Episode 160 A+A Podcast: The Standards Reset You Didn't Know You Needed
The Standards Reset You Didn't Know You Needed
You know that feeling when you set a big goal, work hard for it, and then… it happens. You achieve it. But instead of feeling that deep satisfaction you thought you would, something else creeps in.
Maybe the goal suddenly feels too small. Or you start focusing on what didn’t go perfectly. Maybe you tell yourself you should have done more.
Or maybe you fall just short of what you wanted, and now you feel disappointed—like this one moment is proof of something bigger about you, your business, or what’s possible.
Tune in to learn:
✔️ Why impossible standards keep you stuck (even when you’re doing everything right)
✔️ The four ways to raise your standards so they support you instead of exhaust you
✔️ A simple three-step reset to stop spiralling over setbacks and start moving forward with confidence
Listen and subscribe on your favourite podcast player, including Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
This topic came straight from my Mastermind.
I started noticing the ways some of my clients were reacting to their results. Whether they hit their goals or not, disappointment often seemed to find a way in. I've seen this with countless clients over the years - it's so common.
When we consistently REACT in a certain way - this shows us our current standard. And the good thing is - you can change your standard!
You get to decide:
- How you speak to yourself
- How you support yourself
- What you no longer tolerate
When you change the standards for how you treat yourself, everything else follows. Let’s reset your standards—starting now.
Join my Mastermind here: http://alignandattract.com/mastermind
Connect with me on Instagram here: http://instagram.com/kerryrowett
Thanks for listening. Please subscribe and share!
Find Kerry at http://alignandattract.com
Join Kerry's Mastermind: http://alignandattract.com/mastermind
Share your thoughts on Instagram: http://instagram.com/kerryrowett
The standards reset you didn't know you needed - Transcript.
Today, we'll look at how we can raise our standards for how we treat ourselves, how we respond to disappointments and setbacks, and even how we respond to our achievements.
You know that feeling when you set a big goal, you work hard for it, and then, you achieve it, but instead of feeling that deep satisfaction you thought you would, something else creeps in. I wonder if you can start to think of an example of a time this has happened for you.
Maybe the goal suddenly feels too small, or you start focusing on what didn't go perfectly. Perhaps you decide that you didn't achieve it in the right way. Maybe you tell yourself you should have done more, or perhaps you fall just short of what you wanted and now you feel disappointed like this one moment if proof of something bigger about you, your business or what is possible for you.
I start to really think about this topic because it was coming up in my Mastermind and I began to observe how many of my clients were reacting to their results. I was noticing that whether we hit our goals or we don't, disappointment can often find a way in.
We can train ourselves to believe that I will feel happy when x happens.
Happiness research tells us this is not true, but it is still incredibly persuasive. We should not be surprised that when this thing happens that we really wanted, it doesn't feel like we thought it would, it doesn't feel like enough.
What this really tells us that it isn't about the goals at all. It's really about our standards.
Setting goals is worthy, and worthwhile. It gives us something to aim for.
We're able to say, this is what I desire. If we don't have goals we don't know what we are working towards, so it's not about that, but this is really about our standards and how it is that we support ourselves and how it is that we respond to what is happening.
This is about our standards, not the standards we think we have, but the ones quietly running the show in the background. The standards that dictate how we feel about our success and the standards that are shaping how we respond to setbacks, uncertainty and big wins.
Here is the thing with our standards, we get to change them. If you are always moving the goalpost, you feel like nothing is ever enough, or you are doubting yourself when things don't go as planned? This episode is for you. Let's reset your standards, starting now.
When we change the standards for how we treat ourselves, we don't just feel better, we start making better decisions, taking action and showing up in ways that shift everything.
What can raising your standards look like?
I'm going to give you four specific examples of what raising your standards can look like.
Number one, raising your standards in the face of a major let down. Years ago I read one of Tony Robbins books and he talks about taking a trip to see the Northern Lights with his wife. The night when they were to watch the Northern Lights, it was cloudy. Everyone who was there had traveled from around the world. This was their moment to see the Northern Lights and it was cloudy and they couldn't see it. And he said that he was surrounded by all of this disappointment, and I can totally understand that. He decided that he was going to enjoy the experience anyway, so he and his wife sat there and still felt so incredibly blessed to be there. Felt this huge amount of joy for the experience that they were having. And he said, this is not an example of us lowering our standards and just letting this be good enough. We raised our own standards so we were able to enjoy the experience that we were having rather than needing to have a particular experience so that we could feel all of this awe and enjoyment in being here. That has stuck with me years later.
