The Roman poet Virgil once wrote that “they can because they think they can.”
Sentimental, maybe.
Also, possibly, a statement of neurological fact.
When you trace the root of action in humans, you don’t begin with motivation, discipline, talent, or will. You begin with belief: an implicit permission slip signed somewhere in the murky bureaucracy of the psyche, filed under the heading this is possible for me.
Standards are the invisible lines we draw, declaring what we will tolerate from ourselves, what we will pursue, and what we expect to happen if we try. But these lines are meaningless without belief. You can raise your standards until they scrape the ceiling, but if you don’t actually believe you can reach them, you won’t even try. Or worse: you’ll try in a way designed to fail, and tell yourself the standard was the problem, not the belief.