Ted Lasso Part Two: Expectations and the Versions of Ourselves We Become

In part one, I wrote about how Ted Lasso gets us to look at other people differently. Not to excuse bad behaviour, but to try and understand what might be going on underneath it, and how that understanding can sometimes change the way we respond. For part two, I wanted to turn that around a little, because something else struck me while watching it. We don't just interpret other people's behaviour all the time, we are also constantly adjusting our own. Depending on where we are, who we are with and what we think is expected of us, we can become slightly different versions of ourselves. I think most of us do this far more than we realise.

And yes, before I go any further, Ted Lasso still isn't really about football.

There is a lot of football in it, obviously. There are changing rooms, matches, training sessions, press conferences, managers, supporters and quite a lot of shouting from the touchline. But the more I watch it, the more I think the football is simply the place where everything else gets tested. Put a group of very different people into a highly competitive environment, add pressure, expectation, success, failure, status, insecurity and relationships, and suddenly you get to see who people really are. Or perhaps more accurately, you get to see the different versions of who they are. That, to me, is much more interesting than whether Richmond win the match.

One of the things the writers do particularly well is show how much the characters change depending on the situation they are in. Jamie can be one person when he feels he has something to prove and somebody quite different when he feels accepted. Roy can look like the most intimidating person in the room and then suddenly you see a completely different side of him when he is with somebody he cares about. Rebecca can command a room brilliantly, yet in a different situation become uncertain and vulnerable. Nate changes enormously as the way he sees himself changes, and also as the way he believes other people see him changes. None of that feels inconsistent to me. It feels real. We all have different sides of ourselves that come forward depending on the situation.

I know I do.

Most of us probably have a version of ourselves we bring to work, another with close friends, another around family and perhaps another when we meet people for the first time. We don't even consciously decide to do it. We read the room, adjust our tone, decide what is appropriate and work out what part of us seems to fit. That is normal. It is useful. It is part of getting along with people. The interesting bit is when adapting stops being about the situation and starts becoming about trying to be the person we think everybody else wants us to be.

That can creep up on us.

You might become the person at work who always says yes because at some point people started seeing you as reliable. You might become the one in the family who keeps everybody calm, even when you are the person who really needs somebody else to take over. You might be known as the funny one, the strong one, the sensible one, the person who can always cope. Sometimes those roles are flattering. Sometimes we are proud of them. But over time they can also become quite heavy, because once people expect something from us, we often start expecting it from ourselves as well.

I think that is where some of the pressure comes from.

Nobody even needs to say, "You should be the strong one." We tell ourselves. Nobody has to say, "You can't let anyone down." We have already decided that. Nobody says, "You must always know what you're doing." Yet we can still feel embarrassed about asking for help. The expectation has moved inside us, and once it is there it can start directing our behaviour without us really noticing.

That is something I hear in different forms from clients too. They might not describe it as "meeting expectations". They might simply say they struggle to say no, or they worry what people think, or they feel they always have to appear confident. They might spend a lot of time replaying conversations afterwards and wondering whether they said the right thing. They might walk into a social situation and immediately start monitoring themselves. Am I talking enough? Too much? Do I look awkward? Should I say something? Have I said something stupid? At that point, they are not really enjoying the situation anymore. They are managing themselves through it.

And managing yourself all the time is tiring.

I sometimes think we underestimate how much energy this takes. If part of your attention is always on the other person's reaction, another part is monitoring what you are saying, another is predicting what might happen next and another is worrying whether you are getting it right, there isn't much room left to simply be there. We can become so focused on how we are coming across that we stop being present in the actual conversation.

The strange thing is that we often believe this extra thinking is helping us. If I think carefully enough, I will say the right thing. If I pay enough attention, I can make sure nobody is upset. If I anticipate every possibility, I can avoid embarrassment. But it can have the opposite effect. We become more self-conscious, less spontaneous and more anxious about something that might otherwise have been perfectly ordinary.

I think Ted Lasso shows this in a really human way. Its characters are affected by status, approval, criticism and what they think other people expect from them. They want to belong. They want to be respected. They want to be liked. They want to be seen in a certain way. And sometimes that changes how they behave. That doesn't make them weak or false. It makes them human.

We all want to belong somewhere.

The problem comes when belonging starts to feel as though it depends on constantly editing ourselves.

Perhaps you are naturally quite thoughtful and like to take your time, but in certain meetings you feel you have to be fast and forceful because that is what confidence seems to look like. Maybe you are normally quite relaxed, but around one particular person you become very careful because you are always trying to predict their mood. Perhaps you agree with people because disagreement feels uncomfortable, or take on more responsibility than you really want because saying no feels like letting somebody down.

There is usually a reason for that behaviour. It might have worked very well in the past. Being agreeable may have helped you avoid arguments. Being funny may have helped you feel accepted. Being very organised might have given you a sense of control. Being the reliable one may have brought praise and approval. None of these are bad things. But something that was once useful can become less useful if it starts running automatically in every situation.

That is where becoming aware of it can be really helpful.

