Raise Your Standards in these 5 Areas to Live a Better Life

Hey everybody, it's Brendan. I know you're always hearing this advice to raise your standards in personal development and all the conversations about success, right? Raise your standards. Raise your standards. Raise your standards. But do you ever wonder like, what exactly does that mean and where should I raise my standards? Because we all know we can live a higher quality of life. Isn't it true? I mean, you can reach the next level of success and joy and vibrancy and well being in your life. We all know that. Otherwise we wouldn't strive for it. We wouldn't work so hard if we didn't understand. There is another level of maturity and consciousness and life for all of us. And I've pursued that question of how do we get there, that next level, whatever it is, wherever you're at in your life right now, how do you get to that next level? Well, that's been my study as a high performance coach for 19 years of my life. And I've strived in my own life to get there, to always push myself, to always sort of level up to that next area of success and joy and vibrancy in my life. And I know maybe as you're searching too, you just need a little more clarity, you know, for what that next level is. And I don't want to give you all your goals right here and assume what your standards are. But I do know there's five main areas of our lives. I hope you all have a plan for or an intention for to get that next level of. Because when we get there in these five areas, everything gets better. Our mission, our work gets better, our relationships get better, our psychology, our well being, how we feel about the day gets better. So let's go number one, first area to raise your standards in, to get better in, to strive. The next level in is your health. And you probably don't need me to tell you that because you probably set lots of goals every time, you know, every new year, it's like, I'm going to get healthier this year. But I hope at one stage of your life, at least one stage of your life, you said, you know what? This is going to be the year that I get in the best health of my life. Period. You gotta have that year or those series of years where you're just like, these are the years I'm dedicating to the best health. Because look, when your health is vibing, you've got more energy. And when you've got more energy, everything changes to a brighter hue of color. I mean, you see your relationships Better. You see your work better, you have more motivation to get through the day. You. You're more likely to move towards your dreams. Because you and I both know when you're fatigued, you're wiped out, you're exhausted. You don't get up and be like, oh, I'm so excited. You get up and be like, oh, another day. Because when it's a brutal fight to summon the energy you need in your life, it's easy to quit. But when that energy lives there, you can just go and go and go. People ask me all the time, Brendan, how do you get so many videos done? How do you write so many books? How do you survive on the road? I'm like, because I am naturally energized because I focus so much on my health, from what I eat to how I work out, to how I hydrate every aspect of my life. I'm always working towards improving my health because, you know, I want to feel energy. For me, the worst feeling is fatigue and exhaustion. And the best feeling is having a positive, buoyant, enthusiastic energy that just lasts. So please, if there's any area that you raise your standards, raise your standards on what you eat, what you feed your family, raise your standards on how much sleep you expect to get. Raise your standards on how much and how much you're willing to fight and struggle and work to improve your mindfulness, to improve your well being. You deserve to have an experience in life that is vibrant. And you can't have it unless you raise your standards in your own health. We can all reach that next level, but we have to work towards it. I think the second area we all have to work towards is our focus, especially these days. It's so easy to go through the day and be distracted by everything. And you and I both know that that's a challenge. You know, you click this little blue link and you look at that Facebook post, you read this thing over here, you go to this blog, you watch that video, and four or five hours go by and you're like, why am I naked? You know, it's like you lose all thoughts. It's like you got a drug and it just wipes you out for a couple hours. And that's the drug of distraction. And it's ruining people's lives and they're addicted to it. And so you've got to get your addiction for distraction under control. You need to raise your standards on your focus. Okay, I'm only going to focus in this next hour, only on this. I'm not going to check in like an addict and do all these other things. I'm going to focus, get this thing done, make it happen, and get rid of all these beliefs that you can multitask your way to success today. The problem with multitasking is every area that you open up to multitask opens up a new door for distraction. Today, those who succeed the best are the most focused, the most mindful to what they should be doing at this moment. So return to that. Return to what is it I want of this day, what is it I desire to happen in this hour, this interaction, this next meeting? And, and if you can, get back to your focus and really bring your moment, your awareness to this present moment, to a full, vibrant presence in the now and mindfully being aware of where you are, what you should be doing, what you are striving for, how you're feeling, what you're experiencing of the world. The more you can bring in that elevated standard of awareness, the more life opens up to you. I'd say the third thing that we all have to get down is a higher standard. Boldness or courage. You know, where you at in your life right now is a complete indication of how bold you've been in chasing your dreams, how bold you've been in sharing your ideas, your thoughts, your dreams, your visions, your needs with other people, how courageous you've been to fight after you fall down, to keep getting up, to keep striving to go for it. Even when they ridicule you, even when you're disappointed, even when you're hurt, even when you just feel like nothing's going to line up again. The ability to get up again the next day, the next hour, the next moment, the next relationship and trust and try once more that courage and that boldness. If you don't have that, then you're never going to reach that higher standard of living which you deserve, your family deserves and your community needs from