You Get The Life You Tolerate
Last night, I was thinking to myself:
“If I could just eliminate this distraction, I would be more productive”.
“If I could just implement a system to get rid of this bad habit, I would be so much better off”.
“If I could just remove this time-wasting tendency of mine, my life would be so much better”.
In the personal development and productivity world, we talk so much about implementing systems and routines and the whole nine yards. All in an effort to overcome our tendencies of procrastination, vices, addictions, and bad habits.
But then the thought hit me:
“As someone who cares about health and exercise, I don’t need to hide the fridge to stop me from overeating. And I don’t need to put my shoes at the door to facilitate me exercising. I just do it.”
I realised that, I have no systems in place to stop me from overeating. I have no systems in place to remind me to exercise. Yet I don’t ever struggle with excessive weight gain, nor do I struggle to start working out.
Why?
Because at the most fundamental level, I view myself as a person who cares about health and fitness. It’s ingrained and burned deeply into my identity. My sense of self.
Without any systems, any specific routines, or any intentional practices, I don’t struggle at all to take the right actions for my health and fitness. Because at the most fundamental level – your inner self talk, I see myself as a person who is conscious about their health and fitness.
I figured that this principle should apply to the other aspects of life too.
Of course, implementing supporting systems is never not helpful. But at the core of it all, the standard you hold yourself to will make or break everything.
The standard you hold yourself to
James Clear, author of the best selling self-help book, Atomic Habits, has this iconic quote:
“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
In the context of this article, maybe there’s another way to word this sentence.
“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your standards.”
For instance, say your desire is to start the day off strong.
If your goal is to not hit the snooze button on your alarm, a common system is to put your alarm clock further away from your bed. I’ve tried this myself, and maybe you have too.
But to be honest, I often just walk across the room, turn off the alarm, then go back to sleep again.
And I guess you could keep trying to enhance your system to make it bulletproof. To make it near impossible for you to go back to sleep even if you wanted to.
But maybe the problem is just internal.
Your goal can be to start the day off strong. Your systems can help facilitate that. But if you don’t fundamentally mind being the person who presses snooze, you will always end up doing it.
That’s why I’ve been really thinking a lot about this phrase: “The standard you hold yourself to.”
Because that’s what really drives the actions you take on a daily basis, and eventually the life outcomes you get.
The standard you hold yourself to becomes the ‘floor’ of your performance. It is the lower bound. The bedrock. The permanent barrier. Self accountability is not just about tracking your performance, or reflecting on your actions. It’s also about what standard of effort you’re willing to accept from yourself.
Hence, the higher your standards, the higher the ‘floor’ of your performance.
See, setting bigger goals is like creating a higher ‘ceiling’. And while that is important, it’s arguably more crucial to set a limit on how bad your performance/effort/productivity can be. After all, it’s the inputs (your work and effort) that creates the outputs (your results). Not the other way around.
And to really get to the next level, you need to be dissatisfied with the old version of you. You need to be intolerant of your old habits. You need to raise the bar.
Because as well-meaning as setting goals and implementing productivity systems is…
Your big goals will often not be hit if you can tolerate not hitting the goal.
Your systems will not be followed if you can tolerate not following the systems.
And at the end of the day, if you can look yourself in the mirror and be satisfied with your current standard of effort and commitment, then that’s all you’ll continue to give.
Growth isn’t comfortable.
And it takes acknowledging that: “Hey, not only am I not where I want to be, I’m also not who I want to be.”
It takes dissatisfaction with your current self.
To put it bluntly:
- If losing is acceptable, you will lose.
- If continuing those vices and bad habits “isn’t that bad”, you will continue doing them.
- If you aren’t dissatisfied with your current work ethic, you won’t work harder.
You don’t rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your standards.
You get the life you tolerate.