Why Your Standards Matter More Than Your Goals

How clean and tidy do you keep your home? 

Some people keep theirs immaculate, some people hoard and live in almost uninhabitable conditions, and most people fit somewhere in between.

Either way, we all have a goal of how clean we aim our homes to be, and we all have a standard of how clean our homes are kept.

The goal is the ideal, and the standard is the bare minimum of what we can tolerate. We can live with the bare minimum, but a rogue sock or watermark on a desktop may tip us over the edge, fall below our usual standard, and spark a cleaning frenzy.

It’s not just cleaning that standards are relevant to; it’s within almost every element where a goal or desired outcome is involved, growth being no exception.

When improving our work toward a goal, standards are ever present, affecting everything we do in some way or another.

Here are a few ways standards affect your journey toward long-term goals. 

You Don’t Rise, You Fall

On the way towards a goal, you’ll probably run into a fair few problems, and it’s during these challenges that standards start to reveal themselves.

A clean home is your goal, and when everything is going smoothly, I bet you manage to live up to that goal. But what happens when you have a rough or busy week? Maybe work is more stressful, you have health or family issues, etc? I bet your home isn’t as clean.

But it’s also not a tip, either. You still don’t leave old food on the countertops, and you don’t start eating off of dirty dishes. This is when the difference between a goal and a standard really gets highlighted.

When things get in the way, your performance, focus, attention and energy are spread, misplaced or reduced, causing a dip in your goals.

The reason you don’t allow your house to smell is that regardless of how bad your life is, you still have a standard, and that standard is always met.

The same happens with any other goals. You also have standards with those pursuits, too.

The difference is that when you first start something, that standard is zero. So when you start something, any challenge or interruption can send you back to baseline, which is nothing.

You start running for the first time, and you start at 2 runs a week, but when the first week of stress or interruptions arises, you fall back to baseline. In other words, you stop running.

This is why early on in your goals, you have to do anything you possibly can to not fall back, you have to make sure you are consistently meeting your ideal output without any disruption until….

Your Standards Rise

When you put enough effort in for long enough, what used to be your goal then becomes your standard.

Running twice a week is your initial goal, but keep running for long enough and running twice a week will be your bare minimum. So when you’re forced back onto your standard, you’ll still manage two runs.

To improve at anything, you need to be challenged. You need to aim for something slightly above what you can currently manage and work until you complete it. And to keep improving, you just need to repeat this cycle over time.

But as you do this, your standards will be rising behind you. The better you get, the better your bare minimum becomes.

Think of your progress like climbing flights of stairs: you climb higher and higher, but if you trip on a step and fall back, you’ll still land on a flight of stairs that’s higher than what you used to aim for.

This is useful to take note of because when your current standards are equal to or above what you used to aim for, a feeling of victory can occur. This doesn’t sound like a problem, but feeling like a winner can cause a lot of complacency.

But my guess is you didn’t start your journey to get to where you are not, you started for something much bigger. So when you get comfortable within the standard, you need to once again raise the bar. 

Set a higher target, climb more stairs and keep raising your standards.

Your standards say more about you than your goals.

Environmental Standards

Another element of standards is your environmental standards, which are the standards of the people around you.

If exercise is normal, then it becomes the standard. On the other hand, not exercising at all could also be the standard.

If saving is the standard, you’ll save.

If drinking alcohol is the standard, you drink.

The standards of your social environment matter a lot, as they not only influence what you consider normal but also influence how high you aim.

The lower the standard, the less likely some goals may seem. Do you think the children of CEO’s believe that running a business is something “other people do”?. 

Definitely not, they’ve seen and watched it with their own eyes, so of course they believe it’s possible. In fact, they’d probably question why anyone wouldn’t.

I also believe that this is the reason mentors are so impactful. Yes, they give advice, yes, you learn from their mistakes, but you also watch this person DO the things that you want to do. 

This isn’t about finding CEO’s or even a mentor, it’s about matching who you spend most of your time with to your goals. 

Do the people around you want the same things as you? Or do they question every positive action and decision you make?

Outgrowing your social environment is isolating and lonely, but what’s worse, the pain of isolation or the pain of living a life you do not want?

If the norm runs counter to the life you want, reject it.

Goals are what you aim to do; standards are what you actually do. I would say that you should be focusing on your standards instead of your goals, but the truth is, the way to raise your standards is to work towards your goals and to keep working until your standards rise along with you.

So keep going, and watch as your new bare minimum surpasses your old ideal.