Developing high standards for yourself begins by building strength to counter the forces that hinder your clear thinking.
It takes more than willpower to defeat the enemies of clear thinking.
The enemies stopping the rest of us from thinking clearly are these four major autopilots:
- The Emotional Autopilot: We react based on how we feel instead of what’s true.
- The Ego Autopilot: We get defensive when our ego or status feels attacked.
- The Social Autopilot: We go along with what everyone else is doing.
- The Comfort Autopilot: We stick with what’s familiar with and avoid change.
The Four Enemies of Clear Thinking
We must harness equally powerful biological forces to prevent our “autopilots” from standing in the way of sound judgment. The same forces that the “autopilots” would use to destroy us must be used to our benefit.
The force of comfort is the most important of these.
There are two sides to comfort.
Comfort is the tendency to keep things as they are.
It works against us if the current situation is dysfunctional or suboptimal. However, the current situation need not be less than ideal.
Comfort becomes an almost invincible force that unlocks your potential if you train yourself to continuously think, feel, and act in ways that advance your most important goals. This only happens if you build strength.
Strength is the ability to use sound judgment and override your autopilots.
It makes no difference how unfair things may appear or what is happening in the world. Your feelings of embarrassment, threat, or rage are not important. More importantly, the person who can step back, centre themselves, and step out of the moment will perform better than the one who is unable to do so.
Here are four key strengths you’ll need to override your autopilots:
- Self-Ownership: Taking responsibility for your growth and using your brain instead of letting autopilots run the show.
- Self-Awareness: Knowing your weak spots and recognising when your autopilots are trying to take over.
- Self-Discipline: Controlling your emotions and impulses so they don’t hijack your thinking.
- Self-Assurance: Believing in your worth so your ego doesn’t need to constantly prove itself.
Key Strength #1: Self-Ownership
Having a sense of ownership means taking accountability for your actions, shortcomings, and skills. You might never succeed in life if you are unable to do this.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t have someone in your life who holds you accountable. You can hold yourself accountable. Hold yourself to a high standard, even if others don’t.
You don’t need to be rewarded or punished by anyone else.
Although external rewards are nice, you don’t need them to give it your all. Your honest assessment of yourself is more important than those of others. When you make a mistake, dare to acknowledge your own fault and say, “This is my fault. I must perform better.”
You have more control over your life than you may realize, even though you may never have asked for it.
You can always improve your position tomorrow by doing something right now. Even if you are unable to solve the issue, what you do next will either improve or worsen the situation. Every action you can take, no matter how small, contributes to your growth.
It’s Not Your Fault, but It’s Still Your Responsibility
Even if something happened that was beyond your control, you still have a responsibility to handle it as best as you can.
Most times, we are unable to grow because of our need to defend ourselves. It’s easy to throw your hands up and say you have no control over the problems you’ve found yourself in. However, complaining doesn’t make the current circumstance you’re in any better.
Nothing gets better when you think about how it wasn’t your fault.
You still must deal with the consequences. So, instead focus on the next action that will bring you closer to your goal. Choosing to take responsibility for your actions regardless of the circumstances is the first step towards becoming exceptional.
Exceptional people don’t waste time hoping for a better hand because they understand that they can’t change the one they’ve been dealt.
Instead, they focus on how they will use the cards at their disposal to get the best outcome. They don’t hide themselves from the spotlight. Whatever the challenge, the best people take it on.
When you give up negotiating and begin to accept the situation as it is, solutions become easy to see.
This is because focusing on your next course of action rather than how you got here in the first place gives you a lot of options. You get better results when you prioritize results over ego.
Things can always get better or worse depending on how you react.
Although you have no control over everything, you do have control over how you react, which can either improve or worsen the situation.
Every action you take affects the future, bringing you one step closer to or one step farther from the results and person you desire.
“Will this action make the future easier or harder?” is a useful question to ask yourself before taking any action.
By asking this unexpectedly straightforward question, you can shift your viewpoint and prevent things from getting worse.
