Why Do I Keep Starting Over Every January After 40?

Nikkiey: Most women have standards that are too low. A high standard does not mean that you never have a bad day. A high standard for myself does not mean that I don't take a week off of working out. What it means is that when those things happen, and they will, your standard is what you return to. Women with high standards have bad weeks. Your standards can only go as high as your environment supports. If the people around you do not share your standards, if your environment is constantly pulling against the floor that you're trying to set, maintaining that floor costs enormous energy. Energy that you should be spending elsewhere.

This is why community matters so much, because being around people who hold a high standard for themselves makes your standard feel normal. It makes it feel natural. People that are working out and moving: oh my gosh, this is normal. This is just expected. And when high standards are the norm around you, holding them stops being this daily fight and starts being just who you are.

What's going on, everybody? Hey, you guys. I'm just gonna kick off this episode right now, because I'm in a mood where I just want to, and I know I've said this on a lot of episodes lately, as I say this now, but I just want to lean in here, and I'm already in that energy. I just got done with my workout and I pushed myself to the absolute extreme, to where my central nervous system was just humming afterwards. You ever been in one of those positions after a workout? That's me right now. So I'm already in that energy of leaning into myself, so I want to be able to lean into you guys.

So with this episode today, I want to talk about your standards. I don't want to talk about your goals. I don't want to talk about your motivation. I want to talk about your standards. The baseline of what you expect from yourself, what you will accept to just be the norm for you, and what you consider good enough. Those are the single most powerful determinant of where you end up in the long term, where you end up in the program that you're on, where you end up in many areas of your life. And the hard truth that I want you to sit with today is that most women have standards that are too low.

It's not because you're lazy. It's not because you don't care. I think it's because the standards that get set are relative to where you're currently at right now. Does that make sense? They're not relative to where you are actually capable of going, which is really hard for a lot of women to put their mindsets in that type of category of, I'm actually capable of doing this. Unless you have somebody breathing life into you or somebody believing in you, which is so important, and I think it's why people get coaches and have somebody in their corner along the way on their journey. Because left to doing it on your own, you're going to get in your own way.

At certain points, you're going to talk yourself out of certain things, and you're just going to live to the standards of where you're currently at right now. I even just said this to our team on the backside of WarriorBabe, the people behind the scenes. Man, there's over 170 people behind the scenes of WarriorBabe. I just want to praise them for the work that they do every single day, for those of you who don't know that's happening behind the scenes. They are a part of the mission. They show up every single day breathing life into the babes, the women that are coming into the program.

But all that to say, I said to the team, our standards as a company are here. A lot of people's standards are here, relative to where they are. Think about it like a friend or a coworker or someone that you see crushing it at life and holding standards high. Like me holding standards high for myself: I'm not going to lower my standards to meet you where you're at. I'm going to be a good friend and a good coworker and a good partner and a good boss, and I'm going to call you to raise your standards to come up here, because you are so capable of what is up here. So that's what I want to lean into and talk with you guys about in this episode.

But first, I want to make sure we're talking about the same thing, because standards get confused with, I've got goals, I've got these things I'm aiming for. But standards and goals are not the same. Okay? A goal is something that you're working towards. A standard is the baseline that you hold of yourself, regardless of whether you are working towards anything specific. It is the floor below which you refuse to fall. If you guys could see me, and I just realized that I'm on video and some of you listen to audio, my left hand is higher than my right hand right now.

I'm holding them in a horizontal position, and that was just a depiction of what I was trying to relay verbally to you guys. I'm not going to lower my left hand to my right hand. I'm going to call my right hand to come on up to my left hand. And that's the same with the standards that you have, the baselines that you hold of yourself, regardless of what you're working towards with the goals you have in life. They are the floor below which you refuse to fall.

So this is my floor. My left hand being higher than my right hand is my floor, and I refuse to fall below that. Does that make sense? A goal might be, I want to lose 20 pounds. That's your goal that you're striving for. A standard is, I'm not going to skip more than one workout per week. These are standards that I live by for myself consistently. I'm not perfect, but the majority of the time, this is where I'm at. This is where I live. And I want to call every other woman that is listening to this episode to get there with me. It's possible.

