Don’t settle: The best advice I know.
September 27, 2023 | Articles
I was sitting at a restaurant patio, enjoying my usual Sunday fare of eggs benedict and a Spanish coffee, served without the dessert toppings. My eggs were poached perfectly, smothered in silky, house-made hollandaise. Hash browns covered half the plate.
Hash browns? A strange change from previous benedicts: from restaurant-quartered and seasoned little potatoes, to frozen supplier made hash browns. Hmmm.
The Chef at this restaurant prided himself on high quality ingredients, so it was odd to see a frozen alternative. At my question, the server responded that she was told the customers requested the hash browns. To this response, I raised a questioning eyebrow. “Really?”
“So I have been told!” Taylor held up her palms in an ‘I’m innocent’ pose, and smiled her way towards the kitchen. That is not her real name.
I ate my brunch, including most of the hash browns. Taylor noticed and was about to remark on that as she took my plate, but I shook my hand as I wiped my mouth.
“No, I know what you are about to say and No, I only ate the hash browns because I’m hungry. They are not better!”
Taylor laughed, and, in a quieter voice, agreed with me, adding “They may be getting you ready for the off-season.”
“Hmm, you could be right about that.” I took a sip. “Still, seems like the bar is being lowered.”
“The bar for your eggs benedict?” Now it was Taylor giving me the raised eyebrow.
I took a sip of coffee, and nodded. “That’s the problem today, the lowering of bars.” I said it as a half-joke, there was a lot of truth in the statement. I nodded towards a nearby table, where a man had been looking around the patio. “That gentleman needs something.”
At that, Taylor grinned thoughtfully as she went to address the needs of the other table. The young woman only had a few shifts left until she went back to school for year 2, studying bio-medical science at university. I had always enjoyed our conversations. She struck me as a person who was going to be very successful. She was smart, confident, and putting in the work to achieve her goals.
I was writing another article, typing away on my phone, but couldn’t concentrate. I kept thinking about ‘the bar’ conversation from earlier. Standards. In the macro and the micro, they seem to be declining. I raised my coffee, pausing to reflect on my own personal bar.
In my younger days, I admit to having had a bar of convenience. I have both lowered and raised my standards over time, in different facets of my life. Earlier in life I had a high career bar for myself, but I allowed it to fall. I had reset my bar to a lower standard. The standard I was willing to accept from myself had become lower than it ever should have. Easier to attain, perhaps, but attain what? The good stuff is kept on the high shelf. My bar was lowered somewhere in the subconscious, I don’t remember ever thinking about it. Life was comfortable. Life was good. My lower career bar didn’t really bother me.
Until it did. About age forty. Mid-life crisis? Perhaps. I was wanting more out of life, wanting more out of my job, to further my career. My lower bar did not become a real problem until I started to bang my head against a self-imposed ceiling. Experience in a company only goes so far, at some point education is required to advance.
In hindsight, the college years were when my personal bar and standards needed to be at their highest. That is when we are setting up our lives, our career, and our future. Set your bar high, keep it there for life.
I did not set my bar high enough. If I wanted to raise my bar, then I was going to have to go back to college. So I did. I went back to school at 40, earning a diploma in Supply Chain management. This led to a position in the Production Office, where I should have been ten years earlier, according to my manager.
I continued to take courses and my career (and paycheck) has taken a huge upswing ever since I raised my bar.
By lowering my bar, I had missed out on countless opportunities for my career, before I even knew they existed. By raising my bar, I had opened up a world of opportunities that were never available to me before.
If I have learned anything over my fifty years, it is that your personal bar should be kept high. Don’t settle for less. Your bar is the standard of what you will accept from yourself; and by extension, your relationships, your co-workers, and anyone else. It’s a reflection of who you are.
Your personal bar should be evaluated regularly, to make sure that you are keeping it at a level you deem acceptable. I really wish I had done that. I settled for less. Life was and is good, but I wonder. I wonder what could have been if I kept my bar high. I remembered an old quote I heard, and looked it up as I wrote.
After a while, the patio had quieted down. I was typing on my phone, starting this article. Taylor and I continued our conversation as she tidied up a nearby table. I mentioned that I was going to write an article on ‘bars.’ Again I received a raised eyebrow. So I elaborated.
“You have a high bar, right now. High standards for yourself,” stated as a question.
She nodded, “I’d like to think so.”
“Good for you. So keep your bar high. Don’t settle. I’m telling you because it was during my second year of college when I let my bar drop. Dropped right out of college. It cost me a lot, career and opportunity wise.” There was no activity on the patio, so I continued. “There is a quote from Michelangelo, you probably have heard it.” I read from my phone:
“The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.”
Taylor nodded, saying she had heard something very similar.
“Seriously, keep your bar high. Set a high standard, and strive to match it. That may circulate as a meme, but it’s the best advice I know”
