100th Blog Special: My 3 Favourite Insights
With it being the day before a whole new year begins and being this blog's 100th post, I thought what better way to do it than to recap my favourite insights thus far.
I started this blog because of how obsessed I had become of the journey of growing and improving myself. I wish I could say the usual “I never thought I’d make it to 100”, but that would be a lie.
The truth is I never had a number in my head, just a goal of sharing the things that changed my life while simultaneously learning in the process.
So, as a way to keep this within theme, these are my favourite insights that I've learned SINCE started this blog, with the final insight being very fitting with New Years Day being tomorrow. Enjoy!
Rising Standards
Rising standards is the concept of getting used to a specific level of difficulty and challenge within your life.
It closely relates to the hedonic treadmill, which is our tendency to get used to levels of happiness very quickly, which then becomes our baseline, making us need more and more to reach the same levels of happiness again.
We’ve all had the experience where we’re excited to buy a new item of clothing or jewellery, sometimes the excitement overwhelms us, but give it a week and it’s just another item in our wardrobe.
Rising standards are similar but instead of pleasure, it’s what we do that will allow us to grow.
Let’s say you’re a runner and you want to train from couch all the way up to running a half marathon, well you’re going to be playing on rising standards without even realising it.
Initially, running a mile will be challenging, until it becomes easier, which will require you to set a higher target, let’s say 2 which is now a challenge, until it’s easy…and so on.
Well, rising standards work the same way, but a little less obvious. They’re at play with whatever it is that you want to improve on, even if it’s building a better relationship with a family member, it’s always at play.
The idea is that just like how you get used to levels of happiness, you also get used to levels of challenge, like the 1 mile run. If you stay at 1 mile, you’ll never get any better, you’ll stay at that standard.
Unfortunately, most endeavours in life are not as numerically straight forward as running, so you’re going to need to use your initiative. You need to know when you’ve become accustomed to a specific level and standard of difficulty with something, and then increase it to keep improving.
A typical sign is a lack of interest, it’s the same feeling we get when getting bored of a new game or hobby. It's exciting and fun at first, but the moment we master it, the fun dies. This is sometimes not a sign of burnout, but a sign that you’ve become used to a standard, and need to increase the difficulty to keep your interest alive.
Rising standards linger in the background, playing a huge role in your journey of growth but will remain undetected forever unless paid attention to.
Self-Belief
Another subtle yet extremely valuable lesson I have learned since the beginning of this blog is that self-belief and confidence are built through evidence and proof, and not only something you acquire through luck or affirmation.
Self-belief is highly valuable to us, it’s something we see in high achievers and people at the very top of their games. Sometimes we even marvel at the likes of Michael Jordan or Kanye West who seem to not even have a shred of self-doubt.
I think everyone would choose to believe in themselves more if given a chance, but very few seem to understand that it’s something that can be built, it’s just a case of knowing how.
Some people believe it’s built through repeating affirmations in the mirror whereas others do not even believe it can be built at all.
I’m here to tell you there’s a third option, which is to build it through evidence.
If you want to believe you can achieve your dreams, yet you’ve been unable to stick to a diet, or stick to an exercise plan, or even wake up at the time you said you would, and you’ve been letting yourself down this way for as long as you can remember, do you really think you have any reason to believe in yourself?
So start there, start by proving yourself in all ways that are currently within your power, and do so for long enough until you build enough belief to take it to the next level, then follow through there, and keep going and keep going.
One by one you break down a self-limiting belief, don’t believe you can run a 5k? Go do that. Don’t believe you could quit smoking? Go do that. Meditating for 30 days seems a little unrealistic for you? Go do it!
By doing this, you chip away at all the self-limiting walls you’ve managed to build up in your mind, leaving room for you to start building new walls, brick by brick.
You keep proving yourself wrong with increasingly difficult things until questioning your dreams seems like the unrealistic thing to do.
It’s that simple, by no means easy, but simple.
If you want to believe in yourself, you just need to go and give yourself reasons to do so.
Self-identity
Self-identity might be the reason you’ve never been able to stick to previous New Year's resolutions, so it might be the time to pay attention.
Most people want to be better, so as a way to improve, they said a goal that begins on the first of January, usually fitness and health related.
They set the target, plan the journey and begin, but they fail to recognise a key aspect of changing for the better, and that’s their identity.
If you’re overweight and generally unhealthy, it’s natural to pick one thing and start, we all have to start somewhere and starting small is a good idea, right?
Maybe not, of course starting small is a must, but only changing one aspect of yourself isn’t, let me explain.
Self-identity is having an image of ourselves in our heads, it’s who we see ourselves as. If you’re aiming to change and become healthier, then your current image must be that of an unhealthy person.
So you set a healthy goal, maybe it’s to go to the gym 3 days a week, which is a good goal, it’s healthier than before so it’s progress.
The problem is, by only changing one aspect of your health, you open a can of worms that doom you to fail.
This can of worms is cognitive dissonance, which is basically just having 2 or more conflicting ideas or beliefs simultaneously. In other words, having two different identities at the same time.
Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable mental state, it’s the feeling smokers get when they’re reminded of how bad smoking is, but continue to smoke anyway.
In this persons case, if they decide to improve their actions by going to the gym, but continue their other unhealthy habits like eating junk food or sleeping in, then they're going to experience the same feeling.
Your brain doesn’t like this feeling, and it knows subconsciously where it's coming from, so it reacts by trying to regain some stability, and the only way to get it is by removing one of the identities.
In this example, for the person's brain to stop experiencing cognitive dissonance, they’d either have to fully commit to fitness and health, or simply stop the new gym habit and go back to who they’ve always been, back to what’s comfortable and easy.
This person doesn’t think this through consciously, it happens by slowly missing days at the gym, one week at a time, until they no longer even think about it.
If you set out to change, but only change one thing at a time, this might be why you struggle to stick to anything.
If you want to be healthy, you have to fully commit to the identity of someone who is healthy, not just adopt one of their habits.
Although this seems unrealistic, changing all at once, it can actually be a lot easier than you think.
It’s not about being perfect all in one swoop, it’s improving all of your unhealthy habits, even a little bit, all at once. As long as there’s positive change then there’s a shift in identity…
So if you have a New Year's resolution that starts tomorrow, you might want to rethink how you approach it.
Other than that, I hope you have a great new year’s and good luck with your 2026 goals!