In this episode, I’m diving into something I’m super passionate about—maintaining high personal standards and the values that drive them.

It’s not just about how others treat us; it’s about how we treat ourselves. I’ll be sharing how having my own fucking high standards has guided me in everything I do, from my relationships to my career.

Back in 2012, I went through a business program that drilled this lesson into me, and let me tell you, it completely changed how I approach my life.

But real talk: while I’ve nailed having high standards in my career, I’ve struggled with holding myself to those same standards in my personal health and wellness. It’s been an ongoing journey, and I’m still figuring it out.

In this episode I’ll be talking about the discipline, systems, and self-respect it takes to level up in this area.

Ultimately, it’s about building self-trust and confidence by keeping promises to yourself, because when you do that, your self-worth and self-respect go through the roof.

Takeaways:

• High standards are about personal values and virtues, not just external expectations from others.
• Disciplined actions build self-trust, which reinforces self-confidence and ultimately self-worth.
• Identify areas in life where discipline is lacking and focus on improving them systematically.
• Your self-worth is influenced by how well you keep your word to yourself.
• Boundaries are crucial for maintaining high standards and ensuring personal discipline.
• Achieving high standards requires clarity about personal values and consistent self-reflection.

If you’re serious about raising your standards and taking action toward your goals, tune into this episode and get inspired to make the changes you know you need.

🔥 Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with a friend who needs that extra push.

Hola.

Hola. It's your girl, Erica from America. Welcome to the Confidence Chronicles podcast. This podcast is all about helping you stand in who you are.

Stop giving a fuck when people think about you. Start standing as your fully expressed self, as you are queen as is. There is no filter needed. You are fucking awesome.

And I am here to remind you, I'm a confidence coach, a business mentor, a speaker, an authorization.

And I am obsessed with women standing.

Up, showing up, and creating their confidence. And I cannot wait to dig into today's episode with you.

What does it mean to have a high standards?

So I wanted to chat about this because I really believe that having high standards for yourself, not being difficult, not being too picky, not being hard work, I'm talking about having standards for your life, standards for the way that you show up in the world.

This, to me, is one of the things that has supported me to step into my confidence, that has supported me to attract the love of my life, that has supported me to make the money to create the business and have the impact and to do shit in a different way. It's allowed me to really make a name for myself and become the go to in my space. It's allowed me to do big shit and think big.

It's allowed me to be consistent. And now what? This podcast is like six years almost. We've got like 400, I don't know, 15 episodes. It's been quite some time.

And I have to tell you a little story about how I learned about high standards. And I feel like I've talked about this on the podcast before, but in a roundabout kind of way.

And we were in there for two and a half years. We invested a lot of money, went on retreats.

We ended up being so close to the guy, to the head person, that we started crewing, and I started introducing him on stage, and we started selling his program for him. And we, like. We got very close. We were the inner circle.

And in that program, one of the things that he taught, and he had actually one of those little wristbands around your hand, like the rubber wristbands that people used to wear to events seminars. And it said, fhs. Fucking high standards. And I promise you, I don't know, because FHS was the high school.

I went to Framingham High School or what, but that FHS got so ingrained into my mind. And he really. It was a value of his being a part of that program.

You really got drilled in your mind what fucking high standards meant, and it was about having a high standard for yourself, showing up in a way that you're proud of doing your business in a way that makes you feel proud, taking the action that makes you feel proud, keeping your word to yourself, being who you say you are, not settling for less in yourself first.

And I think that it's really important to define this, because when I speak about high standards, for some reason, we look around at other people and how they treat us. We look around at other people and what we demand and request from them. And I'm like, that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm not talking about high standards for how other people treat you. That's a beautiful thing. Yes, because you don't want to be treated like shit.

I'm talking about high standards with yourself and for yourself and really being led by your. By the virtues and the values, not the goals. Being led by your values. What's important to you? Who are you? Who do you want to be?

How does that version of you show up? What does she believe in? What is she about? Who is she gonna be no matter what? What is. What is important to her?

And although this program ended up being, like, somewhat of a cult, an unofficial cult, it was crazy. And I literally am always like, I'll tell you more about that another time. Because I I just. Yeah, it was just so hectic, that experience.

And as much as it was horrible and as much as that guy became greedy and weird and cult ish, I will tell you now that I learned so much about business, learned so much about myself. It really raised me. That program really raised me. So horrible things can teach you amazing things if you allow it.

Anyway, so his thing was like having fucking high standards for yourself.