Complaining does not Solve Anything
I know it’s difficult to face reality.
So, it’s much simpler to point the finger at circumstances beyond our control than to examine our own involvement. But it is not productive to complain. Complaining merely deceives you into believing that the world ought to operate differently than it does.
Solving problems also becomes harder when you distance yourself from reality. However, you can always do something today to ease the burden of the future, and the moment you stop whining, you begin to find it.
Complaining tries to confirm that you had little control over the result when you are always blaming other people, the environment, or the circumstances.
But that wasn’t the case.
The fact is that we make the same decisions repeatedly in life. Those decisions turn into habits, which in turn shape our paths and, ultimately, our results. We release ourselves from any accountability for causing those undesirable results when we rationalize them away.
The things you decide not to do are just as important as the things you decide to do.
The true measure of a person’s character is how much they are prepared to deviate from the norm to do the right thing.
Self-ownership is the strength of understanding that, despite your lack of control over everything, you do have control over how you react to it. It’s an attitude that enables you to act rather than merely respond to life’s challenges. It turns challenges into chances for development and learning.
Self-ownership is understanding that how you handle adversity has a greater impact on your happiness than the adversity itself. It is also realising that sometimes the best course of action is to simply accept things and move on.
Key Strength #2: Self-Awareness
Understanding what you can do and what you can’t do is a key component of self-awareness.
You need to be aware of your strengths and weaknesses, your limitations and abilities. Know what you can and cannot control. Be aware of your own knowledge and ignorance.
Asking yourself how often you say “I don’t know” throughout the day will help you better understand your level of self-awareness. You’re probably ignoring things that surprise you or minimising results rather than comprehending them if you never say, “I don’t know.”
The secret to playing games you can win is knowing what you know and don’t know.
How you use your knowledge matters more than how much you know.
One of the most useful skills you can possess is the ability to identify what you know.
When you play games where other people have the aptitude and you don’t, you’re going to lose. You have to figure out where you have an edge and stick to it. – Charlie Munger
Knowing the limits of your knowledge is far more important than the extent of your knowledge. Because understanding your capabilities and their limitations, as well as your strengths and weaknesses, is crucial to overriding your autopilots. Your autopilots will take advantage of your weaknesses to take control of your situation if you are unaware of them.
Key Strength #3: Self-Discipline
The capacity to master your desires, fears, and other emotions is known as self-discipline.
The goal of self-discipline is to make room for reason rather than heedlessly following gut feelings. It’s about being able to see and control your feelings as though they were inanimate objects. Self-discipline is about separating yourself from your feelings and understanding that you oversee how you react to them.
When your emotions feel overwhelming, you have two options:
- Respond when they ask you to or
- Take a step back and decide if it’s worthwhile to follow them.
Without any conscious thought, the emotional autopilot sets off a reaction to eliminate any separation between you and your feelings. Even if it means undermining the future, its goal is to win and control your everyday moments. However, self-discipline enables you to control your emotions.
Being able to exercise self-discipline to complete tasks regardless of your current motivation is a major component of success. Because in the long term, disciplined consistency is far more important than emotional intensity.
Persistence and routine are what keep you going until you accomplish your goals, even though inspiration and excitement may get you started.
While anyone can stay motivated for a short while, the longer a project takes, the fewer people who can stay excited. Those who achieve the greatest success possess the self-discipline to continue regardless. They still show up, even though it’s not always thrilling.
Key Strength #4: Self-Assurance
Being self-assured means having faith in your skills and your moral principles.
To think for yourself and to maintain your composure in the face of emotion, ego, comfort, or social pressure, you need self-confidence. You must realize that not all outcomes are immediate and focus on doing the necessary work to eventually obtain them.
Self-assurance encourages adaptability in the face of shifting conditions and resilience in the wake of unfavourable comments.
Whether or not other people value your skills, be aware of them and how they contribute to the work you do. You will be able to overcome any new obstacles and challenges if you have developed a strong sense of self-assurance.
