Can you limit the number of groups you disappoint?

You can if you determine who sets the expectations for you to meet or fail to meet.

Only you ultimately can please yourself. Only you can really set the standard to which you will work, love, and lead.

You may find yourself failing to live up to the expectations put upon you as a student, a husband, a child of God, a director of ministry, a daughter, or a friend.

How many different sets of expectations can you realistically not live up to before you shut down or climb up in a tower or start just going through the motions to get through another day?

Try to cut back on how many different people you are trying to make happy.

Especially the ones that are really only happy when they are unhappy.

Your critics are people who are paid (usually through some weird personal satisfaction they get when you make them unhappy) to dislike what you are doing.

Trying to do what they like won't make them happy. Even if you succeed, it'll really only disappoint them.

And then you'll be unhappy giving people what they want only to make them disappointed.

Better to figure out what you want and then provide value by exceeding the expectations of people who want that same thing.

Everybody else will actually enjoy their disappointment.

And no one will ever have to say about you:

He seemed so quiet. I never expected him to do anything like this...