Second example, raising your standards by downgrading your goals. my friend Denise Duffield-Thomas shared a great example on her Instagram recently. She always had the goal of $10 million income, and it was her password in her phone and all of the things she wanted to get to 10 million in revenue or income for a year. She got to 5 million, quite consistently annual revenue, and then she decided to take a sabbatical. She realised that more wasn't necessarily better. It wasn't going to make her happier. so she raised her standards, not for revenue, but for freedom. And you'll see, because she's shared these things publicly: she's sold her dream home. She's selling her rose farm. She decided she wanted more time for her kids, for her hobbies. And in this Instagram post she shared that last year in her business, she made $1 million. So that's quite a drop from her standard of the 5 million, but she said she felt fine about it. She felt happy because she's raised her standards for what she desires in her life, and if that means a temporary decrease in income, that was something that she was really willing to accept. And something Denise now speaks about is that she used to emphasise going first class things being first class, and she's now flipped that to life first. And you can see how this, standard that she's now set and being really accepting of what that means for her income is really reflective of that. So her standards have changed, and for her standards are higher.
Number three, having the standard that you can allow yourself to be as ambitious as you want to be. One of my private retainer clients recently shared a goal that she had in Slack with me, and she thought her goal was huge. It was hugely ambitious and what I reflected back to her is that when we are thinking about goals and ambition, the only thing that would make that huge or too big, too lofty, would be if we were comparing that to someone else. But for her, this is just the next step. Her level of ambition is entirely hers, and she doesn't need to minimise that because she perceives, and it might also be the reality that the goal IS hugely ambitious, compared to what some other people might believe to be possible for them. That's irrelevant. She gets to create her own standard. You get to choose your own goals based on your own standards, your own ambition, rather than comparing to others. Can you hear how that is also setting a new standard.
My fourth example of raising standards is a personal one, and it's around deciding that outcomes don't determine how I feel, but I do. The specific personal example I want to share was this decision that I made back in 2014. I was healing from a really difficult traumatic relationship experience that had me needing to move back to South Australia to be with my family. As I went through the healing process that year, and I was completely stuck in limbo was how I felt because I had a property that I needed to continue to pay the mortgage on, even though the property would not sell. It was just so tricky. I did not feel I was able to move forward and I was looking ahead to my future. I felt I'd wasted so much time. I just wanted to get on with it, and it could be so seductive to feel like I will have succeeded if I get my life back on track, I could have set certain external metrics that would show me that I had my life back on track. That might be owning a house at some point in the future, and I've got a new great partner I'm married in the future or I get to have children. I knew that at that point in time these outcomes were quite outside of my control. I did not know whether those things would happen or they wouldn't happen. I decided to raise my own standards for myself and I committed to my own happiness. I decided I get to be happy. And I will be happy. This is my standard. I'm happy whether or not any of these kinds of things happen. I decided happiness is not going to be a reward for hitting any kind of milestone in my future. It's my baseline. It's not negotiable. It is my standard.
So can you hear these four different examples? The first one was around raising your own standards for your reaction. In the face of disappointment. The second one was around raising your standards by downgrading a goal to owning it in a different area of your life, Number three, raising your standards for the ambition that you allow yourself to have. Not basing it on other people, basing it on what is appropriate for you. And then number four, raising your standards, but changing your baseline for how you feel, and not allowing external events to determine that.
Most people think that standards are about ambition, success, or what you can expect from life, but we are looking instead at how you respond to what happens and what that shows you about your standards. how you react when you succeed, how you talk to yourself when you fail. How you navigate uncertainty, what you tolerate in your daily experience. this is all reflective of our standards.
Let's take a look now at disappointment and specifically at dealing with goal disappointment as an entrepreneur.
