How Standards create our mindset

It takes a lot of internal strength and fortitude to develop a healthy mindset. Because it’s always going to be tested. There’s always going to be a choice on how you choose to react to what happens out of your control.

You’re always going to be pressure tested. Not because you’re unlucky. But because that’s just what life is. It’s training. It’s a non-stop test to see if you are going to do what you say you’re going to do, and be the person you know you’re supposed to be.

And if you don't have the strength or endurance to handle these tests, it will naturally break you down until you have no standards for yourself or anyone else for that matter.

That’s why when I was growing up and I would hear adults give other adults passes for their behavior by saying “that’s just who they are” I would be like what?! That's it? So when I come home late by accident, can I just say hey… “That’s just how I am? lol”.

If a grown adult got a pass, me as a child should surely get a pass too! But of course I didn’t, because our parents have standards for our behavior, as they should. How those standards get relaxed for grown adults is beyond me, but I knew that it didn't make sense.

And that when I got older, I wouldn't give myself and definitely not a grown adult a pass for something that I didn't even get a pass for as a child.

Grace is important but I'm not enabling bad behavior. That’s not normal to me. And it’s probably not normal to you.

So the moral of this story is to exercise your internal strength and fortitude every time life chooses to test you. Never fall into the trap that low-quality behavior is acceptable.

High standards for ourselves and for other people is a clear path to more harmony and peaceful living. It might seem difficult, but it gets easier the more you exercise it. The more you spend time with people who have high standards as well, the more you realize just how enjoyable it is too.