Meeting Every Expectation Yet Still Falling Apart? | Episode 433

Meeting Every Expectation Yet Still Falling Apart? | Episode 433

Ever felt like you were graded on a curve you never agreed to? We get real about how expectations can lift or crush us—at work, at home, and inside our own heads—and why mental health context should be part of every performance conversation. From forced bell curves and vague targets to the quiet courage of saying no, we unpack the systems that judge effort without granting influence.

We trace the slippery ways bias enters reviews, including a candid story where a team-approved choice got weaponized later. That moment becomes a lesson in boundary-setting: confirm agreements in writing, keep work and personal choices cleanly separated, and negotiate goals tied to resources, authority, and training. If you’re being measured on outcomes you can’t touch—like production volume or enterprise contracts outside your scope—it’s time to push back, revise the metrics, or seek a healthier lane.

Along the way, we read from a mental health memoir that reframes expectation as a tool, not a trap. Recovery, service, and radical transparency can reset the narrative from comparison to contribution. We also share the broader mission of Voices for Voices—expanding access to care, building community, and pursuing big, St. Jude’s–style dreams for mental health—powered by listeners who share, subscribe, and support the work.

If you’ve been told to “own” goals you can’t influence, this conversation gives you language, steps, and confidence to renegotiate. Listen, reflect, and then tell us: which expectation are you refusing to carry alone? Subscribe, share with a friend who needs it, and leave a review to help more people find the show.

