Setting Your Standards

Well, it's February now.  How are you doing with your New Year's Resolutions?  If you are like most people you have already forgotten most of them or you've just plain given up.  In fact according to a poll in the Guardian - 66% of the people who broke their New Year's resolutions only lasted one month or less!  Are you part of that 66%?  Do you want to know how to increase the likelihood of achieving your resolutions and your goals?  If so - you are in the right place as that is what this article is all about :)

I think setting goals and making change is great.  But most people think they change through their goals and that's why they set New Year's Resolutions. We get excited by putting them out there and they stretch us - but then we get disappointed because we didn't reach them.

So I think New Year's resolutions are rubbish!  It sounds great on 31 December to say I'm going to go to the gym every day for an hour.  It's ok that I haven't been in the last 10 years but starting tomorrow I'll go every day.  Is that likely to happen?  Maybe for the first week…or even two, but after that you'll miss a day, then once you've missed one day it's easier to skip the next day and before you know it - it's February and you can't remember the last time you went to the gym.  Does that sound familiar to anyone?!  I know it hits home for me.

So - what to do instead?  Instead of making New Year's resolutions this year - I set standards.  I still have high over-arching goals that I created as part of my year-end review but now leading me to those goals are a set of standards.  One of my mentors, Roger Hamilton says: "Goals are what you reach for, standards are what you settle for."  Now you might be thinking that you don't want to SETTLE!  Let me explain it in a bit better way.

Click Here to Get the FREE Setting Standards Worksheet!

A standard is the opposite of a goal. If you think about a goal like reaching up to the ceiling to change a light bulb.  Like any good goal, reaching up for that light bulb is a stretch.  It's high up there.  When you are focused on the goal you might jump up and down to reach the light sometimes you'll reach it but you'll spend all your time jumping up and down and up and down. 

On the other side, a standard is not what our arms are reaching for - it's what our legs are settling for.  Think of a set of stairs.  If you go up the first step and say the things I was settling for I'm no longer going to settle for.  I am going to raise my standards.  Then the next week / month you do it again - go up the next step and raise your standards a little bit more.  So that little by little - throughout the year you go up the staircase.  And by the end of the year you can reach the ceiling and the light bulb without needing to stretch or jump! 

We can all change our standards.  For a lot of us we set a goal (or resolution) and it's going to take us a long time to get there.   But standards are measurable and immediately attainable.  You can make it happen today by shifting the standard.

I have 5 types of standards that I focus on. 

• Time - how you are spending or investing your time.  For example, watching TV vs. Reading an investment book.
• Environment - who you are with or where are you.  For example, hanging out down the pub complaining about your boss vs. going to a networking meeting with people who have achieved your goals or are striving for the same goals.
• Attitude - what thoughts you are letting in.  For example, thinking that you will never be able to save up for a deposit vs. thinking of all the different ways of getting a deposit.
• Money - how you are using / investing your money.  For example, have you spent your Christmas bonus on a new TV or did you invest in a property deal that will make you 8% per annum?
• Health - how you are treating your body.  For example, going for a walk vs. eating a bowl of ice cream (this is my hardest challenge)!

The next step is how do you set standards?  I've put together a bonus FREEBIE worksheet to help get you started.  You can download it HERE.

 Click Here to Get the FREE  Setting Standards Worksheet!