This is something that I see come up a lot for my entrepreneurial clients. I already touched on this when talking about working with my mastermind clients, and I've been working with entrepreneurial clients privately for many years. I can support a client to align with a goal and we can create a plan or a strategy around how it is they're going to achieve that goal. And they might come into the next session and I will ask, how did you grow with this goal? And then they might say, oh yes, I achieved it. You would imagine that they would be really excited, right? But so often they've already forgotten about it. They have decided that goal wasn't big enough, or they've moved on to a different goal or a different problem, and many times I've had to remind my clients about what it is that they have achieved and really encourage them to take a moment to celebrate that, to allow themselves to feel that and really. Acknowledge that in their body that I have achieved something and I get to feel really good around that.
It's interesting with celebrating, I find that a lot of people find this very challenging, and we focus on this quite specifically in my mastermind. We emphasise the need of actually noticing and then celebrating your achievements and making. That a habit, and we want to really normalise that. Normalise that I pay attention to what I've achieved, whether it's big or whether it's small, and I find a way to celebrate in a way that feels really good for me. I can celebrate in a way that feels good in my body. I'm gonna normalise that rather than normalising that nothing I do is enough.
Let's talk about two specific examples around what it can look like with this goal.
This is not the celebrating aspect. This is when you've achieved a goal or you've merely achieved a goal.
First example: One of my mastermind clients had a goal to achieve a $12,000 month. That would be her biggest month ever. She noticed early in the month that she was on track to achieving it. She felt disappointed because it wasn't really enough. Like ultimately she did want to be making more than that. So she'd already started to feel disappointed, even though this would've been her biggest month ever. Then later in the month, she realised I've made a miscalculation and there was a job that was rescheduled, so the revenue was more likely to be $10,000 or $11,000. She felt disappointed. The standard here is I feel disappointed about my goals and what we can so often do here is we can make this assumption that maybe the goal IS too small. If I was able to achieve this much bigger goal, then I would feel happy.
Second example: I have a private client who, a few years ago wanted to achieve $30,000 months. She achieved it, but felt she did it the wrong way. Next she had the goal of $300,000 years and was on track for that. She'd achieved multiple $30,000 months at this point. But then she noticed her expenses were higher as a result and felt like her goal was too low. You can hear how the numbers might shift, but if there is this pattern of disappointment, this can happen at any level. This happens for my clients when they're at Seven figures and beyond as well.
The disappointment itself can also spiral.
We can make whatever the situation is, means something about what's possible for us. We might decide I'm not good enough. We might go into comparison. This is all showing us the standard that we have for ourselves. So when I achieve a goal or when I don't achieve a goal, if my standard is disappointment, I'm going to feel disappointment.
We are nearly ready for our reset. Our standards are a choice and we get to decide how we speak to ourselves, what we expect of ourselves and what we no longer tolerate from ourselves. So things like the judgment, the criticism, the nitpicking, we can decide that we are not going to go there. We are not going to do that. Indeed, we can decide, "I'm not going to go into the disappointment. I can choose to react and respond differently and have an entirely new baseline."
You might like to think about what that new baseline could be. For example, acknowledgement, curiosity, deep self-acceptance. What could feel really good for you as a baseline when working towards a goal, whether you do achieve the goal, whether you don't achieve the goal, what do you want to be sitting underneath that as the consistent place that you would come to depend no matter what is happening?
Let's dive into our Standards Reset.
We're going to do a three step reset to set a higher standard when working on your goals.
Step one, I want you to think about a time that you set a goal. Maybe it was a money milestone, maybe it was a launch. Maybe you had a big speaking opportunity or you decided to host an event. Maybe you were running a free webinar. Think of something. Sometime you set a big goal and you had, something specific that you were wanting to achieve, did you achieve it? Did you not achieve it? And I want you to notice what did you specifically feel? Was it disappointment? Was it failure? Did you feel let down in some way? Did you feel underwhelmed? Did you feel like it wasn't enough? what did he make it mean? For example, I can't achieve really big goals. I'm not good enough. I am a failure. See if you can find that lowest point that you will tend to go to. I can't get it right. This is when we are being really honest with ourselves. We can quite easily paper over this with a little bit of mindset we say the right things and we might in some cases do the right things, but what we're talking about here is the reality of where you actually go to when something disappoints you. It doesn't quite meet your expectations and often that place can be quite low. We want to acknowledge where it is that we do go, rather than pretending that doesn't happen, and then it does and we have to deal with it then.
