Blog: Why it's important to set the bar high for yourself

Watercooler

Why it's important to set the bar high for yourself

Take it one step at a time, raise your expectations from yourself just a little every day. But do that diligently and keep track of yourself.
Why it's important to set the bar high for yourself

Success is a relative term. For someone, it means money, for some it means reaching a certain position. For others, it might just mean the impact their work has on society. Regardless, everyone dreams of success. It is a natural state for every human being. However, most of us fail to achieve our own benchmarks of success. And often the reason for that lies within us, the way we set the bar for ourselves.

So what can we do to change that? Where do we start? Let’s try to explore a little.

Aiming for average

Most people start with aiming for the average and that’s where they go wrong. Aiming for the average is not always bad, but what we do to ourselves while doing that is that we set the bar far too low and never even get close to realizing our own limits. We start believing that with low expectations, the risk of disappointments will also decrease. We don’t realize how great things can get, only if we take the first step to get out of our own comfort zone. We never challenge the status quo, even going to the extent of defending it at times.

Results of average expectations

When we aim for the average, we prepare ourselves to get average results, and nothing more. We start becoming comfortable with average relationships, average lifestyles and average habits to sustain that lifestyle. At work too, we begin to hire average employees, become average managers of average talents, all too happy with average paychecks.

Why don’t we change this situation on its head and aim higher for ourselves?

Aiming a little higher

The biggest reason we shy away from raising the bar is the fear of failure. However, what we often don’t realize is that the regret of not trying is far greater than the fear of failure and is the actual benchmark of failure. The fact is, and we know it fully well, that we might not succeed in the first attempt, or probably even the tenth attempt. But that’s the beauty of ‘trying’. If you try, rather when you try, you learn and you improve. When you improve, you get better at the tasks assigned to you and eventually get closer to your goal. 

Don’t be afraid to fall, and be prepared to rise up again and again until the job is done. Test your own limits and learn at each step. Improve yourself constantly and never give up on your goal, because it is only then that you will be able to discover your true potential and find success. Remember, it’s the journey, not the destination alone that counts when it comes to success.

If being average is all that you want to be, then there’s nothing you need to do. Just keep following your routine and what makes you happy, no one can force you to change yourself. But if you want to be seen as a true leader and reach the pinnacles of success that you envision for yourself, and expect your employees to do the same, you need to start by showing them how it’s done and test your own limits by raising the bar for yourself. Take it one step at a time, raise your expectations from yourself just a little every day. But do that diligently and keep track of yourself. Don’t falter, and be patient, because easy success never happens and you have to give it your best one day at a time, every day.

Read full story

Topics: Watercooler

Did you find this story helpful?

Author

QUICK POLL

How do you envision AI transforming your work?