Are you meeting your (high) standards?

I was talking to a colleague last week and she was saying how all her good intentions to work on the future of her practice got derailed by other things she had to do. She was feeling defeated and guilty and it felt like she had failed.

My colleague is a solopreneur and runs her service practice which has been going for two years now. With any solo venture, there is just so much to do. She is responsible for the planning, thinking, selling, delivering, maintaining old client relationships, nurturing new client relationships, her family, and life as well.

That is a lot of responsibility and sometimes overwhelm can soon take over.

I asked her if everything that derailed her ‘plan’ was work that did not contribute to her practice. She vehemently said no. All the work she had been doing was essential and contributing to the success of her practice.

It turns out, she could not accomplish what she intended to do for the week. She had ‘failed’ in meeting her standards.

The Big Arrow

Here’s the thing about meeting our standards, we sometimes set it high that it is practically not reachable setting us up for failure.

In his book, Leading with Emotional Courage, Peter Bregman describes the concept of your big arrow (see image of this article). The big arrow represents the ONE big thing you have your focus on. For my colleague, it would be her vision or objectives for herself.

The little arrows are the things that you do to meet your big arrow’s objectives. That would be everything my colleague has to do to meet her current obligations AND planning for the future. These include all components of her vision.

Though there is the element of time management and discipline involved in keeping to the planned schedule, in this instance this is not the focus.

My colleague is disciplined when it comes to keeping to her schedule. She does not escape to Netflix or other distractions easily. But if she needs a break, she will take one. That is part of keeping with the objective of the big arrow.

The issue is one of self-awareness: compassion towards, and acceptance of ourselves. We sometimes push hard and even set unrealistic expectations on ourselves only to then feel defeated and overwhelmed by it.

This is not unique to my colleague. I have had several conversations over the last weeks with people in a similar circumstance.

When I walked through the concept of the big and small arrows with my colleague, she realised she was not failing herself. Everything she did was to keep her practice a success and what she needed to do was allocate slots in her daily schedule to do her planning. She will be more discerning of her tasks in the future to make sure they are in alignment with her big arrow.

Recapture the present moment

There are going to be days when we just do not meet our standards. Acknowledge, accept, and move on. It is easier said than done but ultimately beating yourself up only ruins the present moment. Often we forget to take a moment and appreciate the things we have achieved.

I will conclude with a quote by Michelangelo, ‘the greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but it is too low and we reach it’!

I wish you success with your big and small arrows. If you need help with them connect with me at yoga@yoganesadurai.com