you. We need more bold leaders. We need more courageous people to call a wrong a wrong, to pursue things that are difficult to dream of, those things that most people will never dream of because they're scared, they don't know how or they cannot. You have to raise that level of boldness to reach that next level of success in your life, no matter how successful you already are. I know if you're watching this, you're already a person who's driven. You wouldn't watch this video this long if you weren't into personal development, self help psychology, or high performance. You're here because you already have an element of that. The next level for you is letting it out, more trusting in that to have the courage to follow your heart even more, with a greater level of dedication. That's another level of standard, I think, for all of us. Next area is joy. You know, so many people are going through the motions in life right now, and they don't have a standard for joy. I expect I'm going to have fun when I shoot these videos. I expect I'm going to enjoy my work. I expect in every relationship, every dinner, every meeting, we're going to laugh, I'm going to tease someone, I'm going to make a joke. Sometimes it's not appropriate, but you know, I'm going to go for it because I'm going to have a good time in life. It is so short, and you hear people say that all the time, but I've been blessed to be with people who are at the end of their life, literally the last weeks, days, hours, or even moments of their life. And I've sat next to that hospital bed or that hospice bed as people have died, including people who I deeply care for. I can share with you very simply that every one of us looks back to our life and says, did I really enjoy it? I mean, did I live it? And we want to know that we appreciate it and we had a level of joy. But you can't bring joy into your life unless it's an expectation, unless it's a demand of yourself. You know, if you've ever been to my events before, we get the whole audience screaming, bring the joy. Because you must bring joy to your interactions. You must bring joy. Discern and decide to do that. Otherwise you'll just go through the motion. You'll show up, hey, guys, how's it going? You know, look, relationships and life can be incredibly boring if you let it be. But if you demand of yourself to have fun at it and you look for moments to tease, to poke fun, to make fun of yourself, to tell a joke, to pull a prank, to see the funny in situations, then you're going to experience a better quality of life. And I think that last area that most people could use a little bit more help on that would really serve them is their, you know, it's hard to say and be respectful, but it's your ability to be more kind to others. We live in a time when people are so driven and they are doing so many things that we've lost the ability to demonstrate kindness with others. Because there's a difference between compassion and kindness. Right. Compassion is, you know, intellectually and philosophically. You care for someone, you feel for them, you're empathetic for them, but that's an emotion. Empathy is an emotion. Kindness is a demonstration. Kindness is compassion activated. Kindness is something that you do for others. You demonstrate, you show. Kindness shows up in your life when you're patient with someone, even when you want to hurry them up. Kindness is something when you recognize the difficulty someone's going through and you acknowledge it. Say, you know, I know you're going through difficult times right now. I just want to let you know I really honor you and I respect you for it because I can see you're doing your best. Kindness is saying kind things to other people. It can't be a thought in your mind. You must make it verbal. You must be explicit about it. And we've lost a lot of that in our culture because everyone's in such a hurry. They're like, good job, and they move on, and that's all you ever get. Good job, good job, good job. And that's all they hear or amen or good for you. But there's no conversation. Kindness comes out in taking time with people. Kindness comes out in having real conversation with people, acknowledging, honoring, respecting other people. And I think we all have to work on that. We've gotten into a culture that is very dismissive, very judgmental, very poisonous in its ability to ridicule or make fun of or point out a wrong. And I think there's a lot that is right in this world. And until we raise our standard to say, I'm going to be more kind to others and I'm going to expect that kindness as well, I'm going to ask for that kindness as well. Until it's part of our collective consciousness that we can all be better with each other, we'll never reach those higher ambitions or higher standards of service, those higher ambitions of humanity. I mean, imagine having more love in your life. Without kindness, it's almost impossible. So if we want that highest level of every standard that every sort of recorded history of philosophy has ever showed us, which is love, which is service, which is care and compassion, we must bring in kindness to get there. And I hope you'll do that. I hope these areas get you thinking. I hope that setting some goals and look, you can reach another level of standard in your life. It will take all of these things. You will have to raise your health, you will have to raise your focus. You will have to raise your boldness and your courage. You will have to raise your joy, you will have to raise your kindness. All these things you can do, expect that you can do it. Set a plan to do it, Demand of yourself to do it. And every single day that you're doing, you'll start to feel a different level of charge in your life. A different level of energy and excitement. You'll start to experience what we call the charge life. Hey guys, it's Brendan. Did you like this episode? If you did, you can do three things right now to continue your journey. First, you can subscribe right here to my channel, which I hope you will, so I can keep sending you videos on a weekly basis to change your life. Second, you can get my brand new book for free by clicking the link right here. And third, you can also go to my website, sign up for my newsletter so that I can send you free offers, free products, free programs, updates on my events, new podcasts, and everything else that we don't do on this channel here. If you'd like to do that, just go ahead and click any of these buttons you see right here. Look forward to seeing it on the next video. Until then, go out there every single day of your life. Live fully, love openly, and make your difference today.