Today I have a serious question for you. Are you happy and comfortable with where you’re at in life right now? If you are, congratulations! You’re definitely on the right track! However, this post is NOT for you. This post is for those who know that there’s more to life for you, and that you’re made for so much more than where you’re at right now. Trust me, according to the Huffington Post, you’re not alone.
So for those of you out there who are not yet satiated with your current status quo and you want more out of your life, I want us to get into the nitty gritty of looking at the personal standards we’ve set for ourselves up to this very point – then immediately begin to set higher ones so our lives can immediately begin to change.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.
Aristotle
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What Are Personal Standards?
Okay! So first things first – you may be wondering, what are personal standards? Well, think of them as the set of behaviours, beliefs or values that you have decided to live by. Standards govern how you live your life, what people learn to expect from you, and what you’re willing to put up with.
So what behaviours, beliefs and values determine your daily habits and routine? What identity or story about yourself have you formulated in the minds of others? What are you putting up with or tolerating in your life? Answering those questions determine your current personal standards. You’re welcome 🙂
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Importance of High Personal Standards
It’s crucial to note that personal standards play a pivotal role in the extent to which you achieve levels of success as well. You can’t just have any old type of standards governing your life and be okay with that! That’s madness! If you’re really serious about upgrading your life, your personal standards ought to be the breadcrumbs leading you to your desired life of success. There’s a reason why people with weak standards live a completely different life to those who decided to set the bar higher for themselves.
People with Weak Personal Standards:
- Tend to tolerate things they should not
- Tend to suffer from low self-esteem and self-respect
- Tend to lack self-confidence and belief in themselves
- Have the potential to be pushovers
- Tend to have poor habits that damage certain areas of life e.g. health, relationships, and career success
- Lack strong will-power and tend to repeatedly break the promises they make to themselves
- Tend to accept laziness, procrastination and disorganization as a part of their lives
- Usually don’t live up to their full potential because they don’t even try to
- Tend to have poor drive or ambition
- Tend to blend in with the crowd and live like everyone else
- Tend to accept mediocrity
- Tend to have no problem with being average
People with High Personal Standards:
- Tend to have higher levels of self-esteem and self-confidence
- Tend to believe in themselves and their ability to succeed
- Tend to accept nothing less than the best – from themselves and others
- Choose not to tolerate the negative, toxic things, habits, people and environments that don’t serve them
- Know their worth
- Have abundance mindsets
- Are resilient and bounce back after a fall or failure
- Tend to push themselves to do better and be better
- Tend to implement routines and habits that boost their success
- Tend to work hard and work smart
- Expect to be treated well by others
- Tend to stand out from the crowd
These weak standard and high standard traits can be seen in different people, in different ways, in different areas of their lives. Everyone is unique. But the basic sentiments are the same. Even I fall victim to low-standard thinking at times. This is something I’m continuously working on as I realize my standards reflect my self-worth, whether I’m aware of it or not.
There’s nothing to be ashamed of in realizing that the standards you’ve adopted for yourself may not be the best or most self-loving. But, once that realization sets in, taking full ownership and responsibility for your life choices and moving forward is what classy, polished, sophisticated, forward-thinking people do. And I know you’re one of them.
Think of setting higher standards for your life like you would for your dream life partner. You wouldn’t want to just find any ole guy or girl to spend the rest of your life with right? That would never be good enough for you. Whether consciously or subconsciously, you have a set of standards any love interest must reach for them to even get past “hello”. Why wouldn’t you do the same for your own life? It shouldn’t be good enough for you to live aimlessly and lamely accept whatever life brings your way without choice or opinion. You should have a set of personal standards that you hold yourself up to in order to live a life that you love.
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So, for the ones who are in the process of upgrading themselves and their lifestyles, here are the six actionable steps you must take to set higher personal standards for your life.
Cracking the Code of Higher Standards
1. Create a Compelling Vision For Your Life
To transform your standards, you must make sure that you’ve created a compelling vision for your life first. This means that to get from Point A to Point B, you must develop a vision for yourself on what you truly, deeply, badly want your dream life or circumstance to look like deep down to your core. It must be a vision of yourself that gets you excited and pumped and jumping for joy that you get to work on it every day. That’s the only way it will work without fail. If you create a vision that you have to push or force yourself to realize, get back to the drawing board immediately. Your vision has to have the invisible power to pull you to action with a smile on your face.
Here are three ways you can create a compelling vision for your life:
- Write a ‘Dream Life’ Statement for yourself
- Create a ‘Dream Life’ Vision Board
- Use Scripting to list specific, descriptive and emotive characteristics of the dream life you desire.