One of the changes I sometimes notice with clients as they begin to feel calmer is that they start spotting these patterns in real time. Rather than only realising afterwards that they agreed to something they didn't want to do, they start noticing the thought before they answer. Rather than automatically assuming they need to keep somebody else happy, they pause and ask themselves whether this is actually their responsibility. Rather than thinking, "I have to behave like this," they start asking, "Do I?"

That little bit of space can make quite a difference.

It does not mean becoming selfish. It does not mean refusing to compromise or deciding that nobody else's feelings matter. It simply means being a little more conscious of the difference between choosing to do something and feeling unable not to do it.

There is a big difference between helping because you want to and helping because you are frightened of disappointing someone. There is a big difference between being considerate and constantly monitoring somebody else's emotional state. There is a big difference between adapting to a situation and feeling that you have to become a completely different person in order to cope with it.

I also think there is an interesting pressure we put on ourselves to be consistent. If you are normally confident, you can feel as though you have failed if you suddenly feel nervous. If everybody knows you as positive, admitting you are having a difficult day can feel uncomfortable. If you are usually the one people rely on, it can be surprisingly hard to say, "Actually, I need a bit of help."

But why should we have to be exactly the same all the time?

That is another thing Ted Lasso gets right. The characters are full of contradictions. Roy can be intimidating and vulnerable. Rebecca can be incredibly strong and still uncertain. Ted can be brilliant at supporting other people while having his own struggles. Jamie can be arrogant and insecure, sometimes almost within the same conversation.

That isn't bad characterisation. It is good characterisation, because real people are like that.

You can be confident and anxious.

You can be successful and still doubt yourself.

You can be incredibly capable and still have days when you don't feel capable at all.

You can be the person everybody relies on and occasionally need somebody to rely on yourself.

We do not have to live up to our own reputation every minute of every day.

That can be quite freeing.

Another thing worth remembering is that other people's expectations are not instructions. People get used to the way we behave and naturally build expectations around that. If you always say yes, they will probably keep asking. If you are always available, people may assume you will continue to be available. If you always sort out the problem, eventually some people may stop trying to sort it out themselves.

Then when you change, they notice.

Sometimes that can be one of the hardest parts.

You may be trying to become more confident about saying no, but somebody else preferred the version of you that always said yes. You may be setting better boundaries, but somebody else found the old boundaries much more convenient. You may stop trying to fix every situation and somebody might ask why you have changed.

Perhaps you have changed.

That might be the point.

It doesn't mean every change we make is automatically right, but I do think we need to be careful about using somebody else's surprise as evidence that we are doing something wrong. Sometimes people simply need time to adjust to a version of us that is behaving differently.

And importantly, changing doesn't mean becoming the opposite.

If you are usually generous, the goal isn't to become selfish.

If you are quiet, the goal isn't to become the loudest person in the room.

If you care what people think, you don't need to become someone who cares about nobody.

It is more about flexibility.

Being able to say yes when you want to say yes and no when you need to say no. Being able to speak when you have something to say and be quiet without worrying that silence makes you look weak. Being able to help people without feeling responsible for everybody. Being able to adapt without feeling that you are disappearing.

That is something I think Ted does quite well himself.

He arrives in an environment he does not really understand, with a culture he is unfamiliar with, people who doubt him and expectations he cannot possibly meet in the way everyone assumes he should. He adapts, learns and changes, but underneath that he keeps hold of something recognisably his own. He doesn't become a completely different person just to fit in.

There is something in that which I think is useful.

We all need to adapt. Life would be very difficult if we didn't. But perhaps the goal is to be able to read the room without letting the room completely decide who we have to be.

To listen to other people's expectations without automatically turning every expectation into an obligation.

To recognise what somebody might think without allowing that imagined thought to make every decision for us.

And perhaps to become comfortable enough that we spend a little less time performing ourselves.

That is often one of the things people notice as confidence improves. The internal monitoring quietens down a little. They spend less time thinking about how they looked, what they said, whether everybody liked them and whether they got everything exactly right. They are more present in the conversation rather than reviewing it while it is still happening.

And interestingly, when we stop trying quite so hard to appear natural, we often become more natural.

We listen better.

We respond more easily.

We enjoy things more.

We start behaving less like the version of ourselves we think we should be and a little more like ourselves.

So that is where part two of my Ted Lasso thoughts has taken me.

Part one was about looking at other people differently, understanding that their behaviour may be about much more than the moment we happen to see.

Part two is about looking at ourselves and noticing how much we change in response to people, situations and expectations.

Neither is about ignoring behaviour or pretending nothing matters.

It is about having more awareness and therefore more choice.

Because we all adapt.

We all read the room.

We all have different sides to ourselves.

But there is a difference between adapting and constantly trying to become whoever we think everybody else wants us to be.

Sometimes improving how we feel isn't about inventing a new version of ourselves at all.

Sometimes it is about becoming comfortable enough to stop working so hard at playing all the old versions.

And for part two of a series about a programme that still definitely isn't about football, I think that's quite a useful place to leave it.