--- title: "The Standard Was Never the Problem" id: "21602" type: "post" slug: "the-standard-was-never-the-problem" published_at: "2026-09-06T23:00:00+00:00" modified_at: "2026-09-06T10:28:09+00:00" url: "https://keithblakemorenoble.com/the-standard-was-never-the-problem/" markdown_url: "https://keithblakemorenoble.com/the-standard-was-never-the-problem.md" excerpt: "The standard and the punishment arrive together, so you assume they are one thing. Separating them changes rather a lot." taxonomy_category: - "Mindset" - "Overachieving" - "Patterns" - "Productivity" - "Wellbeing" taxonomy_post_tag: - "accountability" - "Inner Critic" - "Responsibility" - "self-punishment" - "standards" --- [Skip to content](#content) # The Standard Was Never the Problem ![Image](https://es47n9tchpc.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Blog-Featured-Image-The-Standard-Was-Never-the-Problem.jpg?strip=all&sharp=1&lazy=1) - Published September 7, 2026 The standard and the punishment arrive together, so you assume they are one thing. Separating them changes rather a lot. [PrevPrevious blogThe Confidence of Freddie Mercury](https://keithblakemorenoble.com/confidence-freddie-mercury/) #### Table of Contents There’s a deadline. It matters. A lot. You miss it anyway. The work you’ve been carefully creating and double-checking ends up going out with an error in it. You promise to do something, but despite your best efforts it doesn’t quite go as planned. In every case, two things happen at once, as if they were actually the same thing. The first one, the useful one, is that you spot the gap between what you wanted to do and what you actually did. “This shouldn’t have been there, here’s where it went wrong, here’s how I fix it”. The second one, though, is rather less useful – it’s the self-punishment. The inner voice that turns on you, replaying the mistake over and over at 3am, turning into a hard verdict about what kind of person you must be to have messed up like that. The chances are that you’ve experienced these two happening as a single event for so long now that you assume they are all part of the same thing. They are not. And, as it turns out, separating them changes quite a lot. ## Two Things That Arrive As One Let’s take a look at what each part actually is. The standard, that’s a value. It reflects what you care about, how seriously you take what you do, and the levels you will uphold come what may. Absolutely nothing we are discussing here asks you to lower that one iota, because your standards are not the problem and they never were. The punishment, however, that’s something else entirely, and it has nothing to do with the standards which it claims to be protecting. When you fall short of a standard, there’s a piece of information immediately available – this fell short, here’s the gap. That information is very useful – it’s how anything gets better. Then, the punishment arrives – and when it does, ask yourself what the punishment actually added. Did it focus the information? Did it make you more likely to act to correct the issue? Or did it simply hurt while the information sat there, unchanging, already complete? When you ask that openly and fairly, the answer can often feel uncomfortable – the punishment has one result; pain. And by any measure, pain is not a contributor to good quality. ## The Person Who Carries Everything There is a type of overachiever for whom this pattern runs especially deep, although it can run for any overachiever (and often does, if we are honest with ourselves about it). They take responsibility for everything – if something needs doing then they’ll do it. Because if they don’t then they assume it just won’t get done. They are the person everyone else relies on, the person willing to step up when others hesitate. Yes, it makes them valuable, but it also makes them tired. Here’s what happens to that person when something goes wrong – and not just their own work, but anywhere in their vicinity. Could be a dropped ball four desks away, or it could be a deadline someone else missed; either way, a problem which was never theirs to own, yet they take it on. And then, the worst bit, they punish themselves for failing to meet a standard which they’d never even agreed to in the first place. If you make yourself accountable for everything without ever quite deciding to, then by definition you constantly fall short, and out comes the stick to beat yourself up over it. Every single day. All of which is exhausting. I worked through this with someone who was experiencing exactly this. What struck them, once they took the time to look, was not the size of their workload. Rather, they were struck by how much of their energy went into punishing themselves rather than actually int the work. ## An Experiement The belief underlying all of this is a simple one – take away the punishment and the standard falls. But is that actually true? There’s a simple way to test that out. Over the next week, any time you fall short of something which matters to you, I invite you to do the following – 