We all know the old adage, rules are meant to be broken, but this is not one that I necessarily live by. In fact, I'm the kind of person that thrives on order and structure in certain situations. While rules can be a great tool for facilitating order and discipline, too many rules or rules that are too constraining can be destructive in various ways.
Let me go back to how I came to this conclusion about rules. I had a free session with a Tony Robbins coach after taking a personality assessment and I scored almost 100% in the cautious category, which I'm sure will come as a surprise to no one. The most striking piece of advise that she had to offer at the end of our conversation is that "YOU ARE F*&%@# IF YOU LIVE BY CERTAINTY". This of course caught me off guard, but started a thought process that resulted in my current view of rules.
What I realized is that I had been unconsciously living by certain rules and had no idea the impact that it was having on my life. I also began listening to a Tony Robbins audio program, which would've been laughable to me even a year ago, and he said that when a person gets frustrated with life or another person it's the violation of a rule, not the person or the situaton, that is the source of the frustration.
Lights bulbs begin to go off as I looked back at my life from a kid to now. What I realized is that as a result of my experiences as a child I created a set of rules for myself to give all those tough times purpose as well as to set a standard of success for myself. All of the anger and frustration that I have felt during my life is not because of my circumstances but as a result of all of those rules being violated. Those rules have kept me from feeling good about myself and acknowledging the successes in my life simply because they didn't measure up to my rules. Tony also gave an example. He said that he asked two men if they thought they were successful. One said no and one said yes. The one who said no was a CEO with a $1.5 million salary and 9% body fat. I'm sure you're thinking what I thought, which is how could this guy not think he is successful. His rule prevented him from recognizing his success. According to his rules he had to make $3 million and have 8% body fat to be successful, while the other guy said being above ground made him a success. Who do you think is the happier person?
The bottom line is do your rules empower or hinder you? The fact of life is that many things are out of our control and a good indicator of how your rules affect your life is to realize if your rules concern things that you have no control over. Everyone lives by and judges their life by a set of rules and in order gain more clarity about our lives, we have discern what these rules are and if they are fair to us. My rules haven't been fair to me and it's no shock that I have inflicted undue stress, frustration and disappointment on myself as a result. What is empowering about reflecting on this is that you aren't at the mercy of your circumstances. You can begin to redefine these rules in order to maintain an energy and passion for life in any situation and not just when times are good. I encourage everyone to do some self-reflection and start destroying the rules and standards that are hindering your happiness.
