What if I told you that everything in your life is the way it is because of your own personal standards and beliefs?
You’d probably say “that’s not true” because “you wanna be rich” or “in great shape” but you just can’t seem to figure it out.
Well hear me out.
Over the course of this not-so-long article I’m going to reveal how my own standards were holding me back from living the life I truly wanted and how I changed them.
It’s all based around this one idea:
Contents
People Get What They Tolerate
One of the most interesting ideas in personal development is standards.
Everyone has different standards depending on their values, beliefs and conditioning.
Most of this comes down to your conditioning or nurture. Where did you grow up, what kind of home did you live in, how did people treat you as a kid.
Depending on the area of your life, you are probably living the average of your closest friends and family.
This is your “baseline”.
You won’t accept less than your peers or family because then you’ll be “lesser” than them. It’s an ego thing.
People do not get what they want. They get what they tolerate.
Something repeated many times by Tony Robbins. You’ll make a similar amount of money to what is “normal” to you. You’ll have a dating life that is “normal” and a physical body that is your “normal”.
Fat parents tend to have fat kids for this reason. Rich parents tend to have rich kids. Even if the kids get no help from their parents and enter a career or business venture; they will usually keep the same standard of money.
Personally, I grew up in nice homes having lots of nice things for a good portion of my life. Followed by some years of shit. But I was always surrounded by wealth and rich kids.
I grew up in Marbella, Spain. I’d walk down all the time to the port where there would be super yachts and cars owned by billionaires. This created a kind of “normality” for me around having lots of money so I always pushed for it.
When I turned 18 I moved out and lived by myself for the first time. Once I did that my new standard was to always have my own home and no matter what; I always did.
Now I like to live in luxurious apartments that cost at least $2000-$3000 per month, sometimes with as many as four bedrooms just for me. I often have jacuzzi tubs and private rooftops. My standard of living is high; and so I always “find the money” to pay for it.
If business goes to shit, I will find another way of making money to sustain my standard. Human beings HATE going below their standards; and sometimes this can make people go broke if they’re not careful.
What happens to me instead is; if my income goes down and I feel like I shouldn’t be spending so much money I go into “hyper focus work mode” until things are back to my high standard.
On the opposite end of the spectrum you have people who are used to “scraping by” on a couple thousand bucks a month.
This isn’t just about money. It’s every aspect from your life from money to health to your relationships and how you let people treat you.
These people will go to a job they don’t like, earn an average amount of money and spend it all on useless crap or random bills. I’m sure you know someone who is always “scraping by”.
What’s interesting about these people is no matter how much money they make, they still seem to be “scraping by”. They’ll find a way to automatically spend the extra money or accumulate more bills.
It’s my personal belief that this is totally unconscious behaviour they can’t even control. It’s because their standard is a certain way and their entire identity is connected to it being that certain way.
Being any other way would be uncomfortable to their ego and so they stay with the same standard forever. Their ego thrives on the ability to complain about their circumstances. It enjoys the misery.
The good news, is you don’t have to accept your current standards.
How do you change your standards?
Take a look at your life and think about what you really want. Really think about it. Gain clarity on how you want each part of your life. From your financial goals to your health goals to relationships.
Got them? Good.
Now compare what you have right now to this ultimate vision inside your head.
Identify the problem areas and where you need to change your standards.
Now do three things:
- Eliminate Things And People From Your Life Who Promote Poor Standards
- Get Around People Who Have The Standards You Want
- Be Really Pissed Off Every Day That You Don’t Have Your New Standard Yet Until You Do
The people around you are the most simple way to change your standards. If you’re around lazy pieces of shit who like to drink booze and do drugs every day; you will be likely to do the same.
If you’re around people who like to wake up early and make lots of money; you will do the same. Becoming friends with people who make more money than you is the easiest way to make more money.
Doesn’t even matter if they are doing the same thing; simply getting around them will rub off on you. It will quickly change the way you think and act; raising your standards to a new level.
Once you have reached your new standard, it’s a lot easier to keep it. Anything less than this new standard will be painful to endure and you have to work frantically until you’re back on top.