Chapter Markers

0:00 Welcome And Global Mission

2:00 Donations And Big Mental Health Goals

3:55 Defining Expectations In Life And Work

6:10 Performance Reviews And The Bell Curve

10:40 Mental Health Misunderstood At Work

13:35 Getting Cut Loose Without Support

16:30 Asking For Training And Being Denied

19:10 The Rooftop Yoga Review Fallout

24:00 Hidden Bias And Comparison Traps

27:30 Setting Goals You Can Actually Influence

31:00 Saying No And Protecting Your Role

34:00 When To Move Teams Or Jobs

36:30 Personal Story As Cautionary Tale

40:00 Memoir Excerpt: Prescription For Living

44:00 Letting Go Of Others’ Assumptions

47:00 Gratitude, Community

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Transcript

Welcome And Global Mission

Justin Alan Hayes, Voices for Voices 0:02

Hi everyone, it's Justin here, Voices for Voices. Thank you so much for joining us on this episode. The Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. We couldn't make this happen without your love and support. So thank you, one and all, whether you're here in the United States or whether you are in one of the over 100 countries and over a thousand cities worldwide on our way to 3,000 cities and 300 countries and helping at least 3 billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond. Thank you so much for that. Again, uh this show would not be made possible if it wasn't for people like you that are watching and listening, who are sharing to their uh you know their 25 closest friends and their friend group, colleagues, uh uh teammates, uh fellow teachers. Uh we're we're here for everyone. Uh not all topics we realize are going to resonate, and not all guests will resonate. Uh, but having over 430 episodes in our portfolio, in our catalog, uh, I have a really good feeling that 40 to 50 episodes uh will actually uh resonate with you and to those who you share Voices for Voices with or nonprofit charity at heart. Uh we are a 501c3. Uh all donations at loveloices.org, lovevoices.org, lovevoices.org uh are in the United States 100% federally tax uh deductible. Uh so a tax time coming uh might be a good i idea if uh that is something that interests you. Uh the money goes to uh producing, making the show what it is. There's a lot of uh software, hardware behind the scenes uh that is used, as well as we help uh pay for individuals who are deciding that uh uh they may need some mental health care. And we know the bills, I know the bills that go into that, uh, having experienced that myself. Uh, and and so that's what we're uh what we're about, where the money goes. Uh, and then the big goal we have obviously helping at least three billion people over the course of my lifetime beyond. Uh, but we are uh looking, you know, big-time goals of a St. Jude's like hospital for mental health and mental illnesses, where everything's paid for. You don't have to worry about insurance, you don't have to worry about nothing. You just have to bring yourself uh to the location and all expenses will be paid for. That's the big goal. We have other big goals that um we're not able to share right now because they're in they're in the process of uh coming true. So thank you again. We love you. We're sending good vibes your way. You don't have to be a believer, uh, but we're praying for each and every one of you each and every day. Can never have too many good vibes. Let's jump in. Expectations. Expectations are interesting because expectations, and so I'm gonna give you my my background, my experience, and maybe it's like yours, maybe it's not. Uh, maybe you feel the same way or a little bit. Uh you know, expectations on what people are gonna think or able to do as an individual, as a as a human being, as yeah, as a human being. Uh, well, he should be able to do this, she should be able to do this. And sometimes we meet our expectations, sometimes we don't, sometimes we miss them horribly, sometimes we blowpass them in a positive way. And the first thing that comes to my mind when we talk about are we meeting expectations, are we not, is the workforce. You know, performance reviews. How did we do last year? Did we meet our goals? Did we exceed? Did we miss them? Etc. etc. And the answers in the eye of the beholder. We know that we could put a we can put a painting, we could put uh abstract painting in front of ten people and might get ten different answers of like, what do you see? And we might get ten different answers. And expectations in a corporate work setting work a little bit like that, except sometimes we're able to put numbers to that of we're you know, meeting expectations is doing this at this number, not meet expectations is lower than this number, exceeding expectations are a number higher, and so you get the idea, and and you know the work experience and in that I think is a big um big example of when we talk about expectations. There's expectations in our lives no matter what, whether it's in a work setting, whether it's in a I'll call it like a hobby setting, or like something we do on the side that we'd like to do. Uh there's so many, so many ways I can think of like my house is bigger than your house. I have this in my house, and you don't have this in your house. That's that's expectations of I have this, you have that, so the expectation is well we're gonna have something similar in theory. Sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. And expectations can make or break a person's professional, personal life, personal career, professional life, professional career. And this is where I think you know, mental health really comes into play because a lot of times we're being you know, the expectations, I think, so this is this is my opinion, Justin Allen Hayes. I think unless somebody is going through or has gone through, or knows somebody has gone through the mental challenges, it's really hard to say, oh, this person didn't meet expectations. Okay, well, did they have the opportunity to? And we've talked about this before, right? We're at a lower level, a CEO makes a decision, affects the whole company, whole organization. And what we do doesn't play a large role or big enough role to make a difference. It doesn't in this in this example, and a lot of examples, where the day-to-day actions we do helps in really minute ways. But we get judged and say, oh, the company did this, so um we can't get merit raises, uh, we can't get bonuses. And sometimes, again, going back to the mental health side, if a person doesn't understand major depression, doesn't understand acute anxiety, uh, autism anywhere, everywhere on the spectrum. Uh and the list goes on the ADHD, ADD, all those. If they haven't experienced that, and even if they have, it's like a judge, it's like a judgment day in essence, where okay, meetings on the calendar, so we're not professional wise here. Meetings