Not always meeting others’ standards doesn’t mean having low standards or no standards at all. No! What you must do is create and live by your own standards.

We’ll look at what stops people from setting high standards, why standards raise your status and how to set them.

People value what they invest in, and to value yourself you must invest in high standards you set.

Setting high personal standards can be a challenge because it implies: personal commitment, belief, action, and facing the risk of failure.

Satisfaction in the present moment is important because you’ll always be in some new present moment. It will always be now, now in the future will be the present moment then.

Of course you have preferences and aspirations for better things—those things will stem from what works well right now.

What accepting satisfaction in the present does is close the gap between your current status and your goals. This automatically raises your status.

To do this ask yourself, what about this moment right now satisfies me? What would satisfy me right now that I could do differently? What else could I be doing right now that would be more satisfying.

Finding the smallest satisfaction, or ways your dreams are already in motion, connects you to your preferred path.

Give yourself permission to imagine and feel what it would be like to fully experience your preferred goals. What it would be like to meet your own standards.

Often people struggle with this even more than focusing on what satisfies them now. The initial step to know what you prefer is easier for many people than allowing themselves to feel what it would be like to succeed.

Why is this? Where’s the breakdown between knowing what we want and allowing ourselves to imagine having it?

It’s this: We know what we want, but we don’t know exactly how we’re going to get it, so it seems impossible. We don’t want to get attached to something we have no idea how to get.

Enjoy yourself and feel satisfied now, and you will bypass the thought you will only be happy when the bully buzzes off, or if your social life improves. You will collapse the difference between the perfect future and the imperfect now moment. It may feel silly like it’s just pretending, but the fact in the future moment you fantasize about is going to happen in that now moment, so you need to see it as possible now (NOT LATER).

Personal standards are about wanting the best for yourself and from yourself.

List what your standards are and begin achieving them NOW by stating them as a present attitude or behavior: Whatever is important to you, whatever you value, what you want to have, where you want to go, how you want to behave and be treated by others are key areas to focus on.

Accountability partners: Tell your adults what your standards are so they can remind you and check in with your progress.

Invest in yourself by keeping track of every satisfying WIN in your journal.

A win can be a success or something you’ve learned from a failure.

Remember, people resist setting high standards because they believe success lies in some imagined future, they struggle to be satisfied right now, and they don’t know how to get where they want to go. This is backward thinking. Your goals, dreams, wishes, successes start right this minute with high standards. Every moment of your life will occur in the present moment, and you will always have part of your story realized and part to be determined, but you can find satisfaction at every stage and go from there.

Set one new standard today. Write it as an attitude or behavior happening in the present moment. Be satisfied by working toward the standard regardless of whether you meet it or not. Share with a trusted adult your plans and progress. Track your wins in your journal.

It works! Start now.