“My standards were so low, I had to lay on the ground to see them! And my wife would’ve told you I would need a shovel to dig down to them!”
What are standards?
Basically, they are what you expect and allow to happen in your life.
- What’s acceptable and what’s not.
- What lines up with your personal values.
- How we treat others.
- How we allow others to treat us.
- How we take responsibility.
- How we approach life.
- How we conduct ourselves in relationships.
- How we handle our finances.
- How we show up in our daily lives.
- How we use our time.
Certainly, that is not an exhaustive list of what we have built standards around. But it’s certainly a good place to start.
When I teach about standards, I quite often hear things like: “I guess I’ve never really thought about that before …”
Life, if we let it, drones over and over in us. Like an annoying low irritating rumble. We go from draining to filling and vice versa. Over time, if we don’t pay attention, we allow the standards we aspire to … diminish, then weaken.
And the obvious next step is to ignore them. We are the frog in slow heating water, but now we simply don’t care. Or … we’re too tired give those standards our attention.
But … I get it!
What was once a high standard that we proportioned our daily lives around, is now something that we give partiality to (at best). And that’s the beginning of lowering our standards.
Life has a way of stealing our attention away from the important things. But that’s NOT who you/me/we are!
To quote the actor Matthew McConaughhey, “I never do anything half-*ss! I’m always all in!”
Most of us have not realized the lowering of our standards … until it’s been brought to our attention.
Unfortunately, it is often brought to our attention when negative consequences, trauma, or less than ideal things occur in our lives.
If we fail to take careful consideration of our standards, and align them with our values, we’re basically allowing “life” and “others” to set them for us.
People don’t just show up in my office saying: “Hey, I’d like for you to help me examine my standards.” Usually, they show up with some challenge that brings up the topic of standards.
Often, the consequence of hurt feelings, broken hearts, or being offended is what brings them in. Or sometimes, loss brings them in.
They lose jobs due to low standards.
They lose financial stability due to low standards.
They even lose spouses due to low standards.
Once we identify that standards could be one of the factors in those situations, the next question is: “How do I raise my standards?”
There are many processes for doing so. Doing a self-inventory to assess them, and determine if they’re getting us where we want to go …
Or, whether they have left us drifting at the mercy of ‘life happening’ or ‘other people’s interferences’.
But one of the quickest ways to elevate one’s standards, is to find our purpose.
Purpose is something that we must reach up to and for … and it has a natural magnetic pull upwards on our standards.
Philip had become painfully aware of his low standards when his wife packed up and left after years of ‘carrying the load’ of everything.
I’m sharing his story this week.
How finding his purpose raised his standards.
Thankfully … quickly enough to save his marriage!
1. What was your trauma?
“Oh, I don’t think I had any trauma. I just grew up on the wrong side of the tracks.”
“My dad had various jobs. Definitely … not a career man.”
“So sometimes we had money for food and clothes, sometimes we didn’t.”
“My mom would work some little jobs when we didn’t have money to eat. She hated him for that. But she was scared to death of him, so she took it out on us.”
“We really did grow up on the wrong side of the tracks. Our front porch had caved in on one end. We always had some vehicle up on blocks. Our lawn was always overgrown. With grass. With bushes. With weeds.”
“I failed a lot in school. But I learned the razor strap would help me pass if I needed the help. So, I learned to make C’s and a few D’s.”
“I played some sports. I was good. But I could never pay for the extras that came along with sports (cleats, uniforms, etc.) so I usually had to sit out.”
“I didn’t really care. No one came to watch me. And I wasn’t good enough to have a career in sports. So, I played for fun.”
“So, I guess it’s no surprise that I entered into my adult life with such low standards.”
“I didn’t know they were low. They were just the way we lived. And I really didn’t care.”
“Until I got fired from my first job. I was working at a restaurant, cleaning tables. Just wanted to buy my first vehicle.”
“I’d get all the used plates and utensils off the table. I didn’t understand why they were so OCD about how I wiped off the tables or cleaned the chairs. Who does that?”
“And I swept up at the end of the night. Didn’t make any sense to do it over and over and over to me.”
“But I was close to having enough saved up to buy an old truck so I could retire my bicycle. So, I told them I’d be OCD for them. They gave me another chance but fired me again a week later.”
“No talking my way back in that time!”
“I had to do something quick because the prom was in a few weeks, and I had already told the girl I asked to go with me that I would be picking her up.”
“I mowed some lawns and did a few other odd jobs and got the truck just in time.”