2. Assess the Areas of Your Life You Must Improve to Achieve Your Compelling Vision
Now that you’ve decided upon the compelling vision of a future that gets you excited, driven and inspired every time you think about it, it’s now the best time to look at the different areas of your life that affect and influence the reality of your compelling vision. There’s magic in writing things down so make a list of every area of your life where you must set higher personal standards in order to achieve success.
Is it your physical or mental health? Is it your time management? Is it the state of relationships – with yourself and others? Is it your work ethic? Is it your spiritual life? Is it procrastination? Is it poor organisation?
Whatever it is, write it down so you can see it. Also, highlight the top 3 critical areas you must work on first.
3. Know What Your Standards Currently Are in Each Area
Starting with the top 3 critical areas you’ve highlighted, what is your standard surrounding each one right now? What are your values? What are your beliefs? What are your behaviours? What do you tolerate?
List the weak standards down for each of the top 3 areas of life so you know exactly what your current personal standards are and how they are affecting your ability to live the life you want.
For example, your weak standards around time management can be that you are always late; poor physical health can mean that you eat too much fast food…you get the jist.
It makes no sense to have big goals if you don’t have the high standards to meet them. Be real with yourself. Repeat this practice with every other area of your life that you must improve upon in order to achieve your compelling vision.
4. Decide What Your Higher Standards Will Be In Each Area
So, now that you know what your current standards are and how they are affecting your life, how would you like to re-write the script? What would your new values, beliefs and behaviours look like in their ideal state?
Taking our examples above, for time management you can transform always late to always arrive 5 minutes before scheduled time. And for physical health you can transform too much junk food into eating clean meals 5 days per week.
Re-writing the story you’ve been living thus far by listing the ideal version of your higher personal standards is a very powerful strategy. When you lose your way or hardships come, you’ll always have that list to reveal to you your higher self. The self you know you have the potential to be.
5. Know Your Why
It’s also important to know your why. Why do you want to raise your standards in these areas of your life? Ask yourself that. What are the strong reasons behind improving these areas of your life?
Is it for your children? Is it so that you can finally move out of your parents’ home? Is it so that you feel better about yourself? Is it so that you can travel the world? Is it so that you can become a successful entrepreneur? Is it so that you can win the heart of the man or woman of your dreams?
This is a crucial part because if your reasons for setting higher personal standards are not strong enough, it is likely that you will give up when the storms come and the going gets tough. To build your resiliency and steadfastness no matter what, you must have a strong reason why you’re doing what you’re doing. It’s the solid way to make sure you follow through to the end, no matter what.
6. Have Rituals and Routines
The truth is that your dream life isn’t going to fall into your lap. It takes a lot of work. You know that already. So to bring that dream into reality, it’s important to develop rituals and routines that reflect your higher standards for yourself, that get you closer to your goal with every passing day.
Some of these can be:
- Waking up every morning at 5am to work on a project before work
- Reciting powerful affirmations to yourself before bed so you go to sleep with high vibes
- Meditation
- Listening to empowering and motivational podcasts whilst doing chores or heading to work
- Watching inspirational videos daily
Experiencing little accomplishments and motivational boosts like these every day are the key to building momentum. Momentum will keep you proactive and in action-mode for the long run.
How to Live Up To Your Standards
Now, to maintain this momentum and live up to the higher standards that you’ve set for yourself means that you daily make it your business to continue to strive for, and even surpass the high level at which you’ve chosen to now operate.
This isn’t rocket science, but it isn’t easy either. Therefore, there are two optimal strategies to incorporate into your life that ensure you maintain your higher personal standards, and continue to raise them as time goes by.
Firstly, you MUST surround yourself primarily with go-getters and people of excellence who can inspire you, motivate you, guide you and help you grow. The amazing motivational speaker, Jim Rohn once said that we are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. Do the five people you interact with most elevate you and point you in the direction of your dreams, or do they bring you down, distract you, and hold you back? You know what to do. Act accordingly.
Secondly, investing in your own personal growth journey is imperative. Read books that inspire and motivate you to succeed, invest in courses for your chosen field, attend workshops and seminars, hire a coach to be your accountability partner…the options are endless.
Over to You
Once you identify yourself in a new way, and own it every day, that higher standard you’ve now set for yourself will naturally become the standard by which you govern your life.
By setting higher standards and continuing to live up to them you don’t need to worry about settling for average. You won’t. You won’t allow yourself to accept anything less than what you truly want because you’ll be dedicated to excellence and determined to succeed.
If you want to change your life, you have to raise your standards.
Tony Robbins
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