Raise your standards to "main character" to reach your goals sustainably

Did you know that the Association for Psychological Science concluded that self-perception influences decision-making processes? I learned this while reading an article on the White House Black Market blog (I don't shop the store, but was interested in the article titled Fashion Psychology: How Clothes Affect Your Confidence) and it made me think of something that my mentor and I have been discussing recently -- standards. For awhile now and still I struggle to maintain standards that I find to be acceptable. From grade school til college, I considered myself to be someone who had very high standards, and in a similar way very high expectations for myself. I was always striving to get good grades, be well liked by my school's staff and other adults, but I also held myself to a standard of authenticity. As a young person I was very sure of my Self, sure of my abilities, and sure of my capacity to show up and produce a quality attitude, and product and I did do that -- but I've also started to become more aware of my own tendency to skate by, and take the easier route. Over the past 4 years the balance of the more positive or helpful traits and the negative or sabotaging traits has been in a steady reversal to the more negative majority. Looking back it felt a bit like the Icarus story. I didn't really know what I was doing. I had no idea what I was getting into -- but with a lot of blind confidence I put one foot in front of the other for awhile -- but the train eventually started to run away, and I had a hard time "keeping up" with my own expectations. Eventually just stopped trying. It wasn't because I didn't like what I was doing, or because I didn't know how to provide a product or an experience that I enjoyed giving. It was because I had no idea what I wanted, and I have a few lessons to learn around being a know-it-all. I'm trying. I stopped showing up in my business because it felt heavy and misaligned. Around the same time I found myself depressed -- this was the first time I had experienced depression. This seemed to decay my foundations for almost everything in my life. I started an obsession with personal development especially through astrology, the law of attraction, and journaling. Despite all of the personal development I was hypothetically doing, I remained confused, unaccepting of my "human experience" in "the now", listless, tired, and apathetic about most things. I started looking forward to moving out of our apartment and into the next level -- which at the time was bus life. I started expecting bus life to change my whole experience of being a human. I know how silly that sounds now. Then we got into the bus, and even though I had left my part time job to pursue my own thing full time again I found it impossibly difficult to actually choose to do things that I knew would move the needle toward what I kept saying that I wanted -- a thriving business, a fit body, and a hot sex life with a committed loving partner. I mean I'm an average person.

So far, since 2018, I haven't found any traction. The standards that I have for myself and as long as they don't too negatively impact my loved ones -- have settled into an all time low. I've asked myself to go back to the 2018 situation, and really reflect on it. Really look and see what about it sent me spiraling into this position so far away from the person who was thriving in her sassy, cool, photo studio business, breaking even in the second year with medium-sized expenses. I was SO proud of myself. But recently, I've reached the Plateau of Meh. It's not the Valley of Drug Addiction and Destruction, I know - but this isn't a place I want to be. I want to get back to thriving. All areas of life are up for readjustment: health and wellness, social and communication, education, ambitions and dedication, challenging others and being regularly challenged. The area of career is the one that I've decided that I need to reassess first (although my body is telling me that health is next...), because it seems to be so clearly linked to "when everything went wrong" and I started perceiving myself as someone who was vulnerable and unsafe. I found myself spending a lot of energy and time on astrology when I was going through my "rough patch" and assumed that because it sounded easier to run a location independent consultancy than doing photography nomadically that is the direction that I should go professionally. I got caught up in what I could do "more easily" than what I "came here to do" as the spiritually inclined say. I also found myself regularly falling head over heels for some incredible online mentors business models -- dreaming of having their location-irrelevant business structures such as my coaches but even though I understood how they made money regardless of their location or the location of their clients, it didn't' take away from the fact that I'm a photographer, not a mentor. Just because I know more astrology than the average person doesn't mean that I should go out there trying to help people for money with it. Because I'm not a professional consultant of any kind. I'm a professional photographer. The perception of self influences decision making. In 2018 when my perception of my self was so intensively, massively, and abruptly influenced -- my decision making process changed completely until I was brave enough to look back at that time in my life, and see what it was that I actually got out of the experience. I don't mean what I learned necessarily. Because what I learned wasn't necessarily stuff I didn't know -- like I knew some of the issues were issues. I was young and did sit a bit idly by as things started to run a bit out of control. I wasn't actively doing things poorly, just not proactively doing things with a wealth or forward thinking mindset. Tbh I was totally unaware of and completely fucking up my mindset. Totally unaware of the potential severity of an unbridled, wildly wandering mindset. My standards for my mindset have changed. But until the 2 months that I spent running (training for a 5k) in 2021 before falling completely off the wagon due to an injured ankle, I didn't *actually* understand how your life is a conscious and subconscious manifestation of the activities that you did repeatedly. Before I could SAY "i understand" that. But I know now I didn't, because when I started running I followed the Couch to 5K Method, and for the first time understood the phrase "trust the process". Before that it must have been completely off my radar what that actually meant, because of the distinct difference in experiencing a true methodical process working right in front of my eyes vs. an abstract concept blurted out by talking heads or canva-quotes. But to trust the process requires some process to follow. This is where