“Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody expects of you,” Henry Ward Beecher.

The best version of yourself is one that fits your standards, not somebody else’s. Only you know what those standards are, and only you can decide if you are meeting your high ambitions.

But that’s how it should be; the power is always with you to make a change. The people who love you the most expect the most of you.
They want to see you become the biggest, brightest, best version of yourself. They will sometimes hold you to a higher standard than you hold yourself.

But they don’t hold you to that standard because they are being judgemental, at least not in a way that is negative. They hold you to that standard because they see something in you that you don’t yet see. Or maybe they see something in you that you see but aren’t yet acting on.

The people who don’t really love you also don’t expect anything of you. Many of these people will have very low personal standards for themselves. The fact that their standards are low means they’re only comfortable with people who share their low standards (or people who are willing to lower their standards to join them).

They fear that they will lose you, and they fear that the fact that you are so bright means that they are dim and insignificant by comparison. If you grow, you prove that it is possible, and those with low standards don’t want the responsibility of growing. Hold yourself to a standard so high that no one else would dare to raise your standard. Never, ever, ever lower your standards ever!