on the calendar, we show up, and we think we're gonna be going over our performance, and next thing you know, show up, and there's human resources, the person you never seen before, uh, and somebody in uh, you know, that runs the computers like information technology, and they're like, Well, you didn't meet your goals, or it's not working out, so you're out of a job. Even if you've done the best you can, or even if you haven't, you're being judged against other people, like the expectation is this. And so, what I want to say is having been in a situation like this, exactly like this, actually, uh leading up until that point in time to that hap, you know, that that event that I just referred to, all you can do is ask, right? So if you're being asked to do something, you do what you can. You talk to the people you you're able to, you get the answers, or people are unavailable over time. Um you ask for training, the help, none's given, it's it's talked about. We'll help you, we'll train you on this, we'll help you on this. After me asking that. And again, this isn't the this has nothing to do with a vendetta on anything. These are facts that happen. So if you're watching and listening from said company, said organization, thank you for joining us. Thank you for watching, thank you for listening. But you know that that's what I did. You know that I asked. I asked for help, I asked for training. I didn't get any. And so the only thing that you knew was to cut me loose. And so there was a period of time, right? It's kind of like almost like the uh the stages of grief in a way. It's like, well, what else what could I have done differently? What could what could have changed a situation? And I was ringing the alarm way before that date. Again. I need help, I need training, I need help, I need training, I need help, I need training. And so I take some of the blame, but I don't take the amount of blame that it takes to say, okay, we're gonna we're gonna fire a person because of whatever reason. And so those things happen, and so there's these expectations and comparisons in the workforce of well, we have you know, the manager or director has ten people that report to them, and so when it comes time for reviews, everybody can't get a meet or exceed on on their review. They have to get what's called a bell curve. There's got to be somebody at the low end, which doesn't get anything, no merit raise, no nothing, didn't didn't basically basically didn't do their job for the last year. You're gonna get somebody all the way on the other end that they were just so awesome, they're so close to perfect, and then the majority go in the middle, so it's kind of like it's like a little bit of a flat line and then goes up, down, and then over. It's called a bell curve. Looks like a bell, and so that comes into play as well. And so those are things that you know we in the work workforce we don't have that much control over. I've also been in positions where I've done very well. And yet I still didn't do good enough in the eyes of the organization, the company. Because I was being compared to other people. The expectation. Expectations were well, we expected this, yep, you did that, thank you, but um no merit raise for you. Or if you get one, you get one that's minimal that doesn't even doesn't even cover the cost of living increase. So all of these things are related to expectations. So we're bringing the the professional side into it. We do talk about that on this show. We don't talk about on every single show, but we do talk about it, and so this is one of the the the reasons and one of the ways that we do it. So we talk and we share and call it what you want. I kind of think there might be at least one person out there that's maybe been through something similar. Just a hunch. And so there's these expectations that are implicit where we or it's like in inside of us where we think that there are whether there's real expectations or artificial expectations that are inside our mind or assumptions. I've done that. I've assumed a lot over the course of my life. Try not to. And then there's the explicit where you can look at something on a paper piece of paper, say, okay, we need to grow at five percent this year. That's great. The big thing I want to share is when goals are being set, if you don't have the right tools, you know, the right software, the uh, and you don't have you're not able to impact that, that goes back to you know, the CEO makes a decision, affects the whole organization, they go bankrupt, and everybody's out of a job. Well, that wasn't me. I didn't make that decision. That's on the CEO. That's you know, the people making those decisions, not me or not you. And those things just happen. There's not a whole lot we can do about that. But if you're given when you're goal setting with your your boss, your manager, whoever it is, if it's not something that you can impact, you need to tell them and do not agree to goals that are so far-fetched to goals that again let's say there's a manufacturing component of your organization, your company, my organization, my company, and part of our performance review is how many pieces of a particular product are gonna be made every single day. And you're nowhere, you're not and you're not the person that's or on the team that is impacting that just saying, Oh, Justin, well, uh we want we want you to make this many pieces per day. No, that's not going on my performance review, that's not going on my goals, nowhere, no how. If I'm not actually the person making the things and having a direct impact, it's not going on my not going on my goals. And you might say, well, duh, that may like why would it? You'd be surprised. You'd be very surprised with some of the goals that get put in front of you and I that we don't directly. Impact. Another example is negotiating contracts. If we're not even in a position to negotiate or part of the negotiation team, that's not going on my that's not going on my goals. And those are expectations, goals, expectations. Some assumptions, but we're talking mostly about expectations on this episode. That's the part that's hard. Is we get afraid, I get afraid of bringing up said topics. Like, why I can't bring that up because my my manager, my boss, my director, it's gonna get them upset. Well, you know what's gonna get it gonna get you upset is if you don't meet your goals and you're out of a job in a year or less. So I think a lot of us have have learned over the last few years about this, but that's why we're hammering this one home today on this this particular show. Is you are empowered. We talked about extraordinary, ordinary people. This is being extraordinary. This is standing up for yourself, standing up for your family. If you're unable to stand up, I I apologize for using these words. Uh stand up in your