– Some of the worst things we do are done with good intentions
Where is the line when helping someone becomes deciding what they’re capable of?
Have you ever decided someone wasn’t capable of doing something before giving them the opportunity to try? Perhaps, like me early in my career, you thought you were protecting them from failing. Perhaps you believed you were being realistic. Perhaps you genuinely thought you knew what was best.
Most of us have. Most of us think we are doing these things for the right reasons.
Usually, we are wrong. Our assumptions rarely announce themselves as prejudice. More often, they arrive disguised as kindness, concern, experience, or hidden under the veil of common sense.
At worst, we are committing microaggressions; at best, we are stifling someone’s opportunity to develop. But regardless of our intentions, when we make decisions about another person without involving them, we have already caused harm. We have taken away something fundamental: their right to have a voice in their own future.
That is what makes low expectations so dangerous.
I have come to believe that some of the most significant barriers people encounter are not necessarily their circumstances, disabilities, education, or experience. Sometimes the barriers are the expectations and decisions of other people and result in the lowering of expectations for that person.
This article isn’t about assigning blame or making us feel guilty. It is about recognizing something we are doing and to consider what we might do differently.
When Helping Becomes Holding Someone Back
Think about some of the things we say when we’re trying to help someone. “I don’t think you’re ready for that.” “That might be a little too difficult for you.” “Let’s find something more realistic.” “I just don’t want you to be disappointed.” None of these statements necessarily come from a place of cruelty.
A parent may want to protect their child from disappointment. An employer may worry about assigning someone a task they believe is beyond their abilities. A teacher may simplify expectations to avoid overwhelming a student. As well, even career advisors can become so focused on identifying barriers that we forget to explore possibilities.
These intentions may be entirely reasonable; but intentions and consequences are not always the same thing.
When we repeatedly make decisions about what other people can or cannot accomplish, we may unintentionally reduce their opportunities to learn, grow, develop confidence, and discover abilities neither they nor we knew they possessed. We turn from supporting someone to deciding for them.
Lessons Learned
Early in my management career, I believed that part of being a good leader was preventing people from failing. To save them from the failures I either made or could anticipate.
I wanted my people to succeed. I wanted to protect them from mistakes, unnecessary difficulties, and the disappointment that comes when things don’t work out.
Looking back, I know my intentions were good, but my understanding of development was flawed. I was so focused on preventing failure that I sometimes overlooked its value.
As I grew in skill and knowledge of how people learn, and how I learned, I came to appreciate that a supervised failure, where the consequences are limited and the opportunity to learn is significant, can be one of the most powerful people development tools available.
There is an enormous difference between allowing someone to make a mistake that could cause serious harm and giving them the freedom to attempt something difficult in an environment where mistakes are manageable.
Someone who is always protected from mistakes may never learn how to recover or learn the judgment that comes from experiencing success and failure. Someone who is constantly rescued from difficult situations may eventually begin to question their own ability to handle challenges independently.
As managers, parents, educators, and support professionals, too often we measure our effectiveness by how successfully we prevent things from going wrong. Perhaps a better measure is how effectively we prepare people to respond when they do.
A controlled failure isn’t about setting someone up to fail. It is about creating an opportunity to try, providing appropriate safeguards, and allowing the experience to become a lesson rather than a judgment. It requires trust, patience, and the discipline to resist stepping in too soon.
The Difference Between Being Realistic and Being Limiting
One of the most common justifications for lowering expectations is that we’re simply being realistic, and sometimes we are. Real limitations exist. People have different abilities, circumstances, resources, and support needs. Some goals require considerable preparation, adaptations, or a different approach. Others may genuinely be beyond someone’s present capabilities.
Recognizing those realities is not inherently unkind. But there is an important difference between recognizing a barrier and assuming it cannot be overcome.
Consider two responses to someone expressing an ambitious goal. “That isn’t realistic for you.” Or: “Let’s explore what it would take to make that possible.”
The first response may end the conversation before it begins. The second opens the door to learning more.