Know the Difference Between Confidence and Ego
Self-assurance is what makes you make tough choices and grow in self-awareness.
Your ego will do everything in its power to keep you from admitting your shortcomings, but self-assurance gives you the courage to do so. This is how you learn humility. Overconfidence is a weakness rather than a strength, and confidence without humility is the same thing.
Confident people can ask for help when they need it, own up to their shortcomings and vulnerabilities, and accept that others may be more skilled than they are at a particular task.
Having doubts about your ability to perform a task happens to everyone. Even the most competent people occasionally question this. However, people who are confident in themselves never succumb to feelings of hopelessness or inadequacy.
Instead, self-assured individuals remain committed to finishing the task at hand, even if it necessitates seeking assistance from others. Your self-assurance grows with each accomplished task, and confidence is earned in this way.
Self-Assurance also Comes from How You Talk to Yourself
Lack of self-assurance kills more dreams than a lack of competence.
Although self-assurance is frequently a result of our achievements, it also comes from the way you speak to yourself. Talking to yourself about your past struggles is important because it gives you the courage to face challenges in the future.
Self-assured people don’t fear reality because they know they can manage it. People who are self-assured don’t give a damn about what other people think of them, they don’t mind being different, and they’re willing to take the chance of looking foolish while trying something new.
They have sufficiently rebuilt themselves after being beaten down to know that they can do it again if necessary. Self-assured people take their feedback from reality, not popular opinion.
The voice that reminds you of everything you’ve done in the past is the most important one to pay attention to. Even though you may not have done this specific task before, you can figure it out.
Your Self-Assurance is Linked to Honesty
The ability to accept uncomfortable facts is another aspect of self-confidence.
The world is not how we would like it to be, and we must all deal with it as it is. The sooner you respond to challenging realities and cease denying uncomfortable facts, the better.
Self-assured people are honest about their own intentions, deeds, and outcomes. They can spot instances in which the voice in their head may be disregarding reality. Additionally, they pay attention to what the outside world has to say rather than seeking out various opinions.
You must be open to changing your mind to be right. Or you’ll be wrong a lot if you’re not open to changing your mind.
Those who are unable to zoom in and out and view the issue from various perspectives are the ones who are usually on the wrong side of the spectrum. They become stuck with their own viewpoint. Blind spots occur when you are unable to view an issue from several angles. Blind spots can lead to problems.
Admitting your mistakes is a sign of strength, not weakness.
Being flexible is demonstrated by acknowledging that someone has a better explanation than you.
It takes courage to face reality. It takes guts to change your mind or reconsider something you believed to be true. Admitting that something isn’t working requires guts. To take criticism that damages your self-esteem requires bravery.
The challenge of facing reality is ultimately the challenge of facing ourselves.
We must acknowledge the things we cannot control and focus our efforts on managing the things we can. Facing reality demands acknowledging our mistakes and failures, learning from them, and moving forward.
Self-assurance is the ability to own up to your mistakes and have the strength to change your mind.
It’s the strength to focus on what’s right instead of who’s right. Self-assurance is the strength to face reality. Self-assurance is what it takes to be on the right side of right.
How to Set High Standards for Yourself
The first step to building any of your strengths is raising the standards to which you hold yourself.
Start this by looking around at the people and practices that happen in your day-to-day environment. Our surroundings influence us, both our physical environment and the people around us.
We unconsciously become what we’re close to.
You gradually start to think, feel, act, and hold yourself to the standards of those around you. The changes are too gradual to notice until they’re too large to address. You eventually come to adopt the standards of those around you if you want to become like them.
If all you see are average people, you will develop average standards.
However, available standards won’t help you achieve your goals. Because standards become habits, and habits become results.
High Standards are Consistent Across Top Performers
Few people are aware that those with higher-than-average standards nearly always produce exceptional results.
The most successful people hold themselves and others to the highest standards. Champions don’t create the standards of excellence. The standards of excellence create champions.
Top performers are held to the same high standards.