mind. Don't be afraid to to say no. And if you have a if you have a manager, if you have somebody that's persistent, then maybe you need to look for a new job. Or look for a new area of the company, depending on the size. If it keeps getting rammed down your throat. Have to do this, have to do this, have to do this. Miss Mister, I I have I have no way to impact that. So why why why am I gonna have that on on my my for my goals? And you may be you may be thinking, of course, that makes a lot of sense. But in the moment, it's hard. It's hard to bring it up and say, excuse me, um, I you know that I don't have a way to impact this particular goal. This goal is like you're working at a company with, let's say, twenty thousand employees, they're humongous and being rated and and and all that based off of the performance of the company. And we have a teeny teeny teen teen teeny teeny part in that. But if the company doesn't meet that that particular goal, then that looks like, oh, sorry, Justin, you didn't meet this goal? Well, how am I supposed to? If I'm not in constant interaction with the president, CEO, the board of directors, if I'm not in there helping make decisions, how can one of the things, one of the areas that I'm gonna get rated at the end of the year, or graded on, looked at expectations, not only what did I do, and then the team. So I could have performed I could have performed great. It's happened before, but then there's that thing I just talked about earlier: a bell curve. I perform great, but so did everybody else on my team. And so the manager, director, they gotta do the bell curve. Some do it that way. A lot of the organizations I worked at, that's what they do. It's on a bell curve. It's not everybody on the team can exceed or meet expectations. It's not like that in most instances. Because, see, there's only what's told to us is there's only so much money to go around for raises and maybe bonuses, and so we can't give everybody on the team what they're what they actually earn, what you know, the meeting or exceeding expectations. So even though somebody performed fantastic, they could still end up on the bot the the end, uh, the lower end of that bell curve. Say, wait, great job, Justin, but everybody else did the same, and then you start getting these reasons of weird, crazy stuff that come out, like, oh, well, you took a 31-minute lunch, or whatever. You get these like little weird things that come into play. Very weird, very like you're like, what? Nobody brought anything up about this when it was going on. I'll give an example about something that did happen to me. So we were on location, we're having meetings, and so we were setting the schedule for the next day of what time we were going to get together, what time breakfast was, all those things. And I found out that there was you get there was like a yoga class or something on on the rooftop, and I was like, oh, this seems interesting. And so I asked the front desk, like, what time and all that. So I had that information, okay. Uh so the day goes on, we do our do our meetings, we do our dinner, and at dinner, somebody somebody in the team asked asked me, they said, I heard there was, you know, they do you know yoga, you know, real early in the morning on the roof of major city. Uh are you gonna try are you gonna do it? And I was like, I don't know. I I don't think I should because we're you know, the times we're looking at the meet. Conflict. There's a conflict, so I was like, no, I don't think so. And then the rest of the team was like, well why not? Just do it. I said, well, this is the time it is, and we're planning to meet at this time. And then I am not even not even lying about this part, any of the parts. Especially the the the this whole story. So the the team goes, just do it, just do it. And then come, you know, come to the meeting when you're done. And I remember saying, well, yeah, I might be sweaty or whatever. And they're like, just go do it, and then come to the meeting, you know, come to our our meeting when we're when you're done with it. It's not that long. And so in my head, I was like, nah, I probably shouldn't do it. But people just kept saying, just do it, just do it. It's not a big deal. So I did it. And I look out the you know, and inside the the glass doors. So when you're doing different poses, it it was um it was surfing yoga outside on the on the rooftop. So they had surfboards, so it was something that was interesting. And I looked in at one point and I could see the team looking out and they're waving at me and smiling, they're not pointing at their watch, you know, they're not going like this, like what time it is. And so I after being told by all of them the night before, go ahead, do it. I did it. And guess what? That showed up on my review. It showed up on my review that I did yoga on the rooftop hotel when we were having meetings, and this is by the very one of the very people who approved it, said, Go ahead, do it. Yeah, no big deal. We'll wait for you. We know the time, and so they show up in my review, and so when I say there's weird stuff that kind of comes out at different times, that's some weird stuff that comes out and that came out. Should I have done it? I mean, hindsight's 2020. I didn't just do it on my own without asking or anything. I asked other people brought it up, and so that sounds like something that you'd be interested in. I said, Yeah, and again, I went through you know probably about 10-15 minute conversation about uh I shouldn't do it. Like, no, we got it, we're here for this, and and I got drilled on on my performance review for that. And so when I say some weird stuff shows up, when people are when when people are saying grading or putting the expectations uh between you know you and the other people on your team, that's an example of some weird stuff that comes out. And for me, even to this day, bothers me a little bit. Can't lie. And all I can say is ask. And I brought up in my review and said I asked you and and went down the list. And so, why is this on my review? Like it it didn't make sense, didn't make sense to me at all. And especially for the team to come up and to be smiling and laughing. I mean, that that really got to me, that really bothered me. Uh and there's a little bit still bothers me today, a lot less. But I'm sharing this because there's some weird stuff that comes up on review. You can hit all your goals, you can do everything that's been asked of you. But that one time you did that thing, even though you asked, and even though everybody said that's no problem, just do it, we'll wait for you. Um that's what brought me down. So what I like to say is have work be work and have your personal life be personal. Even though somebody says, yeah, go ahead, do it, you gotta think, what's their prerogative? What's their