Setting and Maintaining Your Standards
Setting and maintaining your standards is one of those skills that people simply don’t talk about enough. However, it’s one of those skills that has the power to affect every single aspect of our lives, for the entirety of our lives, and we’re just left to fend for ourselves. It will impact all your relationships, your work, your living situation, and ultimately, your overall happiness.
I’ve had my fair share of experiences with settling and letting my standards slip, by extension letting myself down. And I, like most people, have done this in all areas of my life. Whether it’s dating someone I know isn’t good for me, staying in friendships where all they do is take and leave me feeling hurt and drained, letting myself be taken advantage of in work-related spaces (something I’ve done since the very first group project I was assigned in school), or nearly settling for paying $1000 a month to live in a literal pantry when I was looking for apartments in LA, I’ve let myself down A LOT.
The truth of it is, at every single point in my life where I’ve let myself down and settled for something I shouldn’t have, I knew what I was doing while I was doing it.
I was absolutely aware that the boy I’d met on Tumblr (we’re throwing it way back) was not a real “boyfriend” or any good for me at all, and yet I continued to “date” him for over a year. I knew my next boyfriend, a real one this time, was not ambitious enough for me and treated me like his mother, therapist, teacher, etc. far more than he treated me like a partner in life. After that, I knew that many of the dates I was going on weren’t good matches, whether because of a lack of chemistry, their constant mansplaining, or the fact that we almost always had nothing in common.
That’s the super frustrating part about all of this - that it wasn’t just, “oh, hindsight is 20/20” or “I just didn’t know any better” bullshit. I knew better every. single. time. I want you all to understand the depth of how I’ve settled in the past. How I’ve knowingly settled. I want you to know that I’ve settled time and time again, mostly so you know that it’s perfectly fine and normal if you have too.
We’ve all considered or accepted things we knew were no good for us. There’s no sense in beating yourself up for settling in the past. If I’m honest, there’s really no point in beating yourself up about anything at all. All we can do is examine, reflect, move on, and try to do better. So the real question is, why did we go along with it? Why did we accept (or even consider accepting) something less than we deserved? For me, it all came down to fear. Fear of being alone, fear of being unwanted, fear of not getting the perfect grade or the boss’s approval, and of course, the classic fear of missing out.
I let my fears take over my life. To be fair, I’m not entirely to blame, though I do own up to my own culpability in this. But it can’t be understated how huge a part fear plays in how oppressive systems like the patriarchy work. By instilling fear into those it means to subjugate, these systems have a powerful tool of control. Fear is such an incredible motivator. Even with the cerebral knowledge that the fear may be unfounded, it still inspires us to behave against our best interests. My attempts at avoiding a potential scenario that I thought would be the worst thing ever have gotten me stuck in situations that were far from ideal, and in many cases, far worse than the situations I feared becoming a reality.
Out of fear of being alone, I’d commit myself to someone who treated me badly, or at the very least, didn’t treat me well. Would being alone have been so bad? I can tell you now with absolute certainty, it would not have been. Out of fear of even slightly disappointing people I respected (and sometimes not even people I respected, but people who simply had authority over me), I would put myself through hours of stress, additional and unnecessary work, and hone in on my perfectionism to a maddening degree. Would having disappointed other people really have been so bad? Especially when that disappointment would likely be minor and temporary? No, it would not have been the end of the world.
In full transparency I want you all to know that I am not totally cured of the “settling for less” bug. I still sette for less than I deserve in some areas of my life. I don’t expect my method of getting rid of this tendency to work overnight. What I do know though is that I have been implementing this change in regard to my romantic relationships for the past couple of years, and it hasn’t steered me wrong yet. Of course, this journey of setting and maintaining standards and refusing to settle for less is going to be a lifelong, cyclical one. Like any type of growth, there will be times where we fall back into old patterns, when we disappoint ourselves or don’t follow our gut properly. But if you can set and maintain your standards just a little bit each day, your life will improve drastically.
