Is there anything more important in life than having goals?
Most people spend their entire lives chasing after a dream, a goal that they’ve always wanted to achieve. But how many of those people are able to achieve their goals? How many of them actually succeed?
Only a few.
What makes these few people different from others? What did these successful people have that the others lacked?
The answer is- focus on the right thing.
Focus on Setting Standards
Instead of focusing on your goals 24×7, try focusing on setting standards for yourself and living by those standards everyday.
Standards are set of rules that help you navigate your thoughts, actions and behavior. Setting standards for yourself help you move toward your goals in a calculated and realistic manner. Unlike goals, standards can be regulated as per our own expectations and proficiencies.
For example, if your goal is to write a book in future, then you may start by setting a standard of writing 1000 words everyday. And then gradually, level it up to 1500, then 2000, so on and so forth. This way, you’re more likely to stay goal-driven rather than obsessing over your goal and not making any progress.
Now, let’s discuss how focusing on setting standards is more important than focusing on our goals.
Setting Standards allow you to identify your strengths and weaknesses
When you set standards for yourself, you keenly observe your past and present habits. You look into your past to see all the mistakes that you made and the possible causes that led to those mistakes. This is how you identify your weaknesses. Likewise, you also make note of the things that have worked for you giving you desired outcomes. This is how you identify your strengths. By taking into account all the things that helps you move either closer or away from your goals, you become aware of your strengths and weaknesses.
Setting Standards challenges you to make efforts
Once you have the knowledge of where your strengths and weaknesses lie, you gain a better understanding of what should and should not be done. When the rules, the Dos and Don’ts are clear, it becomes easier to stick to them without much exertion.
Keeping in mind our strengths and shortcomings helps us formulate reasonable standards. This allows us to put our maximum efforts everyday. And gradually, we raise our standards and challenge ourselves to double our efforts.
Setting Standards help you create boundaries
Setting standards means defining- what is and what is not acceptable to you. When you establish standards based on your values and purposes, you do not allow anything that doesn’t align with your ideals take up your time and energy. This helps you create boundaries which basically means you expect a certain kind of behavior and nothing less from others as well as from yourself. You devote your attention to things that help you elevate those standards and not lower them.
Setting Standards help you know your worth
Holding yourself up to the standards that you set for yourself brings out the feeling of confidence in you. It allows you to see yourself with a new lens of optimism and conviction. On reviewing your daily progress , you determine what you’re capable of and what you deserve. This new outlook on yourself helps you recognize your worth.
Setting Standards prepare you for not one but multiple goals
Whether you will be able to achieve your goals or not can not be ascertained. You can never control the results of your actions, no matter how much you try. The only thing that you have control over is your efforts.
People who are too focused on their goals lose motivation when the possibility of accomplishing their goals diminishes. However, the ones who believes in their efforts and set standards for themselves at every point of their lives, become resilience. They do not lose hope easily, for they realize that they may have failed at achieving one goal but they can always create and achieve a new one.