prerogative? Are they saying it because it really is okay? Or are they saying it to set you up or set me up? Looking back, I think I was set up. They didn't have anything else against me, and then that's that's so that's what was brought up. So expectations. There's a song called Don't Worry, Be Happy. You could only do so much, I can only do so much. I felt like I asked, because I did, and I got yes, yes, go ahead, do it, yes, yes. There was not excuse me, there was now one no answer when it came up. Everybody was like, Yeah, do it, do it. It's no big deal. Instead of, if it was, just bring it up and say, no, probably shouldn't do it. Or no, don't do it. I wouldn't have done it. And so that's why unfortunately we gotta we gotta watch what we do, we gotta watch, you know, the friend groups, we gotta watch everything because some people are just looking for a reason to knock us down a step. There's a lot of organizations trying to do that to voices for voices, and it's not working, and it's not working. Take a sip of water. So expectations. So we talk about that a lot. What I'm gonna do next, I'm gonna read an excerpt. Actually, I'm gonna read my own my own words. House of You prescription for Living. So this is my mental health memoir, call it. And I've had a lot of support, still have a lot of support for putting it together. And I wanted to, you know, how sometimes with with children, you'll have like a children's book for their birthday, and everybody writes something about the child and how they're growing and and uh you know what they mean to them, and uh and so in a way that's what this is, but this is this is me writing to my future self. And so this was written in 2020, and I'm gonna read it now because it's so important, I think, for us to share, especially if you put a book, it doesn't even have to be a book, it can be anything really, anything that's important, it's able to be you know written on, and and so a book usually is uh an easier thing because you're able to um you're able to write usually there's blank pages or half blank pages, and and it'll stay there, and so that's what I did. I was writing this, what we're about to hear and see, and uh to my future self, which is kind of like me today, and into the future. And it talks a lot about expectations and not knowing what's gonna happen mentally, spiritually, physically, just not knowing. So I'm gonna read it, and I think you'll understand it. So I'm just gonna show see it and kind of see. So, this is what I'm I'm gonna be reading. Um, this is a memoir on my mental health, and what I'm reading is kind of a memoir to myself. Justin, congratulations for writing and publishing this book for all the times you didn't know what would happen next, and if there would ever be a time when you could start to enjoy life again without the unhealthy crutches, and as someone who was okay receiving the help you so badly needed, you can be bullheaded and not want to be helped, which was a majority of the time prior to November 2017, at which time you finally accepted that in order to have the best chance of not only surviving it, and I had to start not only my stigma-free life, but also find my prescription for living in order to help others find theirs. You're gonna help so many people by putting your story out that you will have no idea how much and how many others you will reach through them. Congratulations, Justin, Justin Allen Hayes, MBA 57 2020. And so this is something that I have that again that I wrote to my my future self, and it's just so important because those words ring so true, still, even today. I don't know how many people are helping. I know we're helping a ton, we're helping a lot. Some people, some we know we're helping, and we get that feedback, and sometimes we don't, and that's okay. You didn't have to, you know, uh self admit yourself into one of the psych wards for five days, you didn't have to do that. But you did. You didn't have to write the book. But you did. You didn't have to use your name instead of a ghostwriter's name. But you did. So that's why this book is so means so much to me. Doesn't matter how many pages it is, could be two pages, ten pages. It doesn't matter. What matters is I stop worrying about the expectations of me towards others and try to stop the assumptions of me towards others. And do what I think I need to do for my mental health. And so it's a very heav it's very heavy, heavy content. Very intimate details on my life. Growing up. Things were going good. And then when things started uh veer off the tracks just a little bit. And then things kinda almost well veered off the tracks altogether. And so just to read that again, I haven't I haven't read it to myself or publicly like this in quite some time. But it makes a difference. Makes a difference to know that I had the fortitude to look forward and say you're gonna help so many people you don't even know. And so when I talk about these big numbers that we're reaching, cities, countries, provinces, territories, whatever you want to call it, that we're reaching who we're reaching, we're helping. And we have you to thank, our viewers, our listeners. Because without you, we don't have a show. We don't have a reason to put on a show, we don't have a reason to share, you know, my story, my intimate details about just about everything. I'm about as transparent as you come, or as I come, as an individual comes, as transparent as an uh individual comes. So thank you for joining us. We truly appreciate it. We say it all the time, but it's so true. We're not here without you. We're sending good vibes, we're praying for you. You have a happy, healthy, prosperous life and whatever that looks like for you. And we just want to thank everybody who's been a part of Voices for Voices. If you can share this, if you can share, give us a big thumbs up, like, follow, subscribe, subscribe, subscribe, subscribe, share, share, share. Text you know, 25 friends, 25 people on your phone, let them know about the voices or voices, TV show and podcast. Let them know we're a charity, let them know they can help support us by watching, listening, subscribing, liking, sharing, uh, and if you're able to uh able to donate monetarily at lovevoices.org. We greatly appreciate that. Thank you so much for watching, listening to this show, and we will see you on the next episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast. And until then, let's celebrate the voices of everybody in the world, and let's be a voice for not only ourselves, but maybe somebody else that's in need of sharing their story. You can be you can be their their voice, their light, and their light, their story. All stories are important. So we'll see on the next episode. We love you or thinking about you, and have a great day. We'll see you later. Love you. We'll see you later.