Learn to Raise Your Standards

Raising your standards starts with the word resolve. The definition of resolve is- Decide firmly on a course of action. And there are only two reasons why somebody resolves to decide.

Avoiding Pain

People want to avoid pain. They have been through some type of pain in their life and they want to avoid it at any cost. I’ll be the first one to vouch and tell you that I have been in those painful situations. Situations consisting of no money, no food, no direction and definitely no hope. Sometimes we have to hit a wall. Sometimes we have to get so low to the pit of the dark hole that it snaps a feeling inside of us to make a decision and change our course of action. I had to decide that if i didn’t want the pain of being broke, hungry and lost anymore then I need to step forward and actually move towards my goals.

Gaining Pleasure

You also have people that raise their standards because they want to gain pleasure. That’s exactly what motivates them to raise their standard but more often than not this is the hardest to get people to move.

Why? This is because if you are already in a place where you have seen some to a lot of success. You sure as heck aren’t worried about bill collectors marching up your street and your relationships are also doing very well. However, even though everything in your life may be good, you still want to take your life to the next level. Why would you settle? Why have an ice cream when you can buy an ice cream truck and eat ice cream forever? (Of course health is not a factor here)

I know you want to gain more pleasure but when things are going great it’s difficult to get up everyday and put in the work. It’s easy to work when you don’t have any money in the bank because you need to eat. I needed to eat so I did whatever it took to get myself to a place where I could eat comfortably. Again, I do empathize with this side of the spectrum as well. I do realize how difficult it is to move when you are already in a pleasure situation and you wanna gain more pleasure. But you need to find that resolve to realistically make it happen for you!

People only raise their standards with either of the two things. Pain and Pleasure

How to find the resolve?

When you have resolve you start to raise your standards. You sustain an unwavering attitude that you will accomplish or do whatever needs to get done to move to the next level. But occasionally, you won’t get to that point of resolve until you have a day of disgust!

My Day of Disgust

When I moved to California from New York at 18 years old I was 185 pounds. I was an active young man going to the gym and playing basketball everyday. This was complimented by an active man’s diet which means I ate A LOT OF FOOD. Moving to California I carried on my “active mans diet” but I surely wasn’t as active as before. I climbing up the success ladder, got busy making sacrifices and working and moving forward with life. I let go of my health in that time. Shortly after that 1 pound gain turned into 2 pound gain and next thing you know at 28 I stepped on the scale and I weighed 297 pounds. Yea I know crazy right. The minute I stepped on that scale and saw that number I hit my day of disgust.

I realized that weight was going to keep increasing until I did something about it. Before I stepped on that scale I knew I should lose some weight but I was a tall guy and getting older this is normal. I was stuck in my should mentality. I knew I should go to the gym. I should eat healthy. I should NOT eat that cheeseburger. The should was never backed up by any action.Ultimately, I hit the day of disgust, I had been avoiding stepping onto that scale for 2 years. I didn’t want to see the numbers because I didn’t want to change at the time. I wasn’t ready. I said I was but I wasn’t. This is the most typical situation a human falters to. I never made the real decision. I never decided on a firm course of action. So, it was no surprise that when I stepped onto the scale and it said what it said.

I was shocked! I let myself down. I lowered my standards. The date was June 23rd and I’ll never forget it because it’s my son’s birthday and it’s the day I promised myself that I would never be 300 pounds in my life. And with that decision I changed things around. I changed my shoulds into musts. I must go to the gym. I must eat healthy. I must…

It took me under 12 months to lose 50 pounds because I decided and turned it on. I am still not where I want to be but I am not where I was which is the most important point.

When we make it a must, we make it a part of our identity. People follow through who they believe they are. If you believe you’re shy you’ll act shy. If you believe you’re enthusiastic you’ll act enthusiastic. If you believe you’re a leader you’ll act, walk and talk like a leader. I believed I was an athlete and I lost that identity and I needed to gain it back. Humans have a need to stay consistent with how they define themselves.

We get yanked by life constantly. Every trial, every problem, every pain, every hurt and everything that we go through yanks us back. These things yanks us back from going after our goals even when the goal is right in front of us. Even when the opportunity is placed right in our lap, we don’t go after it because we have the feeling of incapability and we have defined ourselves based on what we have assimilated ourselves to be. We lowered our standards because we don’t believe that we can do it and because we’ve assigned that identity of inability to ourself so we don’t go after it.

Why haven’t you been achieving your goals if you’ve raised your standards?

Frequently, I have people telling me that they had the resolve to decide and they set their goals but they haven’t achieved their goals or raised their standard. This is because they’ve set these huge goals but failed to attach a habit to it. They never set a habit that aligns with their desire to raise their standard so they come up short. Every successful person knows how to set habits that allow that successful person to continue to create success consistently. So you’ve got to set a habit along with your raised standards.

Boxing champions are made in the gym. They might be publically recognized in the ring and some people want that public recognition. All that public recognition starts with what you do in private. You’re not going against the world. It’s not you vs the world. It’s you vs your untapped potential. Look, you can decide to be whoever you want to be if you decide to create the mental asset of raising your standards. However, if you have a vision of raising your standard but you don’t have the habits to go along with that vision then you are lying to yourself. You must be willing to create the positive habits in order to achieve long term success. I talk more about developing habits and how to create habits that help you become a world class achiever in my book The Mental Playbook.

If you have the ability to resolve and decide to raise your standards. Then once you raise your standards you add along the habits to allow those standards to continue to move forward. If you do those things you are on your way to success.

I urge you, decide to raise your standards, back it up with action and watch your success grow uncontrollably!

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