It doesn’t promise success. It doesn’t ignore limitations. It simply recognizes that we may not yet have enough information to decide what is possible. Sometimes the answer will be that a goal needs to change. Sometimes it will require additional training, support, time, or resources, and sometimes we may discover that our original assessment was wrong.
Believing in someone’s potential doesn’t mean promising they can accomplish anything. It means refusing to decide what they cannot accomplish before giving them a meaningful opportunity to explore it.
The Danger of Confusing Difference With Inability
We have become remarkably good at identifying what makes someone different. We are not always nearly as curious about what makes them capable. Someone who struggles with verbal communication may be an exceptional written communicator. Someone who finds traditional classroom learning difficult may excel when given practical, hands-on instruction. Someone who experiences anxiety during an interview may be dependable, conscientious, and highly capable in the workplace. Someone with physical or sensory limitations may possess valuable skills that remain unexplored because others have already decided which opportunities are appropriate.
None of these possibilities guarantees that a person will succeed in a particular role. But they remind us that difficulty in one area does not automatically indicate inability in another.
We also need to recognize that barriers rarely exist in isolation. Disability, age, education, income, language, transportation, geography, and personal circumstances can overlap in ways that make opportunities more difficult to access.
Sometimes what appears to be a lack of ability is actually a lack of opportunity, an inaccessible process, an unsuitable environment, or an assumption that nobody has thought to question. Before deciding that someone cannot do something, perhaps we should spend a little more time understanding what is actually preventing them from trying.
Why Must Someone Be Extraordinary to Deserve an Ordinary Opportunity?
There is another aspect of low expectations that troubles me.
Why do we sometimes expect people who are different to demonstrate extraordinary abilities before considering them worthy of ordinary opportunities? We celebrate remarkable achievements by people who have overcome significant barriers, and there is nothing wrong with recognizing those accomplishments. But there is a danger in making extraordinary achievement the evidence someone must provide before we take their ordinary ambitions seriously.
A person shouldn’t have to demonstrate exceptional courage, resilience, intelligence, or determination simply to be considered for an opportunity that others receive without question. Not everyone wants to accomplish something extraordinary. Some people want meaningful work. Others want to volunteer, learn a skill, contribute to their community, develop friendships, or simply experience the satisfaction of doing something useful.
These are not lesser ambitions. They are part of what gives life meaning.
A person shouldn’t have to be extraordinary to deserve the chance to be ordinary.
Also, perhaps we should stop being so surprised when people demonstrate abilities we never took the time to discover.
The Invisible Weight of Other People’s Expectations
One of the more troubling consequences of low expectations is that they can eventually become our own.
Imagine being told repeatedly that something is too difficult for you. That you aren’t ready. That you should aim a little lower. That someone else knows what is best.
One comment may seem insignificant. But over time, repeated messages can influence the opportunities we pursue, the risks we’re willing to take, and the way we understand our own abilities.
Compounding this, not everyone responds in the same way. Some people become more determined to prove others wrong. Others withdraw, lose confidence, or stop considering possibilities they once found exciting.
What can happen is that the person holding us back is no longer the parent, teacher, employer, or advisor who underestimated us years ago. Sometimes it is our voice we’ve carried forward from all those traumatic experiences. Then we begin to limit ourselves before anyone else has the opportunity to do it.
This is why I am cautious about telling someone they simply need to believe in themselves. Confidence doesn’t always arrive before action. Often, it develops because someone was given the opportunity to try, to make mistakes, to experience progress, and to discover evidence of their own capabilities.
Sometimes confidence isn’t what allows us to begin. It’s what grows because we were finally given the chance.
The Courage to Let Someone Try
There is something uncomfortable about watching someone we care about and even someone we don’t know struggle.
We want to help. We want to make things easier. We want to prevent disappointment. Sometimes intervention is absolutely necessary.
Sometimes our discomfort with another person’s struggle says more about us than it does about their ability to manage it. When we immediately step in, solve the problem, lower the expectation, or redirect the goal, whose needs are we actually meeting? Theirs, or our own need to see them succeed without difficulty.