“I got myself all ready and went out to jump in my truck and pick up the girl, but my truck was gone.”
“Turns out that my dad’s old junker was out of gas, so he took my truck on a fishing trip. So, I guess I should’ve known better than to drive my wife’s car to work when mine was low on gas. But she only drove a short distance to work, and I had a pretty long drive. I always thought there was enough gas in my truck to get her to and from.”
“Her family moved to town in my senior year. She was such a pretty little thing. I fell for her immediately. But her family did NOT fall for me. I’m sure they wanted a rich guy on a trust fund for her.”
“Eventually they gave in and let her see me. I was so in love that I did my best to do everything just right. I’m sure she would say I bamboozled her!”
“I got a job as a welder because I learned about welding in my high school shop class. I liked it and they paid me fairly well. When I had saved up enough money, I asked her to marry me.”
“It took a while for her family to come around. But I’d started helping her dad restore sports cars (his hobby) to work on them. Sure enough, he finally agreed for me to marry her.”
“We got married, and within months, it all started. Why didn’t I take out the trash? Why should she have to remind me? Why didn’t I keep the yard up? Why did I lay on the couch and watch sports on weekends?”
“Why did I let myself go and grow a beer gut? Why did I ignore her all the time?”
“Did I marry her to be my maid? Why would she want to have kids with me? Why wouldn’t I go to church with her? Had it all been part of a ploy to get her to marry me?”
“To be honest, that’s how things were in our house growing up. But I knew better than to say, ‘hell yea’!”
“We both wanted kids, but she swore she wouldn’t have a kid with me, because she couldn’t raise a kid and me too!”
“I found out that wasn’t a threat, but a promise!”
“She told me that my standards were so low I’d need a shovel to dig down to them.”
“That stung. I didn’t even know what standards were.”
“So, we had ‘the talk’ about standards.”
“She told me they were what we expected from life and from marriage.”
“I’d never heard of such a thing. So, I blew her off.”
“I got home from my fishing trip, and I guess you could call this trauma!”
“EVERYTHING WAS GONE except my clothes, an air mattress, my toiletries, and a towel. Oh, she left a glass, a plate, a fork, knife, and spoon.”
“I couldn’t believe it!”
“The note said something about finding a shovel and digging down to my standards and letting her know if I could at least get them above ground.”
“I’ll tell you the truth. I cried. I really did. I never thought she’d leave.”
“But now she had my attention.”
“Her cell phone went straight to a message saying the voice mail had not been set up. The texts bounced back.”
“I figured she moved back in with her parents, and there was no way I would show my face over there.”
“So, I had to wait and go see her at work.”
“I went and they said she had taken the week off.”
“I was scared, lonely and desperate.”
“I guess I’d forgotten she was the center of my whole world.”
“I went to my buddy’s house. He was part of a nutritional supplement company. Whe had also been on me about finances. So, I had joined to try my hand at it as a side hustle. But that’s as far as it had gone.”
“I told him she was gone. I told him the story.”
“I’ll never forget him telling me the story about some worthless guy who didn’t love his wife. Who was an overgrown teenager. Really a fat slob. I joined him in calling the guy a loser.”
“Then he said to me: ‘David, you’re that man’!”
“I had no idea what he meant, so he told me the story about David in the Bible, and how that Nathan told him a similar story about himself … then David got on board with the guy being some kind of jerk. Then he told me … that Nathan loved him enough to tell him the truth and said: ‘David, you are that man!”
“I remember feeling sick. Really sick. Then I looked at him and asked … ‘I guess that ole fat slob you were telling me about IS ‘me’?”
“He smiled and nodded.”
“I guess I had no choice when he asked me to go to the Power of Purpose with him.”
Have you taken the time to listen to what those who love you most are saying about you at this point in your life?
Do you believe them?
Do you trust them?
Do you still want the best for yourself?
It’s the hardest truth we’ll ever hear. That we’ve slowly deregulated the standards we held for ourselves and settled for a half *ss approach to being them.
2. What is your purpose?
“She finally talked to me the weekend before the Power of Purpose. I could see that she was not budging. But I did notice her taking interest when I told her I was going.”
“That was enough to convince me I should go, even though I had thought about some good reasons to bow out at the last minute.”
“When I walked in that room, I had no idea what to expect. But it wasn’t to hear country music blaring. It was Tim McGraw … my kind of music.”
“Chairs in circles.”
“People laughing and hugging and talking.”