And so being in that program, Hamish, and I'm my husband, we really started to look at where we did not have high standards, where we were being someone we didn't want to be, how we were allowing things to happen in our lives that wasn't in line with who we were and what we wanted. And so I wanted to talk about it today. Cause I do feel like it was an amazing lesson.

I've talked about it before on the podcast. Like, I struggle. I want to exercise every day. I want to move my body.

I want to prep my food, and then my business takes over, and then I'm traveling, and then I have two young children. And they're not excuses. I am choosing to put those things first. So I want you to know that I don't have all my fucking shit together.

I want you to know that the queen of confidence is not always confident.

That I have areas of my life where I need to work on that there's areas of my life where I listen to podcasts like you do, that there's areas of my life where I have a coach, I have a therapist, I have a mentor, I have a healer, and I have community that supports me so I can be better. So in this podcast, I'm very. Y'all know, if you're listening, if you've been here for a little while, that I keep it raw and real.

I let you into most of my life. I let you into the areas where I dropped the ball and I suck.

And where I have fucking high standards is my impact in my business, my purpose, my dharma. Why the fuck I'm on planet earth, yo? Couldn't be more clear. Couldn't be more ten out of ten driven. Couldn't be. I'm a fucking twelve out of ten.

Like, I'm not fucking around. I'm so resourceful. I am so high standards with that shit. And I don't play around.

And then there's other areas of my life, like my health and wellness, because I suck at it. But I'm getting better of, like, slowing down, of, like, resting, of not forgetting to take the 17 supplements that I'm supposed to take.

I don't do meditation. I don't sit down. I don't lay down and take little five minute breaks. And I'm working on that. Like, my naturopath was like, you, girl, you gotta.

She said to me, your body goes 40 km an hour, like 60 mph, but your mind goes, like, 500. That's great. You can disassociate your body from your mind. Great. Good job. But you have a body, Erica. And I was like, mm hmm.

And she was like, so your body needs a rest. And I look at it as, like a. As a side note, but as an analogy, because I love analogies. You already know.

So my analogy was like, okay, I'm driving a car and my shit, my engine is hot as fucked as. And I'm like, like, fifth gear fucking 10th gear going, ham engine smoking. And she's like, hi.

Just pull over and put on your hazard lights and just let the engine cool. Just five minutes. Just five minutes. I'm like, five minutes. Just five minutes. Lay your ass down, sit on the ground, sit on your vag, whatever.

Five minutes. And then get back on the fucking road and rev that shit up and go fast again.

She goes, if you don't let it cool, you're just burning this hot engine that's literally gonna catch flames. And I love the analogy. I don't know if it serves you, but for me, I love seeing analogies. And I.

So sometimes I'm like, now, this week, I've been just laying on the bed, and my husband's like, what are you doing? I'm like, I am having a pit stop. He's like, okay. Because the analogy helped me to make it tangible, right? So I diverted.

But I really wanted to share that because I want you to know, in all reality, nobody that you love, nobody that you follow, none of your mentors, none of your expanders, none of the people that you admire have all their shit together, okay? Me included. We do not have all our shit together. There'll be areas where I'm fucking sorted, and then there's other areas where I need so much help.

And when I tell you that my well being suffers, and then I'm like, what's the high standard that I need to hold for my well being? And it's a struggle. It is a struggle to have this.

This high standard for your dharma, for your impact, for your business, this high standard with my children.

Because now that I've made the money I've made, and now that I have the business that I have and the lifestyle that I have now where I don't have to do anything, I can do whatever the fuck I want. And I have a little team helping me now. There's no reason that my phone needs to be in my face when I'm talking to my kids or my laptop.

Like, unless I'm writing my book, which that shit's done, thank God. Like, I don't need to be not present when my children are calling me or asking me before I did at the beginning of my business, I did.

So if that's you, give yourself a break. You're building something, and it requires your full attention. And I had to have those conversations with my husband in the beginning.

I'm like, I'm gonna have a phone in our face. Like, I'm gonna be on my phone 24/7 I'm gonna be recording videos. And he was not.

Hamish was not comfortable with any of it, but we had a discussion as to why, and he understood, but he wasn't like, yay, can't wait. He was kind of like, oh, okay, let's see how this goes. And obviously now this is how it went, and it's amazing.

So I guess what I'm saying to you is, back then, I needed to sacrifice that for a limited amount of time so I could build this thing. And then I come back, and now I'm so present with my kids. I have fun with them. We do things.

It's incredible to see how much time and how much I can share with them about our business and our impact on what we're doing and having conversations with them and teaching them how manage their mind and things about the world. It's beautiful traveling with them. Beautiful.

