{"id":4312,"date":"2024-03-18T18:49:49","date_gmt":"2024-03-18T18:49:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/uncategorized\/how-you-initially-show-up-in-a-situation-sets-expectations-for-how-you-will-be-judged-going-forward\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T21:29:46","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T21:29:46","slug":"how-you-initially-show-up-in-a-situation-sets-expectations-for-how-you-will-be-judged-going-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/uncategorized\/how-you-initially-show-up-in-a-situation-sets-expectations-for-how-you-will-be-judged-going-forward\/","title":{"rendered":"How you initially show up in a situation sets expectations for how you will be judged going forward.<\/a>"},"content":{"rendered":"

How you initially show up in a situation sets expectations for how you will be judged going forward. <\/p>\n

I heard a funny thought experiment along these lines:
\n— Person A starts a new job and wants to show how dedicated they are, so they stay until 9pm every night putting in the extra time.
\n— Person B starts at the same time, but has family obligations so they leave every day at 6pm to have dinner with their kids. <\/p>\n

One night, Person A wants to have dinner with a friend from out of town so they leave at 7pm. People ask “Why are you leaving early, you slacker?” <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, one night there’s a situation that requires extra effort, and Person B stays until 7pm before leaving. People say “You’re a hero! What dedication!”<\/p>\n

The expectations changed how the exact same behavior was perceived. <\/p>\n

This is particularly relevant in a new job situation, as described above, but it also applies to all relationships.
\n— If you show up one way in the first few dates and then change, people will understandably feel confused and betrayed (and, yes, that’s an unfortunately real example from my dating history).
\n— If you let a kid’s behavior slide as a parent, and then start enforcing a rule, they will understandably be confused and upset. <\/p>\n

Before you react in a new situation, think about what expectations you are setting for others and whether you will want to keep acting that way in a year. If not, consider doing something different and\/or making it clear that this is temporary (“Yes, you can have extra TV but only because we’re on vacation”).<\/p>\n

What’s an example from your life where you set initial expectations that you were later not able to live up to?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How you initially show up in a situation sets expectations for how you will be judged going forward. I heard a funny thought experiment along these lines: — Person A starts a new job and wants to show how dedicated they are, so they stay until 9pm every night putting in the extra time. —…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4312"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4405,"href":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4312\/revisions\/4405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nehrlich.com\/linkedin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}