You're capable of doing it. And on the other side of it is something magnificent. Not just you getting to the results that you want to get to, but the confidence that you build in yourself, the strength that you hold of who you are, the character, your self-worth. All of these things come with that. I hit my protein every day. I show up for myself even when it's hard to do it. I keep the promises I make to myself. Your goals have finish lines. I've met goals multiple times. I competed three times and left undefeated, and I had goals for each show. But somebody at church yesterday just asked me, do you compete? I was like, yeah, I did eight years ago. But my physique still looks like I do. I get asked all the time.

I haven't lowered the standards I held when I was in my competitive years. The goals have the finish lines; the standards do not. Standards are the operating system running everything else around it. It's the constant expectation that you hold of yourself, which determines your average. And your average over time is your life. Does that make sense? And the other thing about standards is they're not perfect. I don't want you to think about this as being perfect. I am not perfect. I want to be really clear about this, because I think most women confuse raising their standards with demanding flawlessness from themselves. And that confusion is what makes the idea of these standards feel impossible before you even try to set them for yourselves.

A high standard does not mean that you never have a bad day. A high standard for myself does not mean that I don't take a week off of working out. It does not mean that you never miss a workout or you never go over your macros or you never struggle. I just took a whole week off last week and just focused on walking outside. But that was my standard. It doesn't mean that you never have these bad weeks or bad days. What it means is that when those things happen, and they will, your standard is what you return to.

The floor is what you bounce back from, not the ceiling that you have to try and reach every single day. Women with high standards have bad weeks. I'm one of them. But they do not let those bad weeks become bad months, and allow three months to go by without hitting their protein for the day or missing all of their workouts. I can't tell you the last time I consistently missed a month of working out.

I've never gone a whole month not working out. That's what I mean. You don't let a bad week or a bad day turn into multiple months or a year, because my standard does not allow that. You got what I'm saying? The standard does not allow that.

So here's what I want you to understand about where your current standards come from, because I think this could be the key to changing them for you guys. Your standards are not set by you, not consciously at least. They were set by your environment.

They're set by your history, by the people around you, by the narrative that is in your mind, and by the experiences that you have had with your own body and your own consistency over time. Meaning, if you grew up in a household where movement was just not a priority, then your baseline for physical activity was set right there. Or if you spent years in diet culture, cycling through restriction and failure, your standard for what you're capable of sustaining is entirely shaped by that experience.

Or if the people around you, the women around you, your friends, your family, your community, have a certain relationship with their health and their bodies, their ceiling becomes your reference point, whether you realize it or not. Does that make sense? You are the people you surround yourself with. Most of these standards were not set by what you are capable of, but by what was just normal around you every single day, and by the history of what you've been involved with.

If you've been dieting for decades, that's just your standard of what you think you're capable of. Your standard is literally shaped by those experiences and by what is just expected, what is acceptable, especially if the people around you aren't working out. Your good friends aren't working out. Again, you are the five people that you surround yourself with.

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The problem with setting your standards relative to your environment is that your environment may not be aiming very high. A standard calibrated to the average around you keeps you average.

Does that make sense? Even if you know that you are capable of so much more, that's what you'll stay at. Again, going back to my left hand being above my right hand. Once you become aware of this, once you see it and you allow yourself to accept the truth of what you're seeing, you're going to have to call yourself to raise your standard, which we're going to get to. But I want to ask you something, and I want you to sit with it honestly. When you think about what a good week looks like for you, what does that actually mean?

Are you hitting your workouts every time? Are you hitting them most of the time? Are you tracking your food accurately and honestly? Or are you tracking most days and eyeballing the rest? Are you prioritizing your sleep, or are you just getting to bed early when things aren't busy? What does a good week actually look like for you? And now the real question is: is that standard set by what you are capable of, or by what you've accepted as a realistic baseline based on how things have gone before?

Because what went before does not have to be your reference point anymore. The past you didn't have the right information. The past you was following multiple diets, or was surrounded by people who weren't doing this. What I'm saying here is bring that awareness. The past you didn't have the right support. It's not an accurate measurement of the current version of you and what that person can do. So what I'm basically saying here is your standards should be set by your capability.