Step two, now we're going to choose our upgrade. So you've got your initial reaction, whether it's disappointment, failure, feeling underwhelmed, feeling like it wasn't enough, feeling like I'm not good enough. I feel like I'm a failure, and now I would like you to decide what could the alternative be. It could be self-compassion. It could be deep acceptance. If your current stand is feeling like a failure if something doesn't go to plan, you could shift to self-compassion and then allow yourself to get really objective. If your current standard is ignoring what has gone well, you could shift to acknowledging yourself and celebrating your wins. If your current standard is deciding that you are not good enough, you could shift to backing yourself. What is it that you would like to be able to feel?
Step three. What I'd like you to do now is to place your hands over your heart and taking some deeper breaths, and I want you to imagine that event or that situation you shared at step one, that time you set a goal and whether you achieved it or you didn't, you felt disappointed or some other variation. now I would like you to install the new standard instead. I feel... and choosing what that is. Is it self-acceptance? Is it self-love? Is it compassion? Is it good enough? Is it that you back yourself?
Finding those feelings In your body. Imagining you could rewrite the script of what happened and now you're installing this new standard for how you will respond when this kind of happens into the future.
What I would like you to do from here is to reinforce this in real time.
The next time that something happens, and you might notice that you would typically go into disappointment or you'd react in some kind of negative way, I want you to pause and ask yourself, "What's a new standard I could create and reinforce in this moment? What's an alternative? How can I support myself in this in a really genuine and meaningful way?" This is not necessarily being your hype girl. This is you deciding this is what support looks like. This is what genuinely taking care of myself looks like. This is what partnering myself looks like. This is what helping myself to navigate challenges looks like.
Take back to the identity work that we've been focusing on recently. "This is who I am." Our standards reflect our identity. They reflect who we see ourselves to be. So I want you to now link this back into that work that we've been doing on our identity. If you haven't listened to the previous two episodes, the first one was focused on identity and then the second one was around our next level identity and the habits that go along with that. And this episode is around our standards and how they link back into our identity. You can hear how it all interconnects.
You can release your hands from your heart, and I would love you to move forward really conscious now of the standards that you are accepting. As we do move forward, we wanna make sure that the standards that we have for ourselves, create more respect for you, your progress, your process,
Our standards need to be fair.
And so you can ask yourself, would I expect this from someone else? Would I think this was appropriate if someone else was treating themselves this way?
Our standards should be flexible.
We want them to respond and adapt as we grow. They don't need to be rigid. It takes us back to the example I shared with Denise Duffield-Thomas. Just because she once had a goal of a $10 million a year business doesn't mean she can't change it. As you grow and as things change, you can change and you can be flexible.
Our standards should be aligned.
They should reflect what we actually want. Over time, standards take time to create and upgrade. That is why I love doing this work with my clients in my mastermind because we are consistently setting goals. We consistently working towards them and we get constant opportunities to upgrade the way we approach our goals, to observe the ways we are reacting and responding, and to create upgrades around that as well. You are able to call on my support in our Slack group. You are able to ask me a question every day during the week and call in my support.
This helps you create a continual upward spiral of genuinely and meaningfully changing the way you run your business. You change the way you think about your business and the way that you take action in your business. You're able to strategise consistently with me. I get to be like a business partner for you in your business. You get to talk things through with me. You are always making the final decisions. It is your business, but you can really lean into that support that is available for you.
In my Mastermind community, this is where I see real change takes place. You can create total transformation. It's not just about did I achieve my goal, didn't I achieve my goal? There are so many nuances, so many ways that we can be creating these up levels that allow us to feel happier, that allow us to feel more purposeful, allow us to achieve and to create and to feel more satisfaction and allow ourselves to run our businesses in ways that are actually enjoyable and actually sustainable.
You can then create a business that is far more aligned with your values, your goals, your priorities, and actually allows you to dream far bigger than when you are just stuck in our old programming, when we are stuck in our old standards. In that case, you do not need a new strategy. You need to upgrade the way you are operating internally, the way you are thinking about things, the way you are supporting yourself and the energy behind the action you are taking. You need to do this over time. If that sounds compelling to you, I would love to invite you into my Mastermind.
