Lower your standards. It’s not a weakness, it’s a skill.

Why do you think it might be beneficial for us to lower the bar, to lower our expectations of ourselves and our lives? And is it necessary? Let’s look at this, because these are the times we live in—narcissistic ones. We all strive for some kind of success. We want more, higher, better, more beautiful, more expensive, and so on. More, more. Come on, come on, come on. These constant complaints about ourselves—look, others are doing better, but for some reason you still can’t do it.

We try to leap through life, expecting great heights from ourselves, but instead we experience mounting tension within. And even if we consider the source of this inner tension, for some reason we don’t connect it to the fact that we’ve set the bar too high and expect too much of ourselves.

Many might think that lowering the bar and lowering expectations of oneself is a path to degradation. At least, that’s what I often hear from my clients during sessions. But I want to explain that the internal tension that arises from this endless narcissistic pursuit is a road to nowhere. Lowering the bar and expectations of oneself, however, is the path to growth, and that path is the path to success.

If you’ve been thinking about seeing a psychotherapist online in Ukraine, now might be the time:

My video on “Lower the Bar”

What should we do then? This is a favorite question from my clients. What if we do nothing, and simply try to observe what happens when we lower our expectations, lower our standards? In my video, I clearly demonstrate (I even draw it) how the motto “Lower the Bar” helps us achieve our goals and avoid burnout.

In short, lowering the bar means moving gradually toward your goal. And appreciating each step along the way. And the ability to appreciate the intermediate steps already achieved is precisely that skill. A skill that helps us avoid burnout, avoid enduring tons of internal stress, and move confidently forward. Every intermediate goal is also important and has a certain value for us. Often, we don’t understand this and don’t know how to do it.