Who sets the standards you live by?

Who sets the standards you live by?

“If I get to pick what I want to do, then it's play... if someone else tells me that I have to do it, then it's work.”

-- Patricia Nourot

Are you continually struggling to accomplish what is expected of you? If so, stop to think for a moment: who holds those expectations?

Perhaps you’re trying to meet the expectations of a parent or a teacher or other authority figures who may be long gone from your life. But many of us toil under the critical eyes of a vague ‘somebody’ who always judges that we’ve never done enough or done things well enough. Who is this phantom judge? And do we need to care about what they think any longer?

We find both our own power and happiness when we begin to set our own standards around what has heart and meaning for us.

“Doubt yourself and you doubt everything you see. Judge yourself and you see judges everywhere. But if you listen to the sound of your own voice, you can rise above doubt and judgment. And you can see forever.”

-- Nancy Lopez