Any team or athlete that performs at a level above and beyond what can be attributed to skill or luck demonstrates a dedication to high standards.
Why We Don’t Have High Standards
When we accept poor quality work from ourselves, it’s usually because we don’t care about it.
We convince ourselves that it’s adequate or the best we can do in the time we have available. But the truth is, at least in this activity, we’re not committed to excellence.
The same thing happens when we accept poor work from others: we’re not totally committed.
Nobody on your team can fall short when you’re dedicated to excellence. You set the high standards and demand that everyone who works with you put in the same amount of effort and rise to your level or higher. Anything Less is not acceptable.
Excellence Demands Excellence
Masters of their craft don’t just want to cross something off a list and move on.
They endure because they are committed to their work. Because master-level work demands almost fanatical standards, masters set the standard for us.
Unless we elevate ourselves and what is possible, we will never be exceptional at anything.
That sounds like a lot of work to most of us. We tend to be docile and comfortable. We prefer to coast. It’s okay. Just keep in mind that you can anticipate the same outcomes as everyone else if you follow their lead.
You must raise the bar if you want different results.
The best education comes from working directly with a master; it’s the most reliable way to raise the bar. You must be as excellent as they are. However, most of us are not fortunate enough to have that chance.
Not everything is lost, though. You can still surround yourself with people who have higher standards by reading about masters and their work, even if you don’t have the opportunity to work with them directly.
Maintain High Standards by Choosing and Practising with the Right Role Models
There are two parts to building strength when maintaining high standards:
- Pick the right role models — those that help you improve. This can be coworkers, individuals you look up to, or even historical figures and iconic anime characters. It makes no difference. What counts is that they improve you in a particular area, such as value, skill, or trait.
- Get comfortable copying them in specific ways. Make time to consider what they would do if they were in your shoes, then take appropriate action.
The people who wind up around you will be there by accident rather than on purpose if you don’t choose them. Your family, friends, parents, and coworkers are all members of that group.
Your high school friends were likely average, even though they may be excellent examples of morality and intelligence. Although your parents may be among the world’s most brilliant businesspeople, likely, they’re not.
Controlling your environment simply involves purposefully including the right role models in the mix; it doesn’t mean you should cut these people out of your life.
Choosing Your Role Models
Instead of just hoping you wind up working with one of your role models, you can choose the people whose behavior you emulate.
You can surpass the standards you’ve inherited from your parents, friends, and acquaintances when you choose the right role models — people whose standards are higher than yours. You can see what your standards ought to be from your role models.
No technique has been more responsible for my success in life than studying and adopting the good models of others. – Peter Kaufman
The individuals we select as our role models embody the values, the determination, and the general thought, emotion, and behavior patterns that we wish to adopt. We can navigate the world by following their example. This turns into our North Star.
Choosing the right role models imparts knowledge and insights that would otherwise take a lifetime to acquire.
Find the best examples of people who possess the qualities you wish to develop; these are the people whose default behaviour is the behaviour you want to adopt. They are the ones who motivate you to improve yourself and set high standards for yourself.
Your role models do not need to be alive. They can be either dead or fictional, as well. We can learn from both Richard Feynman and Naval Ravikant, along with Goku and Batman.
It’s up to you.
Employ your Board of Directors
Put all your role models on your “personal board of directors.”
A combination of high achievement and high character can be found among the role models on your personal board. All you need is for them to possess a talent, mindset, or personality that you wish to develop in yourself. They are not required to be flawless.
Everybody has imperfections, and your personal board will be no exception.
However, everyone is superior to us in some way. It is our responsibility to identify that something, learn from it, and disregard the rest.
Your personal board of directors should also be dynamic.
People come and go. Sometimes you want to replace someone because you’ve learned as much as you can from them. One person can also lead to the next.
You’re always modifying your list of the board of directors.
There are no Limits when choosing your Role Models that raise your High Standards
You can literally reach the smartest and wealthiest people in history, living or dead, with the phone in your pocket.