“Recognize and embrace the fear that’s causing you to let your standards fall. Recognize the fear of being alone. Recognize it as a distinct possibility, and then fully embrace it.”
— Quivrr Media
Ultimately, here is my method and advice: recognize and embrace the fear that’s causing you to let your standards fall. Recognize the fear of being alone. Recognize it as a distinct possibility, and then fully embrace it. Ask yourself: what would be so terrible about being alone? I’m not dismissing that fear, and I definitely don’t think it’s something to scoff at. It can be a genuinely terrifying prospect. We are pack animals who seek connection, after all. But genuinely, the worst thing about being alone is being lonely. And that’s just a feeling. It’s a temporary sensation within our bodies that we can get rid of in a million ways other than settling for less. It’s uncomfortable and can be disheartening to think on. Even with all the “being the love of your own life” attitude in the world, you’ll still have moments of loneliness. But they’ll just be moments, and I promise that you can get through those.
So, I want to invite you to think about the other possibilities of that loneliness and the other ways you can combat that feeling. Think on the absolute freedom that being alone gives you. There is pure bliss in not being responsible for other people, in not having to negotiate and compromise on all things big and small, in getting to do what you want when you want it. Not to say that that freedom isn’t possible in healthy relationships and friendships, but it definitely isn’t possible in situations where you let your standards fall and find yourself committed to someone who doesn’t treat you well. Think of the beauty of truly being the love of your own life. Then, don’t just think on it, but act on it! For the past four years, I have been embracing being the love of my own life. I’m not perfect at it by any means, but I’ve got a good thing going, that’s for sure. And I am telling you, treating yourself extraordinarily well, spoiling yourself, being kind to yourself, taking the initiative to go do things you want to do is a wonderful and empowering feeling.
“Stop settling for crumbs, you deserve the whole damn cake.”
— Florence Given
Go to restaurants, museums, movies, clubs, hell, even whole cities that you want to go to, all on your own. Splurge on what you enjoy and spend your time pampering yourself when you can. For me, it might be cooking a delicious meal, and then sitting down to eat it while watching my favorite campy movie, or going to a farmers market and spending an entire hour smelling all the soaps and candles at my favorite shop, or taking a nice meandering stroll through a botanic garden on a sunny day. When you’re on your own, you don’t have to cede to someone who says things like, “This movie again?” Or, “Haven’t you smelled that candle six times already?” You are truly free to do whatever the hell you want. That’s how you fully embrace this incredible life while not settling for less than you deserve.
Painting nestled between the flowers of a botanic garden I visited all on my own!
When those feelings of loneliness pop up, it’s perfectly okay to feel them, even to wallow in them for a while, but then think about all the other beautiful connections you have in your life. While embracing all the things you want to do, make sure you’re building and maintaining connections that you want to have. Maybe that means spending more time with your parents, or joining a book club, or actually taking your coworker up on the offer to grab lunch. There are a million ways to fill your life with connections that are energizing and fulfilling, rather than draining and painful.
While being in a healthy, loving, supportive relationship with someone you truly adore is a wonderful and beautiful thing that I do hope to have one day, I refuse to let the fear of being alone coerce me into anything less than that. It’s not an easy path to walk, I also know this. But, when I do slip up and start accepting less than I deserve, it inevitably reminds me of just how important it is to refuse to let fear of being alone, that nagging worry that I will never find anyone better, convince me to let down my guard. As I said, the journey won’t be easy, it won’t be linear, and you won’t get it right 100% of the time, but it’s absolutely worth taking.
I want to challenge you to think long and hard on the ways you’ve settled or considered settling in the past. What are some things you’ve settled for that you absolutely don’t want to get yourself into again? Why did you settle for them? Was it fear? How can you recognize and embrace that fear, and then totally neutralize it? How can you make your life so full and happy that settling for less than you deserve is truly unthinkable? Once you’ve figured that out, go out and do it and watch your whole life transform!