You guys are capable of so much more than what you are giving yourself, or how you are showing up for yourself on a daily basis. That is where your standards should be set from. Not from your history and what you've done, the people around you and what you grew up in.

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Now, I want you to understand how this plays out. When you have a low standard, when your baseline is flexible, when the floor shifts depending on how you feel or what is going on, your behavior will naturally gravitate towards the bottom of that range. Again, not because you're lazy, but because your brain is wired for efficiency. It will always find the lowest-energy path to meeting the minimum expectation: your comfort zone, what you're used to doing. If your standard is, well, I try to work out most days, guess what your brain is doing? Your brain is constantly going to interpret most as however many feels manageable given everything else that is going on.

And in a busy, stressed season, when you have a full, packed life going on, that number is going to trend down. And you never notice it happening, because technically you were still meeting the standard. You were still trying. But trying is not the standard. Doing is the standard. And here's the ceiling effect: the standard you hold is the highest that you will consistently perform. You might exceed it when you are motivated and extremely disciplined.

You may exceed it some weeks, but you will always come back to it. The standard is like gravity pulling you back to the baseline. So this means that if your standard is low, if your baseline expectation of yourself is set at a level that does not challenge you, that is comfortable, that does not require your best consistently, that standard will keep you at that level indefinitely. And again, not because you can't do more,

but because you decided, even without saying it out loud, unconsciously, that this is your current level. This is what you're accepting of yourself. So what I believe deeply is that most women are not living at the level of their capability. They're living at the level of what their standard is right now, and those two things are not the same. The gap between what a woman is capable of and what she is currently producing is almost always a standards gap. It's not a genetics gap. It's not that this person has more luck than that person does.

It's not a talent gap. It's not an information gap. You are capable of more than you are currently holding yourself to. The question then becomes: are you willing to push the floor higher than where it is right now?

So getting practical, because raising your standards is not just me having a motivational moment with you guys, pouring into you and telling you to raise your standards. What does that even mean? Okay, so step one: where are you currently at right now?

Identify your current floor. I need you all to get honest with yourself. This was in the sermon at church yesterday, where the pastor was saying people think it's just luck. It's not luck, y'all. It's taking responsibility and ownership of where you are in your life right now, and then doing the work. Period. So step one is, where are you at right now? Get honest. You don't have to beat yourself up. You don't have to tear yourself apart. Just be honest.

What is your actual current standard for your training? What is your current standard for your nutrition? What is your current standard for your recovery, your sleep, for the program that you're following? Not what you aim for in your best weeks. What actually happens in your average week? What do you consistently come back to when life gets hard? That number, that behavior, that is your current standard. So I want you to call it what it is. Name it. Write it down. Be honest.

Then the next thing: decide what the new floor is. Not what you want to achieve eventually. Again, not bringing the goals into play, but what you're actually committing to as a new minimum, the new non-negotiable baseline. And the key is, the new standard needs to be specific. It's a non-negotiable. Not, I will work out more. It's, I will strength train three times per week, regardless of what is going on in my life. Not, I will hit my protein, because what does that even mean? It's, I'm going to make sure that I hit my protein target every single day. Again, you're not going for perfect.

That's not going to happen. Sometimes you will exceed that. And when you fall back down, you're falling back to this new baseline level. Being specific is what makes it a standard rather than an intention. Holding yourself to these standards is what is going to pull you and show you what you are fully capable of, because nobody is operating, like I said, at their full capability.

The third thing I would say is you've got to hold the line. That's what I say internally to the team: hold the line, even when it's hardest. Standards are not standards until they're tested. The first hard week that you have, the family stress, the sick kid, the work crisis, the travel, is when you find out whether the new floor is actually the floor, or just a good intention you had when life was easy. This is the moment that decides and defines the standard that you set.

Not the easy week when it's convenient, but the hard week when it would be completely understandable to just let it slide. So here's what I want you to know about those moments: they are temporary. It passes. The circumstances change. The crisis resolves itself. The week will end. And when it does, if you held the standard, you have proof. You have proof that you can do this, and that proof becomes the foundation the next time this happens.

