Have Standards

Have you ever stopped to think about what would be in your handbook for life?

Your instruction manual. Your safety guidelines. Your runbook. Whatever you want to call it, if you had to write down the principles by which you live your life, what would be in there?

Some things are obvious. Brush your teeth every day. Look both ways before crossing the street. Save some of the money you earn.

But what about the standards you have for the food you eat? How you move your body? Your sleep? Your mindset? Your relationships? Your faith? How you spend your time?

Have you ever deliberately decided what your standards are?

Have you ever stopped to really think about what matters most to YOU, what you want for your life, and what your goals are?

When we decide we want to accomplish something new, there's usually some kind of motivation behind it. Motivation is great. It gets us excited. It gets us moving.

But motivation is fleeting.

It might get you started, but it won't always be there to keep you going.

That's where standards come in.

When you've already decided what your standards are, you don't have to renegotiate with yourself every single day. You don't wake up every morning and decide whether taking care of your body matters today. You've already decided it does.

We have standards around the food we eat, our sleep, movement and fitness, our marriage, gratitude, and our faith. That doesn't mean we execute all of those things perfectly every day. It means we've decided what matters to us and how we want to live.

Then we practice living that way.

Eventually, those decisions require less thought. Repeated often enough, they become habits. Over time, those habits become part of who you are.

Goals say, "I want to accomplish this." Standards say, "This is who I am."

Standards evolve

We've been developing our own "book of standards" for a long time, and the standards we have today aren't the standards we've always lived by.

Ten years ago, five years ago, even three years ago, they looked different.

Food is probably the easiest example.

Our first real standard around nutrition was hitting our macros. We paid attention to protein, carbohydrates, and fat, and we worked hard to hit those numbers consistently. At that point in our lives, that was progress.

Then we learned more.

My Celiac diagnosis became part of that evolution. We started paying attention to ingredients. We learned more about food quality, where our food came from, and how different foods made us feel.

Our standards changed because we changed.

What started as "hit the macros" slowly became a much broader standard for how we choose to nourish our bodies. We still care about protein and how much we're eating, but now we also care deeply about ingredients, quality, sourcing, and how the food we eat supports our health.

The same evolution has happened with our sleep, fitness, mindset, faith, and relationships.

None of it happened overnight.

And that's important, because you might read this and think you need to go home and create a brand-new set of standards for every area of your life.

Please don't.

Start small

Pick something that matters to you.

Not something you think you should care about because someone else does. Something that genuinely matters to you and the life you're trying to build.

What's a goal you have? What's something you'd genuinely like to change about your life?

Now ask yourself:

What's ONE behavior that would move me closer to it?

One.

Maybe it's moving your body for ten minutes every day. Eating protein with breakfast. Keeping your phone out of the bedroom. Going to bed at a consistent time. Going to church every Sunday. Saying one kind thing to yourself in the mirror every day. Writing down one thing you’re grateful for before you get into bed. Reading 10 minutes before going to sleep.

It doesn't have to be huge.

In fact, it probably shouldn't be.

Choose the standard. Then hold yourself accountable to practicing the behavior required to uphold it.

That's discipline.

Repeat it often enough and eventually you've built a habit. Once that habit becomes part of your normal life, you have room to build on it.

We talk about getting 1% better in the gym all the time. The same principle applies to the rest of our lives.

You don't have to change everything tomorrow.

Start small. But just fucking start.

And no, it won't always be easy

Some days upholding your standards will feel easy. Other days it won't.

Sometimes it will be inconvenient. You'll be tired, stressed, busy, injured, completely unmotivated, or simply not in the mood to do the thing you've decided matters to you.

That's okay.

We've gotten a little too comfortable believing that if something feels difficult, inconvenient, or uncomfortable, there must be a better or easier way.

Sometimes there isn't.

Some things worth doing are hard. Some things worth achieving require us to be uncomfortable for a while.

Sometimes the hard part is the part that's building us.

That's where we practice discipline. That's where we prove to ourselves that we can do hard things. That's where resilience gets built.

But there's an important distinction here.

Having standards doesn't mean becoming rigid.

Sometimes honoring your standards means doing less, not more.

If your standard is taking care of your body, that doesn't mean crushing a workout every day regardless of what your body is telling you. Sometimes it means modifying the workout. Sometimes movement looks like a walk instead of CrossFit. Sometimes an injury means finding a completely different way to move for a while. Sometimes the healthiest decision you can make is going to bed instead of getting one more thing done.

Sometimes recovery is the standard.

Your standards can stay firm while the way you uphold them changes.

That's not making excuses. That's applying your standards to the life that's happening in front of you.

Standards aren't perfection

We still eat birthday cake. We occasionally stay up too late. We make exceptions. We live a little.

A standard isn't ruined because you occasionally choose differently.

A standard is what you return to most of the time.

We've built and shaped our standards over years, one ordinary decision at a time. And we've experienced some incredible changes along the way.

Our bloodwork has improved. We have more energy. We're physically and mentally stronger. We recover better. We have more clarity, more peace, and more joy in our lives.

We didn't understand all of the benefits we might experience when we started making these changes years ago.

We just kept making them.

One at a time.

Again and again.

On purpose.

And we're still not done. I don't think we ever will be.

There isn't some magical destination where you've finally mastered health and life and get to stop paying attention. We keep learning. We keep growing. We refine our standards as we understand ourselves and our health better.

That's the journey.

Standards also don't guarantee perfect health or a perfect life.

Genetics are real. Disease exists. Stress is a reality. Life has a way of life-ing. None of us gets to control everything that happens to us, and trying to do so will drive you crazy.

But there is a difference between accepting what you can't control and surrendering what you can.

Don't try to control everything. Refuse to surrender what you can control.

Give a shit about what you eat and put into your body.

Give a shit about how you move your body.

Give a shit about what you allow into your mind.

Give a shit about the people you love.

Give a shit about the example you set for your spouse, your children, your family, and your friends.

Give a shit about doing what you say you’re going to do, even to yourself.

God gave us these bodies, and I believe taking care of them is both a duty and an honor. We won't have them forever, but while we're here, we have the opportunity to be good stewards of what we've been given.

So I'll ask you again:

What are YOUR standards?

If you don't know, don't try to figure out your entire handbook today.

Pick one area of your life.

What's your goal?

What's one behavior that would move you closer to it?

Are you willing to make that behavior a standard?

More importantly, are you willing to hold yourself to that standard when nobody is watching?

A coach can provide accountability. We can teach you, support you, encourage you, help you problem-solve, and remind you of what you said you wanted when things get hard.

But eventually, you're standing alone in your kitchen. You're deciding whether to go to bed or keep scrolling. You're deciding whether to move your body when nobody would know if you didn't.

At the end of the day, you have to be willing to keep your word to yourself.

None of this is exciting.

None of it is sexy.

Most of the decisions that change your life will happen when nobody is watching.

Set your standard. Hold yourself to it. Then do it again tomorrow.

That's how you change your life, one ordinary decision at a time.