Episode 83: The Standards You Allow are the Standards You Live

You know, every time that you let a standard slip, you're teaching yourself that that's the new standard. And that is dangerous because most standards don't collapse all at once. They erode. It could be a skipped workout, a commitment that you don't keep, a deadline that you decide that it just doesn't matter. One time you're going to say, you know what, I'm, I'm going to handle it tomorrow, or I'm going to handle it next week. And none of those decisions seem like they're life-changing, especially right there when you're in the moment. But if you repeat them enough, and what used to be acceptable, it starts becoming normal. You start rewiring your brain. And there's a— there's a Not a psychiatry. What's the word? There's a psychology. Sorry about that, guys. There's a psychology behind why that happens. Hey, welcome to Stand Sure Coaching. My name is Rob Anderson. I'm your host of the Stand Sure Podcast. Hey, my journey has been defined by 3 distinct chapters. Chapter 1 began with my time in the military. Where I learned the true meaning of leadership and resilience in some of the most high-pressure environments. Then on to chapter 2, I transitioned into corporate America, serving as a learning and development professional and leadership coach for Fortune 500 companies. Now I'm in my third chapter, dedicated to helping men navigate their own transitions, rediscover their purpose, and find what it means to lead with conviction. In their second half of life. Hey, before we get into this, there's 2 things I want to do. One is I'm going to give you a really quick exercise. All right? So, if you're driving, maybe not a good idea to try this. But you can always come back to this point. And if I remember it, I'll put it down in the show notes. But I want you to try something. And stay with me on this, all right? It's going to make total sense. I want you to just do a drum roll wherever you're at on, you know, on maybe on the dashboard if you are driving, on the steering wheel if you're sitting down, just on, on your knees. Just do a drum roll. That was probably pretty easy for you, and that's just a combination of right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left. That's all you're doing, right? Just a real quick drum roll. That's all it is right now. Again, that was right, left, right, left, right, left. I want you to try something else now. Instead of playing a drum roll where the pattern is right, left, right, left, right, left, right, left, I want you to play this pattern: right, left, right, right, left, right, left, left. Say it again: right, left, right, right. Left, right, left, left. Do that with me. Right, left, right, right, left, right, left, left. You're going to start really slow unless you're already a drummer, okay? But you're going to start really slow. Now, by the way, if you practice that for the next 21 to 30 days, it's going to be just as smooth as your drum roll because you're probably starting out, it's probably like left, right, left, left, right, left, right, right, left, and you're real slow at it, right? And pretty soon it just becomes a real quick pattern. It's because you're building up that neural pathway. So that's going to be crucial as we talk about how we develop neural pathways. Not only in this podcast, we've talked about it before, but kind of going forward, I'm going to be talking about developing new neural pathways as you transition. But the second part, getting away from playing drums on the steering wheel or on your knees there, Before we get into this, again, I want you to stay with me until the end. Because at the end, I'm going to give you 3 practical ways to stop allowing small compromises to quietly become your new standard. At the very end, I'm going to tell you about my 1-year transformation workshop. And it's built for people who are tired of starting over and over and over, or maybe There's a new path that you want to take. Maybe there's a new opportunity that you want to grab a hold of. And it's something that's real and sustainable. And you're going to make that change over the next 12 months. But before we do that, we need to understand something about your brain because every time that you let a standard slip, You may actually be teaching yourself that the new behavior is acceptable. I want to make an important distinction here. I'm not, I'm not talking about perfection, and I'm not talking about grinding yourself into the ground, and I'm definitely not saying that one bad day destroys everything that you built. I'm talking about standards. And there is a massive difference between making a mistake and slowly renegotiating what you expect from yourself. And I think a lot of us do that second one without even realizing it. You know, if you're going to do a diet and— okay, so, so a big transformation for me. Has been that I found out that I've got type 2 diabetes. And so I had to do— and I had all the information. I know how to be healthy. I've got a wife who's a health nut, and there are certain things that she recommends to eat, certain things that she recommends not to eat. And I would— man, I would— you know, for me, a cheat day