But then there's this other area where the high standards needs to be raised up, and that is prepping my food, that is making sure I eat enough. My problem is not McDonald's drive thru girl. That's not my problem. Or donuts and shit. That's not my thing. My vice is not that.

It's that I don't eat and I don't. I just fucking go. I'm like, I'll eat later. And I don't have enough food. I don't have enough protein.

And if I'm going to bed too late or if I'm exhausted, then I don't get up in the morning and do that. And it's just like, that area for me right now is what I'm working on. Fucking high standards.

And it's like, okay, what needs to happen for me to step into that high level for myself in regards to movement and fitness while I am juggling a very active traveling type of career, like, I'm speaking four to five times a month right now, which I fucking love, by the way. I manifested this shit. I've been trying to become one of the biggest speakers. I've been trying to be my Tony Robbins self.

Oh, shit. My bags are always packed. Shit. Wait. What am I gonna do about my food? Wait, does this place have a gym?

Do I have the energy to go to the gym right now? Oh, fuck. So I'm just telling you, I'm being. Showing you my cards, being vulnerable. I'm not sorted in this health and wellness area.

I'm getting sorted. So if you are, like, I'm not sorted in an area, Erica, my high standards are not there. I have low standards for myself in this area. I feel you, baby.

Me too. Me too. Let's work on this shit. So I want to share some things with you. I don't want to sell you the fact that you need to have high standards.

Hopefully you know that you do. Okay. I want to give you something that has been helping me. A word called discipline. Discipline. Self respect, self worth.

These three words I've been marinating on, working with, playing with when it comes to high standards. And so when I think about what is required for me to be better, I'll use my example in my health, in my body, in my well being, what is required.

I had a lot of issues in America when I had my. I had my tooth. Got an infection in America while I was there visiting my mom. I live in Australia, so I was very far away from home.

I'm originally from America, but I've been here for ages. And this tooth doesn't give me trouble. I don't even know. I mean, I've never had more pain in my fucking life.

Like, I would rather give birth 50 times than have that again. Birth was amazing. So that happened. So what happened? I had to get on an antibiotic. I don't take anything. I don't take drugs. I don't take antibiotics.

I don't take, you know, you do. You boo. But I don't take any of that shit. So for me to be on antibiotics for 23 days, penicillin, I ended up getting an allergy. My gut was fucked up.

It was just fucked up. So I've been. I'm trying to, like, detox that now still. And I know that that gives you issues.

So I was having gut issues coming back and then feeling the juggle, the literal juggle of the fucking travel schedule that's been hectic. So back to what I was saying.

If I go into my example of, like, the discipline, the self respect and the self worth, when I look at what is required for me to travel and maintain my health and well being, I need to prepare myself. So I have to make time in my calendar to know where am I going? Is there a gym? Is there a walk I can do?

I have to prepare my luggage to make sure that I'm taking the right things. I have to prepare all my fucking supplements. Oh, my God.

Doctor Kirsty, I love you, but damn, I have so many supplements and more now because of my gut detox. So many drugs and pills. And my mom was bipolar. She's bipolar. So she took, excuse me, 15 pills a day. She takes more now. So I saw her taking pills.

And Doctor Kirstie always tells me she was on the podcast. She's amazing. She's like, they're not. It's not medicine. This is like, supplementing. It's not medicine. You're not sick. I'm like, okay.

Because my mind goes like, oh, fuck. All these pills, all these drugs.

So getting those and getting those ready, I take certain things in my coffee, my, like, bullet coffee thing, getting those ready. So there's. There's so much prep. And if I am disciplined, if I believe myself to be a disciplined person, then I will prep my shit before I go.

I will have a system. Fucking James clear atomic habits. Go get that book.

If you struggle with this, his shit around habits and habit stacking, and he's like, it's not that you don't want to do it. It's not that you're not good. It's not that you are somebody who's not disciplined. He's like, it's a failure of systems. And he's so right.

I want to be disciplined. I give a fuck about it.

What's the system if there's no formula, if there's no system, if there's no process, and hello, if you got a business, same shit, right? You need a system.

So I bought this pill box, and I have this thing, and then I get these little travel things, and I got these little canisters that I can put my powders in. Okay?

But if I'm fucking exhausted, if I'm wrecked, if I'm not going to bed on time, if everything's going crazy, like my book launch is happening really soon, or pre order launch, those times make it difficult, like, when it's special circumstances, like your kid's not well, or you've got a birthday party that you're planning, or, you know, these special circumstance times. I don't know about you, but I feel like that's what fucks me. Up.

