7 RULES TO LIVE BY
I spend a lot of time thinking. Some might say overthinking, but I’m ok with that.
Perhaps lulled by the ritual of reflection at the beginning of each new year, one of the questions that has been haunting my mind is, “Am I showing up in the world the way that I want to?”
Sometimes I feel I am, but as equally, sometimes I feel I am not.
I started to consider the times I do and do not show up in the ways I want to and thought about what those look like. Who am I at those times? What are the circumstances, behaviors, ways of being and thinking that truly allow me to be the person I want to be, with the impact I want to have on the world and people around me.
From this reflection came my current rules to live by.
1. Focus only on what is in your control.
Have you ever tried pushing a heavy boulder up a hill? Sisyphus did. He didn’t get anywhere, except exhausted. That’s what happens to us when we expend energy trying to control things we have no control over.
Most of us have heard this concept. Much happens in life without our consent, desire, or will. As hard as it is to accept, we cannot control everything. Worry over things we cannot control in the future, or rumination over what happened in the past will not change anything and is wasteful of our energy. In every circumstance, however, we do get to decide how we want to respond; we get to choose how we think, feel, and what we do. The idea is to set our focus and energy there.
Focusing on the things we can control is not a new idea; it has been around at least since 3AD at the height of Stoicism. However, I have found this rule of living to be newly helpful in the realm of relationships.
When it comes to other people’s minds, we have limited influence. We have no control over other people’s thoughts or feelings. We cannot change people’s minds without their own willingness to change it. We cannot make someone feel something about us (not even the powerful witch Ursula could grant that wish to Ariel, the little mermaid), or not feel something about us. Nor do we have control over the stories people hold in their minds about who they think we are, whether true or untrue. In short, people will see us the way they see us and most of the time, changing their minds is like pushing a boulder up a hill.
I have spent a lot of my life there, but I no longer expend as much energy (in terms of worry and effort) in trying to change how someone sees me. Now (on good days) I try to take all that energy and redirect it into focusing on who I want to be and how I want to show up in my relationships, in my life, and even in the world. Am I meeting my own standards? Am I being the person I want to be in the relationship regardless of what the other person thinks? Am I doing the best I can do? Those are the things I have control over.
Our psychological energy is a limited resource; we can either spend it on trying to convince someone who we are, or we can use it to become that person we want to be.
This brings me to my second rule to live by.
2. Listen more than you talk. (Unless you are asking questions so you can listen more.)
I used to try to explain myself a lot. Let me explain. (See what I did there?)
I’ve always wanted people to “get” me. If I were being more honest, I wanted to be accepted, liked, loved even.
Yet, again, we do not have control over the contents in someone else’s head, so focusing our energy on the parts we do control instead (our own capacity for understanding), results in the greater impact in our lives.
Deciding to focus on understanding rather than being understood liberates us from the anxiety of having to change someone else’s mind and frees us to focus instead on whether we are showing up as the spouse, parent, co-worker, friend, child we want to be. There is a deep satisfaction in being the person you want to be, even if nobody really acknowledges it.
Working and listening to understand more than to be understood, not only transforms our relationships, it also has the power to transform us. There is so much we can learn from understanding another person. So (again, on a good day) this is where I try to focus.
3. Give without expectation.
When you move from asking what you can get from the world, to asking what you can give, your life (and relationships) change.
Here is the problem with focusing on the returns; humans are biologically wired to see the negative. Being able to spot danger in a seemingly benign situation was very helpful for survival back in the day when a sabretooth tiger could suddenly pounce out from behind some trees and have you for dinner. Self-preservation meant we are wired to see the negative over the positive. Meaning, if we focus outward on the rewards, we are more likely to see what we are NOT getting than what we are getting. You can see where that leads.
Also, we have no control over the returns!
