I totally agree! Set your sights high. Even if you don't completely reach your goal, you'll have something better than if you'd started with lower standards.

When asked in an interview what happened if he hit a block and could not write, Stafford calmly answered, "I just lower my standards". Mischievous and provocative, this is surely the best response to the wrongly applied inner critic that we can hope to find. Stafford's friend Robert Bly has described it as one of the most helpful statements about writing he heard in forty years, but I would go further and say it is simply one of the most helpful statements about life. I cannot think of any activity that does not benefit from this especially when we are new to it. Lowering your standards opens up the fixed, blocked, sense of self that says, "I can do this, but I cannot do that," and makes us more provisional, more curious and less afraid.