Want to get to the next level? Simply get around the people who are at the level you want to be at. Every time I plateau in business I know it’s because I am not around the right people or I let people slip into my life who promote poor standards.
Which brings me to the final main idea of this topic:
Whether You Think You Can Or You Can’t, You Are Right
It’s a sort of catch 22 situation.
You can’t get the results you want until you believe you can and you can’t believe until it’s happened.
This is something everyone struggles with, and it comes down to your self-image.
Your identity. What you believe you are capable of doing. Now it’s extremely difficult to believe in yourself when your goal seems so far from what you’ve done.
If you Google “how to change your beliefs” or “how to change your identity” you’ll find many article re-gurgitating Psycho Cybernetics or Robbins teaching…
- Replace Doubtful Thoughts With Good Ones – stop when you catch yourself thinking a negative thought, and replace it with a nice one.
- Focus On How You Want To See Yourself – instead of how you are now.
- Ask What Are You Afraid Of – Face The Fear In Your Imagination
Now if I’m being completely honest, I think most of these ideas are weak or slightly helpful at best.
But none of those things ever helped me shift my identity or transform myself.
So I have a much smarter method that I used myself.
Fact: nothing will make you fully believe you can do something until after you’ve done it.
There’s only one thing you can do as a pre-cursor to such change in your belief and that is get around other people already doing what you want to do.
Not only will getting around these people change your standards and habits; but it will change your belief.
You can literally spend years and years trying and failing alone. Not because of what you don’t know, but because you still don’t believe it’s possible.
When you are around the people who are getting the results and you can physically see how its working your brain will change. A flip switches and all of a sudden you have a little more confidence that may push you forward.
For example…
I knew all the tricks and tactics in the world from age 15 in online marketing. I knew how to write a GOOD sales letter that converted. I knew how to build high converting sales funnels.
I knew how to run advertising campaigns, how to do SEO… I knew every single thing I needed to know to make a lot of money.
Then something happened that finally made me transform.
My good ole’ buddy David Wood who I worked for since I was 14 invited me out to Costa Rica to live within him when I turned 18. Before moving out I was surrounded by scarcity.
I had negative people around me who scoffed at me when I told them what I was going to do. Even though I ignored them small seeds of doubt were planted every day.
So I get to Costa Rica, live with a multi-millionaire and see with my own eyes how he runs his business. I kid you not. He was doing the same fucking shit I knew how to do and was making tons of cash.
Meanwhile I was the smartest and brokest guy in the room. My belief level further climbed when I started going to seminars where I met others making money online who knew way less than me.
These experiences helped me, but getting around others who were succeeding didn’t totally transform my life just yet.
I was still afraid to… “take the plunge”.
I mean what if I tried and it didn’t work.
Then I would be a real loser and my entire life would be for nothing.
How To Make Yourself Do Things You Are Afraid Of
So even after meeting people who were successful, I still had blocks in my belief in myself that were holding me back.
No amount of meditation or reading books would change this.
After all… A gigantic loser living in his mum’s basement can visualize and say affirmations all he wants, but he’ll still be a giant loser.
Instead of trying to “hack the system” by tricking your brain into thinking you are something you are not. I discovered it’s much more helpful to simply put yourself into situations where you are forced to get results.
Now this will look differently to every person depending on what they are trying to do. But I’ll explain it in reference to my own experiences with believing in my ability to make money.
Put Yourself In Situations Where You Are Forced To Perform
… can’t get around all the right people? put yourself in situations where you have to perform….
If a guy is terrified of talking to girls and wants to change that, he can sit around all day listening to self-hypnosis audios or other mental masturbation like pick up artists on Youtube.
Or he could make a deal with a buddy that they would both go out and talk to five girls and ask for their numbers.
… don’t be a pussy… do not sit in your house,
When I was
Now there are many other things that may be helpful to you. Things like filling your head with good information and deleting bad information out of your life. Implementing healthy habits. Learning how to set good goals and learning how to focus.
All of these things I will explore in later posts.