And so it's having like an emergency plan for when things aren't great, for when you don't feel your best, you're still going to do the things. Discipline. Let's go over to self respect, which I believe is closely tied to self trust, which I believe is closely tied to self confidence.

And so one of the things that I preach on and speak about a lot about confidence is confidence literally means trusting yourself. That's literally it.

So you say something you believe and back yourself that you're gonna trust and do it, and you're gonna work it out and you're gonna figure it out. I don't know how to do it, but I'm gonna work it out. I trust myself, I back myself. When we don't keep our word to ourselves, we break our trust.

When you say, I'm getting up at five, but you get up at six, hello, I've done it too. When you say, I'm gonna do this and you don't do that, breaks your trust, breaks your trust, breaks your trust.

So if you think about this bank account where you just keep withdrawing trust and you could be like, in the negatives, some of you might be in the negatives and it's like, shit, how do I deposit back some trust? Literally today, say you're going to do one small, easy thing. Do it. Little deposit tomorrow, the next day, say you're going to do one small thing.

And the more that you can keep your word to yourself and do the things you say you're going to do, the more confidence you're going to build, the more self trust you're going to build, the more self worth you're going to build. You're going to be able to actually go, what I say I do, you're going to be able to trust yourself.

And that, to me, is something all of us can work on every single, it's tangible, it's a tangible thing.

So if we don't have our discipline sorted, if we're not trusting ourselves, if we're not respecting ourselves, because when you say something, you're going to do it. You respect your word, you respect yourself. I don't know if anybody here struggles ever with food or eating or whatever, but I know I used to drink.

I've stopped drinking. I haven't drank in like eight weeks. And I'm so happy. High five. I really, really don't want to drink again. I don't have to drink. I'm a crazy person.

I don't need that shit at a party. I'm psycho. Like morning and night. Like, probably don't even need coffee, and I drink it, so can you imagine? So alcohol has been a big problem for me.

I'm going to do a podcast about it later. Instead of doing a podcast about it. I really want to live it before I start talking about how I'm not drinking anymore.

It's been two weeks, like, chill. So I'm really trying to live it, and then I'll talk about it.

But for me, it was like if I drank too much and then I felt swollen and then I felt sick, and then I had the shit. Like, literally, like my stomach wasn't good, I would wake up in the morning and my self respect would be gone.

Maybe for you it's like eating a whole cake or a bag of Tim tams or some nutella from the damn jar or whatever, binging in some way where you just feel like fuck. Like you just feel shit. I would feel like my worthiness would instantly drop because I wasn't respecting myself.

I said I would only have two drinks, and now I've had four and now I've had six. I never drank water, and I said I would like these. Doesn't feel like a big deal.

But these little micro moves go into your subconscious and they send you messages about yourself. They send you messages that this is the way it's going to be. This is who you are. There's no other way. You're just like this. Don't even try.

You're not strong enough. You can't do it. You'll never have it. You'll always be this way. These messages are really dangerous because it's not true.

It's a matter of you having high standards for yourself, putting discipline and order and systems, respecting yourself, building that trust with yourself, that confidence in yourself, which is going to impact your worthiness, which is going to impact the way you feel worthy about yourself. It's such an important thing to do. And I know it's not easy. I know it's not easy. And this is something that I really want you.

If you're resonating with this, to work on, work on this. The year's not over, by the way. I hate the whole new year, new you thing.

I know that as humans, we are ingrained to think that December 31, the year's complete and we move into a brand new year, new YouTube. It could just be December 32, December 34, December 35, December 46 for some of us.

I mean, you could decide right now, today, while you're listening to this, that you're gonna raise your fucking standards for yourself and that you're gonna change your entire fucking life, and you're not gonna wait until the year's over. Cause you have. You've already wasted the year. That's not true. This timeframe. September, October, October. Best time ever.

Best time ever for you to decide is fucking today. You don't have to wait for anything. You get to decide. You know what? I'm not happy with what's been going on in my life, and I want to do this now.

Now, here's what I would say to you. If you want to set some high standards for yourself, I'm not going to tell you to be realistic, but be real with yourself.

Don't set yourself up to fail. Don't give yourself a million goals when you haven't even kept your word on one fucking value of yours or one virtue of yours.

So, a few things that I want you to do, and in my book, there's a whole chapter on this. Number one, figure out what you value. What are your virtues? What are your values? Not your fucking goals. I want to lose ten pounds. Not your goals.

Who cares about your goals? Because guess what? You will hit your goals. If you become the person you want to be. If you live the value of health and well being.

If you live the value of exercise, if you live the value of whatever, the virtue of doing hard things, then you getting those results too easy. So let's not look at goals. I want you to sit down and think about your values. I did a podcast called do you know your values? In the first year.

