Imagine the pressure of expectations when every time you set out to do something you are expected to do it better than everyone else. Yesterday was the final round of the Masters and Tiger Woods started the day four strokes back yet still expected to win. The thing is, the pressure that is put on him by others is nothing compared to the expectations he has for himself. Now imagine if we all had the same kind of expectations for ourselves and yet also a belief that others are always doing the best they can. There are two lessons here. On the one hand it’s about believing in ourselves. On the other hand it is about a respect for others and a willingness to give them the benefit of the doubt. There is the potential that the expectations could become overwhelming every time we fail to meet them, but there is also the potential that they might drive us to do even more or even better than we thought we could. The challenge is to let go of failure (or better yet to see every failure as a success in terms of learning something new) and to move from whatever disappointment we might initially feel into a new set of expectations for whatever it is we will do next. It comes down to the willingness to push ourselves always to be better and at the same time never feeling that we aren’t good enough.