1. Extract the information. What fell short? What was the gap?What could you do differently next time? Write all of this down if you find it helps. Either way, keep this part, because this is the useful part. 2. When the punishment inevitably arrives, decline it. Don’t suppress it, don’t argue with it, just decline to pick it up this time. 3. What now what happens to your standard. Over the years I’ve seen a lot of people d this experiment, and their results are pretty consistent – the bar doesn’t move, the standard doesn’t slip. In fact, the problem often gets resolved faster, because they are not wasting time on the self-punishment stage. All of which suggests that if the punishment was never holding the standards (which it wasn’t), then all those years of self-punishment were a price being paid for no good reason. Sure, you paid the price in good faith, because somewhere along the way you were taught that the unishment was necessary to hold the standard. But now that you know differently, you can act differently… ## Delving Deeper If this resonates with you, then have a proper look at the last time you fell short, and work out how much of what followed was information and how much was simply punishment, because the ratio is usually rather surprising. This is exactly what The Overachievers Club is working through this month. The current series, The Inner Critic, is exactly what we are exploring throughout September in [The Overachievers Club](https://KeithBlakemoreNoble.com/work-with-me/the-overachievers-club/) over the course of 8 modules which look deeper at where the voice came from, what it is protecting, and how you can maintain your standards while retiring that voice. If you prefer something a little more relaxed and fun, take [The Overachiever Quiz](https://KeithBlakemoreNoble.com/work-with-me/the-overachievers-club/what-kind-of-achiever-are-you/?#quiz) – 10 fun questions to find out what kind of overachiever you are, and what to do with that information. ## Connected Podcast Episode ### 034 – Raising The Bar Without Punishing Yourself The standard you hold and the punishment for missing it are two separate things. Here is what happens to your standards when you put the stick down. [https://keithblakemorenoble.com/podcast/009-operating-from-inherent-worth/](https://keithblakemorenoble.com/podcast/009-operating-from-inherent-worth/) [Listen…](https://keithblakemorenoble.com/podcast/034-raising-the-bar-without-punishing-yourself/) [https://keithblakemorenoble.com/podcast/034-raising-the-bar-without-punishing-yourself/](https://keithblakemorenoble.com/podcast/034-raising-the-bar-without-punishing-yourself/) ## Relevant Related Blogs and Episodes [https://keithblakemorenoble.com/the-responsibility-trap/](https://keithblakemorenoble.com/the-responsibility-trap/) ### The Responsibility Trap You know you take on too much. But knowing hasn’t changed it. Here’s the real reason overachievers keep accumulating responsibility, and what to do about it. [Read more…](https://keithblakemorenoble.com/the-responsibility-trap/) ### Pressure Is Learned, Not Inherent Pressure can drive results, but it doesn’t have to be permanent. A thoughtful look at overachieving, conditioning, and sustainable performance. [Read more…](https://keithblakemorenoble.com/pressure-is-learned-not-inherent/) [https://keithblakemorenoble.com/pressure-is-learned-not-inherent/](https://keithblakemorenoble.com/pressure-is-learned-not-inherent/) [https://keithblakemorenoble.com/podcast/006-when-high-standards-turn-into-self-pressure/](https://keithblakemorenoble.com/podcast/006-when-high-standards-turn-into-self-pressure/) ### Episode 006 – When High Standards Turn Into Self-Pressure Why do high standards feel heavy? Discover how to spot when they turn to self-pressure, and the mindful shift for sustainable success. [Listen…](https://keithblakemorenoble.com/podcast/006-when-high-standards-turn-into-self-pressure/) ### Episode 005 – How Responsibility Quietly Expands Discover why overachievers silently absorb responsibilities, and how awareness can help reclaim rest and balance. [Listen…](https://keithblakemorenoble.com/podcast/005-how-responsibility-quietly-expands/) [https://keithblakemorenoble.com/podcast/005-how-responsibility-quietly-expands/](https://keithblakemorenoble.com/podcast/005-how-responsibility-quietly-expands/) #### Keith Blakemore-Noble Keith Blakemore-Noble is The Overachiever’s Coach. For over sixteen years he has worked with driven, capable individuals to identify and restructure the internal patterns that keep them stuck despite their success. A former Chartered IT Professional and Fellow of the British Computer Society, Keith brings a systems thinker’s precision to mindset change. He is the founder of The Overachievers Club, host of The Overachievers Podcast, and author of six published books including The Masks We Wear and AntiManipulation, with his forthcoming Overachiever-based book in development. He uses Mindset Mastery, his bespoke blend of hypnosis, NLP, and coaching, to create rapid, deep, and lasting change.