modifying Expectations
Expect a lot?? 🤔
Thomas filler once said
Good is not good, when better is expected.
Undeniably, when you struggle hard for something you would expect a lot in return. However, life does not always serve you what you ask for, it's sad but true.
Sometimes things probably won't go according to your plans, your timeline won't really follow the time, your right directions might not be the right ones, reality won’t translate into what you planned. So, when things won't go in the right direction or the direction you expected, you just have to stop sticking to those plans and change or modify them unless they break you down. This is what we call modifying expectations.
My Story 🏔️💫⛈️🌻
I am more than halfway on my Outreachy journey. 🏆🌟 I submitted a three-month internship timeline during the application period. However, when the internship started, I always found myself chasing the timeline and not reaching it.
And here goes my story of “A series of unfortunate events”.
One day I woke up and found out my Ubuntu was not working. I reinstalled Ubuntu, all the software, set up my project environment, and breathed a sigh of relief 😌 that the problem is solved now. But the very next day, everything was gone again 💥. I told my mentor that I need some time to fix everything, and then I started again. I solved all the issues and restored my laptop's condition.
Another important thing, when we start working on a task we may encounter new bugs, system issues, and new tasks. We can not always predict everything at the start.
Set Realistic Expectations
The timeline keeps changing during the whole internship. My internship constitutes three to four major tasks. While creating the timeline, I allotted a fixed number of weeks to every task sophistically. But as the internship started, I was working on all these tasks side by side which actually proved to be more productive.
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” — Albert Einstein
My Approach
I discuss the expected goals of a week with my mentor in every Monday meeting. I always keep my mentor in the loop. If anything new comes up, we adjust the goals accordingly. Effective communication always saves your time and energy.
So yeah, set your goals, set your timeline, set your expectations, but if you feel that you are failing at your goals, change your plan instead of your goals.
Thank you for reading :)
