It's one of those standard sayings in self-development that you fall to the level of your standards.
And you can imagine reaching any great lofty height, but what you actually achieve will
be what you said as the minimum standard for your life.
So it makes me think about what are some of these different standards?
One way of looking at it is to imagine these levels of standard, and then you're either
maintaining the standard or you are establishing a new standard.
So with starting from the very bottom, the lowest possible standard I can imagine is
may be simply survival.
So this would be the most extreme situation.
You simply want to survive, and it's whatever it takes to get through the day.
Just an absolutely miserable level.
And this would be an extreme emergency hopefully not anywhere to live for too long.
Now, the next level up above that is really maybe the lowest sustained level.
This would simply be the level of simply staying out of trouble, simply keeping things together
in the most minimal way.
Like, for example, simply OK, you're staying out of jail, you're keeping fed, you're having
minimum income to just be able to continue along.
So this would maybe be working some job that you hate, but you're able to get enough money
to survive, and then you take care of the basics of eating and sleeping and maintaining
this very basic level.
And, you know, it sounds like a really minimal level to keep, and you know, for many people
this is completely automatic, and yet for somebody who's really struggling, this could
be a standard that is a very reasonable standard to shoot for.
If you're simply avoiding total destruction, avoiding self-destruction, and doing what
you need to do to simply get by at this very basic level, that is a viable standard.
And for somebody in this situation, if you could simply do nothing in the day, but you're
doing what you need to do to keep going, and you're not spiraling out of control, then
that could be accounted a successful day.
And this is really the minimum viable standard that one could set.
So imagine if you set that as your standard, there may be a time when you need to, but
then once you are able to get past that standard, well, you would want to raise it up higher
than that.
Because if you really only set that as your standard, then you would be giving yourself
permission to fall to that standard of being at that absolutely minimum survival level.
So the next level up, what I imagine, would be simply a good, medium-level life.
Whatever that means.
It's more than simply staying out of trouble.
It's some level of you feel like you are including some good habits, doing some good things.
And really, maybe the most important thing about this level is that you feel like you're
moving towards something better.
So it may not be very organized, it may not be very consistent, but somehow there is movement
towards something better.
And this can be so much better than simply getting by at a subsistence level.
There's something great about just knowing that you feel that somehow you're moving a
good direction, making positive changes, even though they may be slow.
Next level up, then you could imagine you're actually living life the way you want And
this is a very high standard.
You could say what you want to be doing.
For example, for me, my idea of this, of a high standard, would be that my full-time
occupation is doing work that I consider to be meaningful.
And also the feeling that I am living life and having meaningful life experience with
the time that I have.
And so this would be a very high standard to keep.
I feel like this is the standard that I'm shooting towards, but I'm not there yet.
I'm still on that medium standard.
And then maybe the ultra highest standard, this would be as high as you can imagine,
where you can imagine dream life, really doing everything that you want to do, and being
the best that you could be.
As great as you could possibly imagine it, that would be this highest level.
So the idea of looking at the different levels is that we don't need to worry about the other
levels.
We don't need to worry about- you know, if you're just surviving on the basic level,
you don't need to worry about reaching the very highest, or, you know, doing exactly
what you want in life, because your standard is getting by at that basic level.
So focusing too much on the achievements of people living on the higher level would simply
lead to kind of a dismal feeling of envy and a feeling of inadequacy, that, you know, I'm
so far below, it's not even worth it.
But it's very real- I think that the basic level really is a very worthy level to maintain
if that's what you need to do.
It's so much better than just having no standard and just completely giving up.
It's powerful to have any level of standard.
And then the first step would be to maintain.
The first priority would be to maintain the standard.
It's like a floor.
You keep that floor solid.
Maintain that as a floor.
And then once you're able to do that, you can then raise the standard up to the next
level.
So I like to think of this.
Sometimes there are times when I have to focus on simply maintaining my standard.
That I feel like things are kind of shaky, I feel that, you know, maybe I'm losing motivation,
losing energy, I feel like I may be going down a level: that's when I have to maintain
my level, focus on just maintaining it.
Whereas once things are in a good position, the solid base is there, then I can turn my
attention, turn my energy towards how can I raise this level that I'm at, and somehow
just tune my standards up, keep tuning my standards up, so that I make a higher baseline
for my life.
So I'd be curious to hear what sort of standards you're working with, how you're maintaining
them and how you're elevating them.