When I think about my life in terms of what I am getting, I’m both at risk for being disappointed by noticing what’s not good, and I am outsourcing my joy to something I have little control over. By focusing just on what I can give, I am in control, and here is the best part: generosity has been scientifically proven to boost happiness. In fact, fMRI technology has shown that giving activates the same parts of the brain as food and sex! Even small acts of giving trigger positive emotions .
Focus just on what you can give. Joy follows.
4. Live every moment in full presence.
Never waste the gift of an experience - it may never happen again and likely never in the same way.
Like sucking every bit of juice from a slice of lemon, take it all in. Savoring can literally change the routine and mundane into the miraculous.
In some ways, this again, is about what we can control. The moment we are in is the only one we are guaranteed, and the only one we can manipulate. “Now” is the only space in which we can truly exert influence. We can decide to experience each moment fully and deeply or let it slide unnoticed and unremembered into the past. The difference is one of presence; how actively aware and engaged we decide to be.
It takes training and practice, but even one minute of meditation a day can help to improve your capacity for presence, and all the magic it allows into your life.
5. Mind your mindset.
Personal mastery over your mindset, I am convinced, is one of the most powerful tools for self and life transformation. Everything is affected by mindset: what we feel and what we do, is a matter of what we think. But the good news is, mindset is another muscle we can grow with practice.
There is a vast literature out there with lots of empirical evidence on the impact of mindset on happiness and life satisfaction. One mindset shift we can all benefit from is one away from judgement (of self and other) to growth, i.e., a belief that change is possible, that we are capable, and it just takes effort, sometimes a mountain of it. While a deep dive into specifics is not appropriate for this blog, type “Carol Dweck”, or “Fixed versus growth mindset” into Google, and you can find what you want to know.
Here is a quick and powerful practice: Whenever you are aware of a negative belief or thought popping up in your mind, ask yourself, “Is this thought serving me? What would be a more useful belief?” What you choose to believe is just that, a choice. Again, it comes down to what we can control. We cannot change other people’s thoughts, but we can change ours, and sometimes even one shift in thought can help you see things completely differently. Don’t believe me? The next time you are irritated at a friend or family member think to yourself, “what if this is the last time, I ever see this person?” Experience what happens to your irritation.
6. Let Go.
Whatever we hold on to becomes a weight. In other words, a tether to our soul keeping us stuck.
Holding on to anything negative: hurt, resentment, envy, sadness, anger, impacts us first and most. You can just let them go. It is a decision and within our control. The trick, I’ve come to believe, is it is not the emotion per se we need to let go of; remember, emotions are a result of our thoughts and beliefs. What we really need to release is the need to have things resolved, fixed, or changed. Releasing the need (which is a belief), releases the emotion. Once we can accept what was and what is, essentially accept what we cannot change or control, we can focus our lives on what we can control: the self-compassion and self-care we need to move through the difficult emotions, and to heal.
7. Live with your heart full of love.
Approach everyone and everything, as much as possible with a heart full of love.
Anything you do, do with love. Even the things you don’t want to do, because the truth is the only time we won’t have to do anything we do not want to, is when we are no longer alive. This privilege of life means we get to experience the breadth of all of it, the things that are joyful and beautiful and filling, but also the mundane, challenging, painful and sometimes even dark. There is value in it all, for what it can teach us. Approaching work and life with love allows us to appreciate and squeeze the most out of our one wild and precious life. I find it to be a form of savoring and gratitude.
One big caveat: approaching everyone with love does not mean you should let people treat you less than you should be treated, and it doesn’t mean allowing toxicity into your sphere. In fact, I recommend the opposite because as mentioned before, our psychological energy is a limited resource, and negative or toxic people usually take too much of it. However, we can always hold compassion and love for people even from afar.
My reflections at the beginning of 2024 led me to these 7 rules for life. People who know me, know I can be a bit of a rebel and I am not great at always following rules. That is ok, I am on a learner path toward growth.
These are my rules to live by, if you were to build your own, what would they be? I am curious!