became a cheat week. I had all the information. I know what nutrients are good for me. I know what macros are. But it wasn't until I had that epiphany of having diabetes that I had to make a change. I know people who are— they want to become closer to God, so they know that they should do things like fasting and praying and staying in Scripture. And it happens for like 2 or 3 days, and then it doesn't happen. They lose that transformation. People who want to Who better themselves in life. So they go to conferences and they download podcasts and they, they read books, but there's no application to it. What happens is we start down that path, whether it's around diet or, you know, being spiritual or bettering ourselves or bettering our relationships, having more, more connected time with our spouse. And we tell ourselves, hey, you know what? It's just this once. Or we'll say, you know what? I've been busy. You know, we can eat out tonight. You know, we're trying to work on our finances, right? Yeah, but you know, we can eat out tonight. I've been too busy. I'll get back to it next week. It's just the holidays. It's just the weekend. I'll take care of it tomorrow. And sometimes those things are absolutely true. Sometimes it is good to take a break. You know, because life happens. But there's a difference between intentionally adjusting your plan and just lowering your standards again and again and again. And your brain is constantly learning from repetition. It's like, it's like with that exercise I gave you, the left-right or right-left, right-right, left-right, left-left. You learn that through repetition. The more you do it, the smoother it becomes. Because what you're repeatedly exposed to— or let me rephrase that. When you're repeatedly exposed to something, your response to it can become a lot weaker. Think about walking into a room with a strong smell. At first, you notice it immediately. 20 minutes later, you barely notice it at all. Now, the smell may not have changed. It's just that you adjusted to it. It's like when I was traveling with the military or I was traveling with one of the companies that I worked for, and I would leave out of Idaho where it's a dry, dry heat, right? Not as dry as Texas and not dry— well, not Texas, but not as dry as Arizona. But we don't have nearly the humidity like Texas has. But then I would go to someplace like Shanghai, China, or Taipei, Taiwan, where it's the same temperature, lots of humidity. It would take me a couple of days to acclimate. You adjust to it. Something similar can happen when you tolerate behavior that's used, or that really, that it used to bother us. And we do that on a repeated basis. You know, the first time you violate one of your own little standards and you notice it, it's like not having, you know, you get a new car and you're like, nobody's going to eat in my car. Nobody's going to have sodas in my car. You can only have water. Then it happens once. Then it happens 2, 3, 4, 5 times. And before you know it, there's crumbs in the car. People spill drinks. The first time you violate one of your own standards, you notice it. And maybe even it bothers you, but then you do it again, then again, then again. Then again. And eventually, the internal alarm doesn't feel quite as loud. One of the office buildings that one of my clients works out of, they have a fire alarm that beeps all the time. And when I would go and meet with that client, I would notice it. It would really distract me, really bother me. And it wasn't bad. It was just like a chirp every, I don't know, 30 to 60 seconds. And I didn't realize until today when I met with that client and I was kind of preparing for this podcast, I was like, you know what? Oh yeah, that beep is still there. I got to where it wasn't even bothering me. Because what was once an exception starts feeling normal. And that's where things get bigger than a workout, bigger than a diet, bigger than a budget. Bigger than a morning routine. Because your behavior also affects how you see yourself. Psychology calls this self-perception. We can develop beliefs about ourselves for the most part by observing our own behavior. You see, our actions become our own evidence. Every time that you— every time you follow through on something that you said you're going to do, You collect evidence. And that evidence is basically saying, hey, I'm someone who does it. I'm someone who follows through. I'm a closer. I can trust myself. I do what I say I'm going to do. But repeatedly breaking those commitments, you begin collecting different evidence. You know, maybe you don't say it out loud, but internally it's like, hey, you know what? My commitments, you know, those are up for negotiation. Or, I'm A lot of times I quit. You know, maybe I'll do this later. And that's why standards matter. They're not just rules. They become part of your identity. So I want to give you 3 things that you can start doing. Tip 1, define your non-negotiables. By the way, excellent book out there called Boundaries. If this has to do with other people, And lowering your standards for people, and you want to stay way out of toxic relationships or, or bad relationships. Guys, if you want to stay away from toxic