High Expectations High Standards

I have high standards for myself.  After growing up in an environment where everyone just settled for second best and there wasn’t affirmation or encouragement to do better. I found in my early 20’s settling for this type of lifestyle and just seeing it was ok.  In college and living on my own, the friends I had all had bigger dreams and ended up moving away and onto bigger and better things, leaving me sad and miserable and longing for things to be different.  So finally decided it was my turn and I moved away from the life I knew to a very different world.  I placed people in my life who constantly thought life had more to offer and were always looking for bigger and better and that’s pretty much how I have viewed life since.  I won’t settle for most anything.

The other side to that is that I have also lived for myself and done a lot where I made sure it was more about me than others.  I was a workaholic for a while and allowed it to become my identity.  I’ve also chosen other vices which weren’t the healthiest for me.  This all has led to me living with regret and creating higher and higher expectations for myself.  Once I started becoming a father and having children of my own that did change to a degree, it only made me want to be better and do so much better by my kids.

I look back at all the mistakes I have made with intense sadness.  I feel like as an adult I knew better and I should have done better but I choose to go my way.  I also can be very heard hearted and once I make up my mind nothing will change it.

I also realize we are human and make mistakes and they are also valuable to our learning and moving ahead.  I get that, in fact I will tell people the same thing and tell them not to be so hard on themselves.  So why don’t I take the advice I so freely give?  Great question, one to ponder for the ages.

When I make a mistake, I absolutely hate it.  I am more than a little pissed off, in fact I will call myself every name in the book and tell myself how horrible I am and how ridiculous it is that I made a mistake.  I absolutely hate making mistakes especially when it comes to my job.  I have established a really good reputation for myself at work for many things.  I do not like making a mistake that impacts others or that makes myself look less than competent.  It frustrates and essentially saddens me to no end.   Depending on how significant the mistake is I just want to lock myself away.

I set standards for myself that sometimes I can’t even live up to and it’s maddening when I don’t.  I don’t want to not have standards to live by because so many years there wasn’t anything.  I know that doing your best and putting everything you have into something is right, but in making mistakes I think it just is a harsh reminder of where my life has been and how I don’t ever want to go back to those places.

Do you have high standards, when you make a mistake are you incredibly hard on yourself?