The Principle of Standards

Standards are the internal benchmarks you set for yourself, the non-negotiable thresholds of quality, character, and conduct that govern your work, relationships, and behavior regardless of what others expect, accept, or reward.

Living Without This Principle

Without personal Standards, your behavior is dictated by your environment. You do what is required rather than what is excellent. You allow others to set the ceiling for your effort, and since most environments reward doing enough, you gradually become what the crowd expects rather than who you were created to be. Without standards, you drift toward comfort, cut corners when no one is watching, and gradually lose the integrity that makes your word worth something and your work worth paying for.

Negative Effects of Refusing This Principle

• Behavior driven by environment, not conviction
• Excellence replaced by adequacy
• Integrity eroded privately
• A gap between public performance and private character
• A ceiling set by the lowest expectations around you
• Work that is forgettable
• Trust that is difficult to earn

What This Principle Unlocks

When you live by high personal Standards, you become someone who can be trusted with greater responsibility because you are the same person in private as in public. Standards create internal accountability. You do not need external pressure to produce your best because your best is what you expect of yourself. Over time, the gap between you and average widens not because you tried harder in one moment, but because you held a higher standard in every moment.

Positive Effects of Accepting This Principle

• Internal accountability that does not depend on external pressure
• Consistency in private and public
• Work that is excellent and trusted
• A reputation that opens doors
• An expanding gap between you and average
• Integrity as a way of life
• Greater responsibility earned over time

Long Term Outcomes

• A life that stands out through consistency
• Trusted with larger assignments and responsibilities
• A character that is the same in every context
• Work that produces lasting results
• A name that means something
• Greater access to the things that matter most
• Excellence that becomes your natural expression

Hebrew and Greek Root Words

taqan (תָּקַן): to set in order, to make straight, or to establish a standard. It implies arranging things according to the proper measure or design. Used in Ecclesiastes 12:9, where the Preacher arranged many proverbs, setting wisdom in order according to a standard of truth and excellence.

arete (ἀρετή): excellence, virtue, or moral goodness. The pursuit of the highest possible expression of a quality. Used in Philippians 4:8: “whatever is excellent (arete), think about such things.” It describes not just the absence of wrong but the active, deliberate pursuit of the best.

Bible Verses

Philippians 4:8: “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent (arete) or praiseworthy, think about such things.”

Proverbs 22:29: “Do you see someone skilled (taqan) in their work? They will serve before kings; they will not serve before officials of low rank.”

Examples of People in the Bible

Daniel: When Daniel was taken as a teenager to serve in the Babylonian king’s court, the government had a plan to assimilate him: a new name, Babylonian education, and food from the royal table. On the matter of the food, likely connected to idol worship, Daniel made a clear internal decision: “Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine” (Daniel 1:8). He set a personal standard that did not bend to royal pressure or cultural expectation. He asked for an alternative, was tested for ten days, and came out healthier and more capable than those who had eaten from the king’s table. That internal standard, held quietly but firmly in a foreign culture, became the foundation of a life of extraordinary influence that outlasted every empire around him.

Bezalel: When God instructed Moses to build the Tabernacle, he did not settle for ordinary workmanship. He chose a man named Bezalel and filled him with the Spirit of God specifically in “wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge and in all kinds of skills” for the craftsmanship (Exodus 31:3-5). The standard for the work that would honor God’s presence was excellence, and God himself raised up and equipped a person to meet it. Standards in service of sacred purpose reflect the character of the One being honored.

Paul: Paul’s own life consistently embodied the high standards he communicated to others. He wrote: “Run in such a way as to get the prize” (1 Corinthians 9:24) and described his approach to his calling as disciplined and intentional rather than aimless. He worked with his hands to avoid burdening the churches he served, maintained the integrity of his message under pressure to soften it, and held himself to the same standards he applied to those he led. His standard was not driven by public reputation. It was rooted in an internal conviction about what his assignment required of him before God.

Tips

• Write down your personal standards explicitly. Vague standards produce vague behavior. When your standards are specific and written, you can measure yourself against them and make conscious adjustments.
• Set standards based on who you want to become, not on what others will notice or reward. External validation is inconsistent. Internal conviction is what builds a life.
• Hold your standards especially when no one is watching. That is where they are actually built. What you do in private eventually becomes what you are in public.
• Regularly evaluate whether your current environment is raising or lowering your standards. You tend to drift toward the norms of the people and systems you are closest to.
• Separate standards from perfectionism. Excellence is about consistent commitment, not flawless execution. Standards help you show up well consistently. Perfectionism prevents you from showing up at all.
• Apply standards to your inner life first. Your thoughts, your words, and your motives before your visible outputs. The external will follow the internal over time.
• When you fall short of your own standards, recommit without shame. Standards are a compass, not a trap. They keep pointing the right direction regardless of where you have been.

Connected Theme: Productivity

Standards are the internal commitment that makes excellence possible. The Principle of Productivity teaches you to steward your time and gifts for consistent output, and standards are what determine the quality of that output. You cannot consistently produce excellent work without first deciding what excellent looks like for you and holding yourself to it every day.