Under promise, over deliver

A couple months ago, I went out to dinner with my friend, Jane, and her mom, who was visiting from the US. Her mom asked me to tell her about our new flat.

I gave her some details and then said, “It’s 688 sq feet.”

And Jane’s mom said, “Ok, and what is it total?”

I replied, “No, that’s it. 688 sq feet total.”

The look on her face was priceless.

I also had to tell her I hadn’t actually seen the flat. We had seen model flats but none of them were the exact set-up as ours. I had also seen the blue prints but it’s too hard to imagine real walls and doors. Not to mention the fact that radiators are the norm here and they are always in the most inconvenient spots of a room. So as I was imagining where we’d put our bed and where my new overstuffed armchair would go, I had to keep in mind that there would probably be a big, ol’ radiator right smack in the middle of the wall.

Scott and I agreed that when we did finally get to see our new home, we wouldn’t be negative. After all, we’d just committed to paying more money than I ever thought we would at this stage in life. Scott, knowing that I probably couldn’t control my emotions on the day, had been managing my expectations all along. When I would look at our current kitchen and say, “Our new kitchen will feel a lot bigger, right?” Scott would answer, “It will be a bit bigger, but not much.”

The “under promise, over deliver” mantra worked well. As did the pep talk we had in the parking lot before going in.

This weekend we saw all 688 sq feet of our new place. And I was pleasantly surprised.