A Lesson on Standards & Ideals

Restored from the Empower Network archive (2011–2017), lightly edited to meet our current advertising standards. Views are the original author’s.

If I told you that there was ONE THING that every single one of us does, which pretty much 100% guarantees that we are setting ourselves up for disappointment… would you believe me? Well it’s true. We almost always set ourselves up for disappointment by doing THIS super simple thing.

Before I go on, I want to warn you… this is a jam packed post with a lot of information on a huge subject. It takes practice and commitment, and potentially a lot more mind training. I learned the following exercises through an educational institute which specialise in the development of people through language and training in “distinctions”. However the information I learned was SO valuable for my life that I wanted to share a little bit of it in this post. 

You see.. each one of us have a set of what we like to call Standards & Ideals. In other words, standards and ideals are how things SHOULD be done. What someone SHOULD be doing, how they SHOULD be acting, what they SHOULD be saying. It’s how we think the world SHOULD be.

I want you to take a moment and get present to all the SHOULD’s in your life. How SHOULD life be? What is so in the areas of your personal life, relationships, sex & intimacy, family, health and fitness, faith, and work/career? How would you rate each of these areas on a scale of 1-10? How SHOULD they be if you were looking to score a perfect 10 in each area?

Think about it for a moment… even better take out a piece of paper and write down what you would rate each of these areas.

I’ll share with you what mine looks like. Most of these areas rate a 7 or 8 for me, with health and wellness rated as a 5. Why? Because I SHOULD be going to the gym more often, and I SHOULD have a more consistent healthy diet. My relationships is rated at a 7, even though it’s pretty good. Why? Because it SHOULD be even better. It SHOULD be perfect. My partner and I SHOULD never fight.

Alright, so by now you should be present to some of the Standards & Ideals you have in your life. If not, get clear before reading the next part, because we’re going to do a powerful exercise that will help you get present to how you’re creating disappointment, and how you can reverse it!

Here’s the funny thing… Standards and Ideals are totally and completely created by US. That means, that each person has their OWN set of unique standards and ideals, and yup.. you guessed it, they are different from everyone else’s around them!

Chances are you have been holding other people in your life accountable to YOUR standards and ideals! Do you know what that means? You are pretty much guaranteeing that you will be disappointed. See, you may have a standard and ideal about what the “perfect” husband/wife/partner should look like. When that person does not measure up to our standards, we become disappointed. But that person may have a completely different set of standards and ideals! By having a created standard and ideal in our minds and applying it to another person, we set ourselves up for dissapointment!

We expect that people SHOULD know better! They should know how we feel! They should know we don’t like that! They should know the house should be clean! They should know to contribute more! They should know to work harder or do a job a certain way! They should know to listen!

But SHOULD’S are NOT REAL. They are IMAGINARY. They only live INSIDE OUR HEADS. Should is an imaginary word that refers to the past. Where do our standards and ideals come from? Belief systems shaped by past experiences, or lessons that we were taught in the past either by our parents, people around us, or even society as a whole. The only thing that is real is This Moment, right NOW. 

Yeah, it’s crazy. It’s no wonder all the areas in our lives are not rated as 10’s across the board. It’s funny how most of the time we think that our standards and ideals are true for the entire world. We think that our opinions are important, that they mean something.

Alright so you may be thinking, great, I got that I have standards and ideals… but HOW do I get rid of them?? Or how then, do I get what I want? Should I have to settle for an unclean home, a mediocre relationship or job? To the contrary – most definitely not.

I’m not saying you “Should” give up anything that you truly and deeply desire. None of it. Everyone deserves to live a life of their dreams! Everyone! What I am saying is that having standards and ideals is not necessarily the best way for you to get what you really want! It is actually a dream killer, and worse than that it completely kills the opportunity of fully unleashing the present moment. When you live a life of “should’s” your mind is focussed on everywhere else in time except for the present moment. Life is happening now, if you are not living now, the journey of life is not nearly as enjoyable.

Here’s where we introduce Principals & Values. Principals and values are truly important to us and are what shape our core desires. All standards and ideals can be brought back to a core principal and value, we just need to take the time to define them.

So let’s define them! Let’s use the area of relationships as an example of this. To be clear, your principals and values will likely be different than mine, however in my experience I’ve found that most human beings have similar core interests in life, so you’ll get the idea from my personal example.

In the area of intimate relationships, I have a standard and ideal about how my partner should behave. But when I bring it down to the core principals and values I deeply believe in, I think of Love, Compassion, Affinity, Intimacy, Synchronicity etc. This is what I value most in a relationship. This is what is important, not my Standards and Ideals, but the core values. So when my standards and ideals in my relationship are not met and I get angry because of it, I am not being true to my values of  love and compassion. I am actually hurting myself by denying my principles and values.

So take an area of your life that you may have rated low on the scale, and Define your principals and values in that area.

This is what we must focus on. If a standard and ideal is getting in the way of you having these principals and values in your life, (as I demonstrated in the paragraph above) then you may want to think about giving it up. Another example: you may value cleanliness but because you have a standard and ideal that your kids or your partner should also value cleanliness, constantly telling them to clean the house and getting angry over it is harming your values of love and affinity in the area of family relationships.

So what do you do when this happens? What happens when your values are not being met or are clashing with those around you? This is where you and those around you need to work on creating group values. If it’s in the area of friendship, or in a relationship that’s really rocky where you completely value different things, you may think about finding new people to be in your life who have similar principals and values to you. However if it’s in your family, or in your work environment, you really don’t have much of a choice, so you’ve gotta work with it.

1) Share and create values for you and your loved one(s) that you all believe in and can all get behind. Have a conversation about their values and principals, and ask them how they think you can make those values more present in your daily lives. If you value cleanliness and a healthy living environment, and your children also understand the importance of that value, have a conversation with them about how you can all work together to make that happen. It may look like hiring a cleaning person, and collectively paying for it. Or maybe it’s a time once a week where you all work together and take on different roles to get the house clean. Whatever the solution, all members should be present to the principal and value behind the request.

2) Having these conversations requires complete authenticity, openness, and honesty to be present. This will NOT happen if you are stuck to thinking that YOUR way of thinking or your method is the “Right” way. You’ll have to give up the need to be right and everything else associated with your ego. An exercise like this requires complete surrender and 100% humility.

I realise that this is a lot to take in and it’s not as simple as applying it once and completely letting go of disappointment. However the first step is in realising that you have standards and ideals and that they are a creation of your mind. Each of us have very different perceptions about the world and the people around us, and we cannot coexist lovingly if we keep shoving our own standards and ideals onto one another.

So are you willing to give it a shot? Are you willing to give up your standards and ideals in order to create a life defined by your principals and values? I promise, if you apply this and start defining your principals and values… things will begin shifting.

Leave me your questions or comments below. Did this make sense to you? What are some of your principals and values?