You cannot fool yourself

It’s helpful to establish a set of standards for yourself if you haven’t already.

How good of a writer, engineer, or athlete do you expect yourself to be? What does that look like and how do you know you’ve met these standards?

What kind of friend, partner, child, or parent do you want to be? What does that look like and how do you know you’ve met these standards?

In his book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Haruki Murakami nails the importance of setting your own standards, “What’s crucial is whether your writing attains the standards you’ve set for yourself. Failure to reach that bar is not something you can easily explain away. When it comes to other people, you can always come up with a reasonable explanation, but you can’t fool yourself.”