Surviving the Toxic Workplace: Protect Yourself Against Coworkers, Bosses, and Work Environments That Poison Your Day

CHAPTER 19Keep Your Expectations Reasonable and Your Hopes High

One reason people get angry is that their expectations are out of line with reality. In the previous exercise, “Best Scenario to Worst Scenario,” you outlined all of what could happen if you decided to take a risk at work. Doing so gives you the power to prepare for any one of those results. The second part of this preparation is to make sure that you have realistic expectations. Sometimes, if you have very high expectations, then the slightest bit of disappointment can wreck your day. You must build in a flexible margin of acceptability. If you always expect 100 percent positive results from everything you do, you might find yourself feeling disappointed even when you get 99 percent ...