So it's like right at the beginning, the first, I think, 40 podcasts I did it in. And I want you to think about this. There's a process there that you can do to figure out your values. Top three, top five.

And then in regards to those values, where are you standing? Where are your. Where are your standards? If you value authenticity at one out of ten, are you a two right now, how do you get that two to a five?

What would you authenticity at an eleven look like? I'm not saying be that, but what would that look like? Check your values. Number one, I want you to do that.

Number two, I want you to choose an area for you in your life where you know that you need to build more discipline, where you know you need to build better systems. Just one area. Please don't choose 50 areas because you just won't do it. It's too hard. Alex Harmozzi. I was about to call him doctor Harmozzi.

Alex Hermozi has a video and he was talking about how in his season of no, he had to literally say no to everything and choose to focus on one thing.

He's like, you can't be the best mother in the world and have the most successful business in the world and have a six pack and have the best relationship of your life. You just cannot do do it. You can have it all, but not at once. And he's like, if you're trying to lose weight, that's a massive thing.

You got to change your schedule, your life, the way you sleep, where you go out, and what you eat. You got to change so much. You got to prep. It's big work. I just did a book. I just wrote a book, y'all. Like, that is. That's massive.

Most people would just do that. And I'm like, doing this and I've got, like, there's too many things. And I'm at school.

I just messaged my school and was like, I think I need to pause until next year. And I'm so sad about it, but I'm also like, who cares? I'm doing this for me. I'm not doing this to be like, I have a degree. Look at me. I'm so cool.

Guess what? I'm already cool. I already got my fucking whole business. I don't need this. I want this, but I also don't want it to stress me out.

This is a big fucking year. That was a big move to be like, self discipline. School can wait. I'm coming back for it. I don't care what anybody has to say about it.

I'm looking after me. So I have to think about the area of your life where you want to do this. Lastly, I want you to think about this. Your boundaries.

Think about the boundaries that you have to set for you to make sure you can be disciplined, for you to make sure you can build trust and do what you say you need to do for you to be able to build your self worth. What's fucking with you right now? That needs a boundary? Because high standards are not the same as boundaries.

High standards are your own standards for yourself in the area of your life. Boundaries are about you setting them for other people, for yourself. Whatever it is that you need, please don't. Blah, blah, blah.

I'm not going to drink anymore. When this happens, I'm going to do that.

Like, think about the boundaries that are lacking in your life and what is required for you to actually step into that high standard for yourself. And if it's hard for you to do this, have a think about what you're currently doing right now that is keeping your standards low.

What are the behaviors? What are the actions? Who are they traced back to? When do they happen? Just get curious.

Get aware of what's going down for you in regards to your high standards in that area of your life. I know it's not easy. I'm with you on the journey. I'm currently doing this for my health and well being. If I don't do it, nothing's going to change.

And at the end of the day, fuck, if you don't have health, you don't have anything. Who cares about anything? Because I need to be here. I can't have my nervous system crazy. I can't have my cortisol level spiked.

I need to make sure my gut health is good. My brain works. Oh my God, my brain. This is my shit. Like, this is it right here. I never even think about my brain, but I have to care about my brain.

And so what's your area? What's the area where you want to build higher standards?

What's the area where, you know, you need to build that discipline, get those systems, atomic habits, how you can build your self trust, keeping your word to yourself, and finally building that self worth, that self respect, and that belief that you deserve everything that you want. Let me know how this episode landed for you. You can comment inside of Spotify. Send me a message on Instagram, wherever you want. I love you so much.

Next week we have an incredible guest. Oh my God. If you love personal branding and if you've been interested in that, stay tuned, my friend. It's gonna be an amazing episode.

And the book, pre order, is coming soon, so please make sure you're on my email list. Erika at the queen of confidence. Sorry, erikathequeenofconfidence.com.

click on the email, join the little list because I've got some really cool shit happening when the book comes out. I love you so much. Have the best day.

Thank you so much for listening. I freaking love you.

I appreciate you.

Thank you for your ears and your energy and your attention. Thank you for letting me into your world. And thank you so much for listening and tuning in to this podcast.

There are so many podcasts you could listen to and I deeply, deeply, for real, for real appreciate you listening to mine. Do me one big favor. One big thing. Please share this episode or this podcast with a woman who you know needs to hear this.

This is my mission on planet Earth, to serve as many women as possible so that we could show up, stand up, speak up, and create the confidence in the life that we desire. I appreciate you, my love. I will see you on the next episode.