You set the standard, and by following through on these promises that you're keeping for yourself, even when it gets hard, you're proving to yourself that you can do it. You're proving to yourself that the confidence is there. And I'm not saying it's going to happen in one week. Give yourself time to implement these standards. If you have a bad week, it's okay. Get back on track the next week. But over the course of four to six weeks, the standards should be pretty set.

And the last thing I would say is raise your environment to match it. Your standards can only go as high as your environment supports. If the people around you do not share your standards, if your environment is constantly pulling against the floor that you're trying to set, maintaining that floor costs enormous energy. Energy that you should be spending elsewhere. This is why community matters so much. Not because you need validation that you can do these things, but because being around people who hold a high standard for themselves makes your standard feel normal. It makes it feel natural.

People that are working out and moving: oh my gosh, this is normal. This is just expected. And when high standards are the norm around you, holding them stops being this daily fight and starts being just who you are. That's why the environment matters so much.

Okay. To zoom out for a second, because I know that this episode is landing in September: September is the real new year, in my opinion. Summer's over. This is where people are getting grounded. Routines are returning. Kids are back in school. The chaos of July and August has settled. And there's this clear, specific, time-limited window right now where the habits and the standards that you set will carry you either into the holiday season with momentum, or to January starting all over. And I'll be honest, I've seen it. I've been in the industry for over a decade now. Most women coast from September to December.

They tell themselves, oh man, the holidays are just too hard to stay consistent. January is when I'll get serious and get back into it. The next few months are a holding pattern. It's okay, January 1st comes around and I'll get back on it. And they spend those months losing ground slowly, quietly, in ways that they will not fully realize until they step on the scale or get back into the gym in January and wonder how they got back here again in the first place.

It feels like the years just keep spinning in the same pattern, over and over and over again. The women who walk into January already ahead, who have maintained or improved their results through the fall, are not the ones who had more luck or more discipline or more time on their hands. They're the ones who did not lower their standard when the season got harder. They decided right now, with this routine and kids back in school and it being September, that the holidays

are not a reason to let the floor drop, you guys. A Thanksgiving meal is one meal. It's one meal. It's not a month. Christmas, same thing. The week in between Christmas and New Year's, I'd say if you're consistently following a plan all year round, you should be enjoying yourself that week. It shouldn't feel like, I'm rushing to get back into it on January 1. New Year's is not when people start, if they've been doing what I've just described.

It's when they reflect on how far they've come. And that week between Christmas and New Year's is like, ah, cool, I've been crushing it, I can be a little lax, because that's what consistency looks like. And that decision I'm talking about is available to you right now. Not January 1st. Literally right now. What standard are you setting for yourself in these next four months? Name it. Write it down. Hold yourself to it. Picture the version of you standing there come January 1st.

Imagine that. It's January 1st. You are consistent. You are proud of yourself for following through. You're further along than where you started, because you started in the fall. You literally get to make that decision right now. So the question is: will you?

So to wrap up the whole episode today: your standards are not a reflection of who you are. They're a reflection of what you have decided to accept. And decisions can be changed. It's not about the past you. It's about what you're capable of now. The floor is yours to set.

Coming out of this episode, whether it's released on a Friday or a Monday, think about it through the week or over the weekend. The ceiling is yours to raise, and you can do that by making a decision and an action plan. The woman who sets a high standard, who defines a real, specific, non-negotiable baseline for how she shows up for herself, and then holds it through hard weeks,

through busy seasons, through the moments when everything is pulling against her, oh my goodness, that woman will transform. That woman becomes more than she ever thought was possible, more of what she's capable of. And it's just because she decided that the old floor, that old standard where she wasn't operating from her full capacity, or not capacity, why do I keep saying that, capability. She decided that old floor was not good enough for who she is becoming and what she is capable of.

So my friends, raise the bar, hold it, hold the line, and then watch what these next four months can do for you. Okay? I love you guys. Thank you for letting me lean in and push you all to be the best you possible. That's what this episode was all about. See you guys in the next one. Peace out.

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