ETIQUETTE SUCCESS – Living by Your Expectations

If a person wants to be successful and looked up to as a etiquette consultant, coach, or adviser, its vital that they understand what makes someone capable of carrying out such work.

I’ve wanted to attend the Washington School of Protocol for 3 years. It’s that drive and desire to be better as a person overall, and to be successful at what I love to do, that has for the past year made me so determined to save my money to pay for this course, it took a lot of effort and discipline, but I did it. It all started with an intention and never letting go of what I wanted to give to myself with the belief that it would happen one day, falling into place when it should.

I want to learn and be a better person from people who do what I’m passionate about and do it better than I do. Who can create a learning environment where people can learn from experience and being inspired. And whatever I learn, I want to take back with me, and share it with those who strive for the same. People trying to do the right thing, helping themselves and those they care about. What better way to make a living? I expected myself to find a way to make what I wanted happen, and I did. But now I have a new desire, winning the video competition that PSOW has created. To do this I knew that I’d be required to invest my best efforts.

Besides attending and becoming a graduate of the Washington School of Protocol, how can we be exceptional at what we do? We can be exceptional by understanding and becoming aware of Etiquette Fails and Success, and based on that, set and live by what we expect of OURSELVES. And how can being exceptional help us to be more etiquette conscious? Well, because if we think about all the things we want to be, I mean the traits we admire and write them out, then verbalize them, imagine them and put them into action, we will bring them to life. For example if a person admires glamour and fashion, they may say, I EXPECT myself to prepare with passion and creativity the clothes I want to wear the night before work. Or another might be, I expect to love myself and think kind words to myself every day.

We need to take the time to pin point what we expect of ourselves. Once we’ve done that, we have managed to set our OWN expectations. Why our OWN? Because we can only control our own thoughts and behavior. Any change starts with us first.

Unfortunately, a lot of our expectations are not about ourselves, and are about other people. We expect others to be nice to us, we expect others to respect the rules, we expect others to respect us, we expect our children to do well in school, we expect others to be generous to us when we’ve been generous to them, and so on.

What If I said that recognizing what we expect of ourselves and only ourselves, we’d have more of an influence on others to reflect our expectations? Now this is sort of a catch 22 because it’s very important to NOT to expect this, because it will just happen naturally without you even realizing it.

We’ve all heard of the famous saying ‘be the change you want to see in the world’ There’s so much truth to that because no matter who we are, no matter what we’ve done in our lives, no matter where we’ve come from, we can always change and become better versions of ourselves..

What if it were so, and it is, that by knowing what you expect of yourself, you’d live a more full satisfied life, because things are all the clearer for you from knowing who you are and what direction your following in life.

What you can do is make a list, the more detailed the better, of what you expect of yourself. You may start by writing down things that are common sense expectations – according to YOU. For instance. I expect myself to arrive on time at work and for meetings. Another one could be ‘ I expect myself to brush my teeth after every meal.

Then what you can do is list out expectations of characteristics which you admire and how you want to see yourself be and do better. For example ‘I expect myself to be happy’ or ‘I expect myself to have convictions and believe in myself’ or ‘I expect myself to be ambitious’. That’s when change starts to happen. Of course, continuous effort is needed. But by doing these few steps, and carrying them out regularly, you can really start to improve the way you feel about yourself and your surroundings.

You’ll see yourself start to be more direct with what you want. You’ll develop a sense of deservingness. You’ll loose the fear of ASKING, and will start to be more determined the have what you want because you expect yourself to get it. You’ll start to become more courageous and bold. People will start to become curious about you wondering why your so special. Imagine if what you said to yourself every day was ‘ I expect myself to be courageous and ask for what I want’ How awesome does that feel?!

Every day is a day to be a better us. To learn, to grow, to improve. To be kinder, more aware, more polite. To make effort to break habits that don’t help us and make efforts to form habits that truly benefit us.

It’s never to late to start. Lets expect the best ourselves and with every present moment we have, live out our expectations.