women, ladies, if you want to stay away from the bad boys, you got to have those standards. And you define your non-negotiables. I've got a client right now that I'm working with, and she's been through toxic relationship after toxic relationship after toxic relationship. Now, she doesn't need counseling. She's taken care of the healing part. Now we're moving forward. But we're in a place where she has to redefine her non-negotiables. You see, you can't protect a standard that you've never defined. And a lot of people are operating on vague intentions. You know, I want to exercise more. I don't want that kind of people in my life anymore. I want to save money. I want to spend more time with my family. I want to work on myself. Those aren't standards, they're intentions. A standard needs behavior attached to it. So instead of, in my case, I need to get healthier, the standard becomes, I am going to be either in the pool or in the gym 3 times a week. My standards had to become, I am not going to eat Any breads. My other, you know, a standard for me, I'm not drinking any sodas because I was really bad about sodas. So for me, it was how many times a week am I going to train? And instead of saying, hey, you know what, I need, I need to improve my relationships, maybe it becomes I give the people who matter to me intentional distraction-free time. Instead of saying things like, I need to get better money, I need to get better with my finances, it becomes, I review my finances every Friday. I don't make a large purchase until I've waited for 24 hours. Make your standard observable. Make it something that you can actually recognize in your own behavior. Because guys, when your standard is vague, there's a ton of room to negotiate. So you have to stop and ask yourself, what are 3 things in my life that I refuse to compromise on a continuous basis? And we talk about journaling a lot, and this is a great opportunity. One of the things we talk about a lot in that 1-year transformation class or program— it's not a class, it's a program— is journaling. My clients that go through that love their journals. Their journals are revered because it's a part of who they are today. And they can actually go back and look at who they were a few months ago. But ask yourself, what are 3 things in my life that I refuse to compromise? And write them down. Write them down in general. Those are your standards. Those are— they're more than just the guidelines. That's— That's like— and the difference between a guideline and a standard, you know, like a guideline is kind of like if you're out on the road, you know, you can drift into another lane and feel like there's no harm, no foul. But man, when you set that standard, that's like having— it's like having it on a railroad track and that train's not veering off anywhere. It's stuck on those tracks, or it's not stuck, but it's grooving along those tracks. Those are your standards. Tip number 2, protect the next repetition. And what I mean by that is missing once, that usually isn't the biggest problem. It's what happens next. You see, habits develop through, you know, just repeating the behavior. So, here's the principle I want you to remember. Protect the next repetition. You miss Monday's workout? Fine. Don't turn Monday into Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday or Friday. I haven't done it yet, but if I slip up and I drink a soda, I'm not— and oh, by the way, actually I did do it. I went into a restaurant, they didn't have— the water there was nasty. So I thought, well, I'll get just a little bit of root beer. I took like 2 or 3 sips and man, I was totally aware that I was breaking my own standards. And I couldn't do it. That's the one and only time I failed on the soda thing, and I'm a soda addict. But don't turn Monday into Tuesday and Tuesday into Wednesday and Wednesday into Thursday, Thursday into Friday. You spent more money than you shouldn't have, then you correct it today. Lose your temper, own it. You repair the things that need to be repaired, then respond differently the next time. If you stopped working towards something that was important, then you restart. You don't— then you don't have to spend the next week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks beating yourself up. You just need that course correction. Again, think about driving down the highway. If your vehicle starts drifting towards the shoulder, don't sit there and say, well, I guess there's no place to drive now. And off in the bar ditch that you go. You correct the steering. It's just— and the thing is, it's such a small correction. You're back on course. And that's what discipline looks like. It's not never drifting. It's that when you do drift, you recognize it and you correct it immediately. The longer that you allow the drift, The further that you're going to get away from where you intended to go. So, don't obsess over the mistake. Protect the repetition. Tip number 3. Lower the dose, not the standard. And this might be a really important one because life isn't predictable. There's going to be days when you don't have that time to go work out. There's going to be days when you can't stick with that diet. There's going to