“I had put on my best jeans and a nice shirt because I didn’t want to look out of place if everyone showed up with coats and ties. But I looked around and with the music and casual look, I thought I could blend right in.”
“I did fine till the part where you talked about how where we grew up, affected our beliefs. And our beliefs affected our standards. And our standards affected everything.”
“I wondered if you had spoken to my wife. You were saying the same sorts of things she had said. But I felt covered with shame because you ‘outed me’ in front of everyone.”
“I just wanted to bolt out of there. But then everyone would know for sure it was ME that you were talking about. That was twice in just a few weeks I had heard: ‘You’re that man’!”
“Well, maybe the third time. My wife didn’t write that in her note, but she kinda did!”
“I felt those same hot tears trying to escape my eyes again, just like they had when I walked into that empty house. But I made sure no one saw them.”
“By the time we got to the gold medal part … I knew that all I deserved a gold medal for was my low standards. I did that well. Really well.”
“Good enough to send my wife out the door.”
“Something in that environment made me want to lay down on the floor and yell out: ‘God, if you are up there, PLEASE HELP ME’!”
“When you spoke about regret in the ‘Movie of Your Life” … I wished she was there so I could tell her how sorry I was.”
“I was just stumped on the purpose piece. Of course I had no purpose! But I liked writing the answers to those questions. I had never even thought of such a thing. Even so, I knew I was ‘that man’ and there was no purpose for me!”
“Well, at least until you said that no matter what we had or had not done up to this point in our lives, we all had a purpose. You said it was in us when we were born. But I knew the purpose fairy had missed me. (Because the tooth fairy never showed up either!)”
“But after that exercise where our group built a bridge between our hearts, with no words spoken … And you told us to sit and write that letter on that page … you were right. I knew I had purpose.”
“I was thinking, ‘I just don’t know what it is!”
“All of a sudden, it poured out of me. I have no clue where it came from!”
“My purpose is:
To be a better husband and father than what I grew up with, and help other men do the same!”
“I just wished I hadn’t let my marriage burn down. I cried. I didn’t care who saw the tears. I just wanted to share it with her …”
3. What difference, has finding your purpose, made in your life?
“I left there different.”
“When I built my Blueprint from the pages you gave us, it was like I was having heart surgery and brain surgery at the same time.”
“I just saw the world differently.”
“I started doing things I’d never done. Like eating healthy, working out, cleaning up the house, doing the yard.”
“I stopped doing things I’d always done. Like laying on the couch all weekend drinking beer, slacking on my job, and paying bills late.”
“I guess I’d lost about 20 lbs. when I ran into her at Target. She smiled and asked, ‘What happened to you’?”
“I didn’t know what to say, so I asked her if she’d like to sit in the Starbucks at the front of the store and talk a minute.”
“She reluctantly agreed.”
“I told her the story, and she told me she was proud of me and wished me well.”
“I fell in love with her all over again. I was such an idiot to lose her.”
“A few weeks past, and I decided to ask her to dinner. Again, she agreed, but reluctantly.”
“Thank God I had enough sense to push her credit card back toward her when she put it on the folder with the bill in it. I just smiled and said: ‘This is on me’!”
“Our eyes met as she said: ‘It’s about time’!”
“We both laughed.”
“The rest is history!”
“We are inseparable. I’m a different man. Becoming more and more the husband she deserves every day. And more and more the father of our three kids, 9, 11, and 13.”
“I run the men’s group at our church and serve in leadership at my AA group.”
“I’ve been promoted at my job, and now am in leadership. I also do the side hustle with the nutritional company so she can stay home and homeschool our kids.”
“When we had coffee at Starbucks that day, she asked me how I raised my standards?”
“I smiled and said, ‘The truth is … I didn’t! My purpose raised them!’ And that is the truth!”
“What would I say to your audience:
You can spend years trying to raise your standards, or you can find your purpose and allow it to raise your standards! Do it! Before your below the ground standards run your life ashore like mine did!”
*****
Tiredness is contagious. It creeps in slowly but remains patient. And then one day we realize everyone in our life has been affected by our tiredness by telling and showing us … they’re tired too.
Purpose raises standards. And standards breathe into us a new energy a new hope!
No matter how low yours are.
And even if you don’t need a shovel to see yours, why not take them from where they are to even higher level?
“Raising standards is about deciding that you’re going to be more, do more, and impact more. It’s one of the most fulfilling things you can ever do.” Owen Fitzpatrick
And the quickest and easiest way to get there is to find your purpose!
For more info on the Power of Purpose, click here:
