High standards are central to a good life.
Raising standards can avoid most of life’s problems.
They make you sleep well at night.
Example one. Love.
I struggled for so long with this…
Let’s say you have too low standards for your future wife. She has male friends, and communicating that this is a boundary you don’t want to cross didn’t work. However, you don’t do anything about it because you believe she’s still the most attractive woman you found. You listen to your grandmother, who says things are different in the modern age. Then, you get advice from your best friend. You know that he has a happy relationship. It turns out that he lives with another woman to save money. Your worldview collapses in on itself. Genuinely, how can a man and woman with relationships each live together?
You start to think that every woman has male friends and conclude it can’t be too bad. You begin a mental battle between your values and reality and suffer for months emotionally. You start to obsess over her past …
You build resentment toward her while subtly losing trust, respect, and attraction. Your painful thoughts haunt you, and there’s nothing you want to do. At least, nothing you dare to do.
How to prevent this nonsense? How do you save mental and emotional energy? - You could live in peace and trust by you raising your standards. Please, do yourself a favor. Say ‘no’ more frequently. Don’t compromise on your values. Sleep in peace by raising standards.
Example two. Business.
Let’s say you have too low standards for your employees. Now, you have a series of problems to deal with. You must tell them they aren’t supposed to play video games during work and instruct them on every insignificant detail. You dilute your attention and get less done yourself. Some employees are annoying and difficult, and a few are even traitorous. You refuse to calculate their actual cost. After all, employees are people and need to feed their families.
The same applies to customers and viewers. I keep my texts pure by repelling those who don’t want success in life. I don’t want to explain why social media addiction is terrible; I assume my readers are above that. Repelling them attracts like-minded individuals. Pure texts cultivate pure thoughts.
Hiring more expensive employees, conducting more interviews, attracting higher-quality customers, or buying higher-quality machines is always the right decision. The returns are outsized. Just as a good wife elevates life quality, so too do good hires and customers make your life peaceful. You can almost lay back. Finding high-quality people takes a lot of experience, so don’t expect everything to work out on the first try. I’ve heard purpose attracts fantastic people.
Example three. Personal growth.
Most people have too low standards for themselves.
They surround themselves with nasty people with pathetic problems. They can’t say ‘no’ to someone wasting their time; thus, they recklessly mismanage their energy and efforts. High standards mean saying ‘no’ to most things, and most people can’t say no to their hands when grabbing their phones. They accept that their food is unhealthy, their wife ugly, and their children are slow. Most people are content with where they are because they hesitate to raise standards. They can’t say, ‘I had enough.’
The best conceivable move is usually the one you refuse to take. Raising your standards is rarely wrong. It is your duty to confront problems when they arise. - However, true mastery lies in preventing problems. How do you cultivate tranquility and avoid those kinds of issues? – You already know it. Raise standards. Know your value.
When to lower your standards?
In personal growth. There are times when you are hardcore disciplined, and there will also be times when your discipline exhausts. You don’t want to let your mind torture you because you need a break. Having too high standards for oneself can cause pointless stress and suffering. Often, the novices have the most outlandish standards. Excessive standards create excessive pressure - excessive pressure can cause dams to break.
In business. High standards may hold you back when starting, especially with little experience. You may not know what to look for and why. Furthermore, in the beginning, speed beats perfection. My first quarter million words were not outstanding because I wrote them in as little as seven months. Before mastery is attained, cultivating ordinary standards serves no purpose. Standards need to scale over time. Compromising quality and lowering standards can be the right move.
In love. I want a hot blonde who’s a genius, religious, and pure. I will need nothing but luck to face these insurmountable odds. Yet, even if I find her, it doesn’t mean I’m attractive enough to get her, that she isn’t taken or the wrong age. Furthermore, there’s no guarantee that we’ll be compatible in the first place; my criteria could be wrong. If I let go of the blonde criterion, my chances stand twenty times higher. High standards are delayed gratification. Sometimes, delayed gratification turns into pointless suffering. However, in most cases, high standards pay outlandish dividends.
High standards prevent nasty experiences.