standards come back in. You have to choose what your standards, or activities are that encourage you to rise to your next level self's every day experience. After you decide what activities you could participate in to get there -- and there are many ways to accomplish the same goals -- you actually have to start doing those things. The definition of your standards is the actions you're taking. Thats a standard operating procedure. At the beginning of anything is a set of choices that give rise to that thing occurring, manifesting, or arriving. You will never reach the completion of something by actively choosing the things that block, sabotage or in other ways negate the completion of that thing. If the sets of choices that we make at the beginning, middle, and end of every experience in our life is influenced by our self perception -- than it's time to start paying closer attention to our self perception, isn't it. If you perceive yourself as someone who strives to make people happy, you'll keep your focus on that experience and manifest opportunities to make others happy. If you perceive yourself as someone who strives to make themselves happy, you'll keep your focus on that experience and manifest opportunities to make yourself happy. See what I did there? The same choices will bring you more of the same results. What if you aren't actively making choices? If you're someone who lets "life" control everything -- or happen to you, as they say -- then I've got bad news. You are choosing. It's your subconscious that is choosing everything for you. This is what I did. For awhile I didn't do much of anything. "I didn't know what to do." So I analyzed my personality with astrology but resisted reflecting on my painful experiences, "educated myself" -- ie consumed a lot of content with the slight intention of solving these issues but ultimately just mostly engaging in an emotional procrastination problem, and then spent time with my friends avoiding my emotional problems. Your subconscious self perception is choosing what is happening when you don't purposely work to create an experience that is intentionally fulfilling for both of our minds. The conscious mind (this is known as the ego) is very judgemental of the subconscious mind, and the conscious mind has NO CLUE what your subconscious is doing, wanting, or enjoying. Your subconscious is creating an incredible story line for you to experience all of the most intense joy and sorrows of the human experience. They're both equally strong and real parts of you. Don't over identify with what the ego says you want -- because you are both the conscious and subconscious mind, you're just so used to the judgment of the ego who is a slave to expectations. Mark Manson says that happiness is solving problems you want to solve, not an absence of them. The Association for Psychological Science says that your self perception influences your decision making. This is your sign to reassess your standards for yourself and question your automatic self perceptions heavily. Nobody else's standards matter for your life, but if you don't live up to yours.... It's up to you to design the life that fits you, and where you're trying to go. [This post brought to you by today's sponsor - me, and here's how it relates.] When you perceive yourself a certain way, you act a certain way (through your choices) that much is clear -- but what about when you see yourself in mirrors, or in photos? What about how your followers, online friends, and partners and network see you? How is that related to your self perception? As a photographer I know what good photos can do. I know how they can give you an edge. I know how they can show you the coolest most interesting slice of you -- because that's my goal and every shoot I do brings me closer to providing that experience to the best of my ability. Lately I've been reading about the quantum realm and how our realities are shaped by observation, and that our thoughts are very real in the way that a thought can create or deflate the energy we feel in our body. Energy becomes matter, that's what E=mc2 tells us. So we really do have control over what is created, and if we have control over what is created and our self perception heavily influences our choices..... The sooner that we meet ourselves for who we want to be, the sooner we update our self perception, the sooner we can participate in a celebratory integration of that goal, desire, dream, or experience, the sooner we can integrate that experience into our new calibration for our next level self. Rehearse your role as main character in your real life so that it becomes CLEAR to you that this life's a stage. I don't want to save people anymore -- that was an old paradigm way of thinking. I don't want my purpose to be empowering people anymore. I want it to be celebrating people, and creating next level visual arts together. VIP DAY really is an entire day. It creates an opportunity for us to create an absolutely unique, priceless, and timeless representation of you -- totally free from the constraints of time and space, filled with ideals and photo realistic illustrations of your Earthly body. You worry about nothing. Before your shoot we design your shoot. You walk onto set for your beauty treatments. You choose your stunning wardrobe selections and accessories, including shoes, lingerie and more to keep. There is luscious food, props, backgrounds, lighting play, complete body posing guidance, and a love your photo guarantee. The after photo process is even easier than being a pampered model all day because you get everything deliverable. No deciding between getting and forgetting. You receive everything that is usable. That very same day you'll see your images, get releases, permissions for business or personal use, and as soon as the artwork is completed, you'll get access to print rights and access to my photo lab, and regardless of any other prints you choose to have printed, choose the images for your premium leather album, included with your VIP DAY investment. The best users of a VIP DAY are > regular women who want to have a really fucking cool photo shoot with no stress > influencers or models who want to have content photos for their instagram grids, stories, websites, thumbnails, portfolio or other social or media usages. Your shoot MAY be vlogged by you or your team > content creators, especially in fashion, lifestyle, travel > business owners in fashion and lifestyle > women who have an "all out" photo shoot on their bucket list > women who are celebrating where they've been and where they're going. If you want to star in your own VIP DAY just send a DM and I'll let you know what the next available dates are. Having a VIP DAY can benefit your personal brand, and your self perception, which can impact the person that you're being. Be the bold version.