You can frequently hear them speak in their own words even if you don’t have direct contact with them! Take a moment to consider that. You have the chance to hear your role models explain things in their own words for the first time in history, without anyone interfering.
You can choose among the greats of history: Richard Feynman, George Washington, Steve Jobs, Jesus Christ, Charlie Munger, Marie Curie, and Marcus Aurelius.
All of them are ready to accept your invitation to be on your personal board. All you need to do is collect the best of them together and unite them in your mind.
If you have a personal board of directors, you’re never alone.
They are constantly present. You can picture them observing your choices and power struggles. Your personal board of directors will assist in establishing the high standards you aim to meet and provide you with a benchmark by which to evaluate yourself.
If you don’t succeed — if you don’t write a best-selling book, make a billion dollars, or work out every day — you’re not a failure. Your role models are not your competitors.
You are only competing with the version of yourself from yesterday. Being a little better today is already a win.
Build a Database of Good Behaviour
Choosing the right role models helps create a database of “good behaviour.”
You start to compile a storehouse of scenarios and reactions as you read what others have written, converse with them, and gain knowledge from both their and your own experiences. One of the most crucial things you will ever do is to build this database since it gives your life more room for rationality.
Rather than responding and merely imitating those around you, you consider, “This is what the role models do.”
You have a list of the reactions of the most successful people to similar circumstances when you encounter a new one. From good to great. From reaction to reason. This is how your baseline response progresses.
Despite your instincts, your board can guide you in the correct direction. We will ultimately aspire to be the best versions of ourselves if our board is full of high-character individuals.
You have the courage and wisdom to swim in the best direction thanks to your board of directors.
Follow and Act in the Footsteps of Your Selected Role Models
It’s not enough just to select role models and put together a personal board of directors.
Additionally, you must repeatedly follow their example, not just once or twice. You will only become the type of person you wish to be when you internalize the values they represent. Imitating your role models means making time in the present to use reason and assess your feelings, ideas, and potential actions.
By doing this, previous behavioural patterns are retrained to more closely resemble those of your role models.
Asking yourself what your role models would do if they were in your shoes is one way to make room in your mind for reason. It’s the logical next move. You make choices and act on them after you picture them observing.
You are more likely to do everything you know your role models would want you to do and stay away from anything you know would get in the way if they were watching you.
It’s critical to frequently perform this deliberate exercise. You must continue until you develop a new way of feeling, thinking, and acting.
Continue practicing until you find that the pattern is a natural part of who you are, not just who you wish to be.
Setting High Standards: A Recap
Developing high standards isn’t about perfection; it’s about building the strength to override the autopilots that keep you stuck in mediocrity.
The four autopilots — emotional, ego, social, and comfort — will always try to pull you away from clear thinking. But you can harness equally powerful forces to counter them. The key lies in developing four fundamental strengths:
Self-Ownership means taking full responsibility for your responses, regardless of circumstances. It doesn’t matter if something wasn’t your fault — you still control what happens next. Every action either makes your future easier or harder.
Self-awareness is knowing what you know and what you don’t know. The secret to winning is playing games where you have an edge, not where others are stronger. Your limitations matter more than your knowledge.
Self-discipline gives you the power to step back from overwhelming emotions and choose your response. Disciplined consistency beats emotional intensity every time. Show up regardless of how you feel.
Self-assurance comes from facing reality honestly, admitting mistakes, and having the courage to change your mind. Confidence without humility is just ego in disguise.
High standards become habits, and habits become results. If you surround yourself with average people, you’ll develop average standards. But you can choose better role models — living or dead, real or fictional — and build your personal board of directors.
Study the best examples of what you want to become. Ask yourself what they would do in your situation. Then act accordingly. Do this repeatedly until their patterns become your patterns, their standards become your standards.
You’re not competing with your role models — you’re competing with yesterday’s version of yourself. Being a little better today is already a win.
The choice is yours: accept the standards of those accidentally around you, or deliberately choose the standards of those who achieved what you want to achieve. Your future depends on which path you take.
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