be days that you don't get to— if you're on a spiritual journey, that you're going to get to read Scripture. There's going to be weeks when work gets crazy, family responsibilities change, your energy changes, schedules change, things happen that you don't plan for. So sometimes you need to reduce the size of the action without abandoning the standard behind it. I've got a client that just to get started in working out would not even go to the gym. The first couple of weeks, it was driving to the parking lot of the YMCA. It was just to start building that habit. And when they fell off from working out, that's through coaching, we co-created a course correction and that's what it was. Was driving to the YMCA and just going inside. It only took 1 or 2— well, it's actually— I think it only took 1 trip to do that, and they're back to working out. So yeah, sometimes you just have to reduce the size of the action without abandoning the standard. Great. You plan an hour to go work out, go hit the pool, but you only have 20 minutes. You plan to do 5 pages of reading, but you only got 3. You normally spend an hour working toward a goal, but today everything went sideways. That's fine. Give it 15 focused minutes. The point isn't pretending that the 15 minutes equals an hour. Because it doesn't. The point is protecting what you do on a continuous basis. You're reinforcing, and that— and the things that you're reinforcing is that it still matters, that it's still part of who you are, and that you're still moving forward. And that connects to another important psychological concept called self-efficacy. And self-efficacy is essentially your belief in your ability to execute the behaviors That are needed to produce a desired outcome. And every time that you follow through, especially when it would have been easier not to, you're building evidence. You're proving it to yourself that you can, you can even act when conditions aren't perfect. And that matters because transformation isn't usually one massive decision. It's 100 smaller decisions that are made when nobody is watching. It's getting up when you said that you'd get up. It's making the call. It's doing the workout. It's having the conversation. It's keeping those boundaries. It's being present with your family, doing the work. And when you miss, you make the correction. You don't condemn yourself. You don't pretend that it, you know, that it didn't matter. You don't blow it off. You correct it. Because there's a difference between grace and permission. And grace says, yeah, I missed it, I'm getting back after it. Permission says, I missed it, maybe this doesn't really matter anymore. You have to know the difference. So here's what I want you to do this week. I want you to identify 3 standards in your life that matter. Maybe it's your faith, your family, your finances, your fitness, your work, your relationships. Maybe it's your personal growth. Write down what the actual standard is and make it specific. Then ask yourself, where have I started negotiating with something that I once considered important? And don't beat yourself up over the answer. Do something about it. Reset the standard. And when life gets difficult, lower the dose if necessary, but don't automatically lower the standard. Because transformation isn't built by what you occasionally do when you're motivated. It's built what you consistently practice. Every time you let a standard slip, you risk teaching yourself that the exception is acceptable. Make enough exceptions and eventually that exception becomes a standard. Hey, if this hit somewhere today, don't just listen to another podcast and move on. Do something with it. And that's where— or that's why I created the One Year Transformation Workshop. The workshop— it's not a workshop, man. I keep saying workshop and course. It is a program. The One Year Transformation is a program. And it's designed to help take you and have an honest look at where you are right now. Identify what your standards may— where they may may have slipped and start building a clear direction for the next year of your life. We're going to look at things like faith, family, finances, fitness, and the person that you're becoming through all of it. This isn't about changing everything overnight, although you are going to start seeing results in just a few weeks. But it's about deciding what needs to change, establishing a standard that supports that, and taking the first steps towards it. Think about it, 12 months. What's it going to look like when you get there? Who are you going to be once you get there? Or are you just going to be making the same excuses starting over and over again? And there's, there's not a magic formula. It's just because you spend 12 months consistently becoming something different. Go check out the website, StanStewartCoaching.com, and look for the 1-Year Transformation. By the way, until the end of August, It is $500 off the 1-year program. It is $3,000 for the month of August. It's $500 off. I want to get you in here. I want to work with you. Let's do this together. Don't wait for another Monday. Don't wait for another month. Protect your standard and start becoming the person capable of living it.