This doesn’t mean standing by while someone faces unnecessary danger or serious consequences. Appropriate support, preparation, and safeguards matter. It means recognizing that people have a right to participate in decisions about their own lives, including decisions that involve uncertainty and the possibility of failure. There is dignity in being allowed to try. There is dignity in making a mistake and learning from it, and there is dignity in deciding that something is no longer worth pursuing, provided that decision belongs to the person whose life is affected.
The goal of good support should not be to eliminate every difficulty. It should be to help people develop the knowledge, skills, confidence, and independence to navigate difficulties themselves.
Sometimes the most compassionate thing we can do is offer support without taking control, and sometimes the hardest part of helping is knowing when to step aside.
Raising Expectations Without Abandoning Reality
Challenging low expectations does not mean replacing them with unrealistic promises.
Telling someone they can accomplish absolutely anything may sound encouraging, but it can be just as unhelpful as telling them they cannot succeed. People deserve more than empty optimism. They deserve thoughtful conversations, honest assessments, meaningful opportunities, and practical support.
We can begin by changing how we approach challenges. Instead of deciding what someone should want, ask them what matters to them. Ask, what does success look like to them, and instead of immediately rejecting a difficult goal, explore the skills, resources, and steps it might require.
Instead of treating mistakes as evidence of inability, consider what they can teach. Instead of assuming one approach will work for everyone, look for alternatives. Most importantly, instead of measuring everyone against a single definition of success, recognize that meaningful progress can take many forms.
For one person, success may be securing full-time employment. For another, it may be working a few hours each week, learning to communicate more effectively, becoming more independent, or contributing through volunteering. Success isn’t always a destination that other people get to choose. Sometimes it is the opportunity to move toward something that matters to us.
A Tool Everyone Can Use: The Expectations Test
Before deciding what another person can or cannot accomplish, consider five questions.
1. Am I basing my expectations on evidence or assumptions? What do I actually know about this person’s capabilities, and what have I simply assumed?
2. Have I asked this person what they want? Am I helping them pursue their goals, or encouraging them toward goals I believe are more appropriate?
3. Have I explored different ways they might succeed? Could training, accommodations, practice, additional time, additional interim steps, or a different approach change the possibilities?
4. Am I protecting them from genuine harm or simply from the possibility of failure? Are the consequences serious, or could this become a valuable learning opportunity with appropriate safeguards?
5. Would I offer the same opportunity to someone whose abilities I hadn’t already questioned? Am I applying a fair standard, or allowing my assumptions to influence the opportunities I provide?
These questions are not intended to assess another person’s abilities.
They are intended to challenge our own automatic judgments, and they apply just as much to the expectations we place on ourselves.
The Opportunity to Discover What Is Possible
I have spent much of my professional life working with people, helping them develop skills, recognize opportunities, overcome barriers, and move toward goals that matter to them.
If there is one thing experience has taught me, it is that people are rarely as simple as our first impressions suggest. We all carry strengths, limitations, experiences, ambitions, and uncertainties that others may not immediately recognize, and none of us is immune to making assumptions.
I know that I have made them. I also know that some of my most important lessons have come from discovering that my expectations were wrong. Perhaps that is where meaningful change begins. Not with the belief that we will always recognize another person’s potential, but with the humility to accept that we might not.
The Ask
We cannot eliminate every barrier. We cannot guarantee that every ambition will succeed. We cannot protect people from every disappointment life may bring. But we can listen more carefully. We can ask better questions. We can create opportunities to try, learn, fail safely, and try again.
We can become more curious about people’s abilities and a little less certain about their limitations. So, while we’re reconsidering the limits we’ve placed on others, perhaps we should examine a few we’ve accepted for ourselves. We need to acknowledge the quiet cruelty of low expectations isn’t simply that we sometimes underestimate other people. It’s that we may never discover what they could have accomplished.
Worse, eventually, they may stop wondering too.
Perhaps the most powerful thing we can offer another human being isn’t encouragement, advice, or even assistance.
It’s the opportunity to discover what they’re capable of, whether it surprises us or not.
Paul