Written by a human, for humans, always.
A couple of days ago, I wrote an article...
How To Do More Than You Imagined Possible - The Rule Of Rules.
In the article, I discussed a rather simple concept...
That allows you to accomplish more in your life than you imagined possible...
Creating rules.
These are rules that you follow in your life...
Period.
For instance, in my life, I write an article every day and run a mile or more every day...
Period.
It does not matter how I feel on any given day.
It does not matter if it is the weekend or I am on vacation.
I write and I run.
The result of this rule...
Is that I have written over 1,300 articles...
And run one or more miles 800 times...
In equal numbers of days (I started the writing rule before the running rule).
I have not missed a single day for anything.
I also have lived my life and had fun along the way.
Now...
Here's the thing I wanted to dive into today.
When you create a rule...
You need to make it in such a way...
That the rule is unbreakable.
Now...
This sounds simple...
But most people get it wrong.
How do I know?
Last week I discussed how lacking a hard rule "leaves room for interpretation"...
Cracks that we then tend to use to stop doing whatever the rule was designed to get us to do.
But there is another extreme...
Where people design rules for themselves...
That they are doomed to fail eventually.
See...
Instead of creating an unbreakable rule...
Many people will create a rule that they say they will not break.
These are not the same thing...
Even though they sound similar.
Creating a rule we say we will not break has a problem...
What you believe you will not break on one day may be drastically different from what you may physically be possible on another day.
For instance...
There are some days when I write where I feel unstoppable.
I feel like I could write on a topic forever...
I have the time available to write on that day...
So I write and write and write...
And easily get over 1,000 words.
Now, I "could" make a rule that says I need to write 1,000 words or more daily...
But if I'm being honest...
That would not be an "unbreakable" rule...
And even if I told myself that I "wouldn't break it"...
It would become a problem for me.
Why?
Some article ideas simply do not require 1,000 words to write.
"Maybe" I could expand an idea that I have to reach 1,000 words...
But it would be completely unnecessary and would become overkill.
Not every good idea requires extreme levels of detail to explain and land powerfully.
Sometimes all you need is a single powerful sentence...
Which you can then expand on a bit to hit around 250 words...
But to go further would simply be overkill, repetitive, and a waste of everyone's time.
If I were to require articles to hit 1,000 words or more...
It would severely limit the topics I could write on...
Making it vastly more difficult to keep the rule.
But that rule would also fail to account for another problem...
Time and energy.
Sometimes...
There are other aspects to life that are incredibly important.
Today, I am going to an intensive for my brother-in-law...
Who has non-verbal autism...
Learning about tools and a home-care plan that is designed to improve his brain functioning.
He has been going to this intensive for 2 weeks, and I have been at every session...
To learn...
To understand everything that is going on...
To help my brother.
This is very important for me to be a part of.
I am also going to be traveling to visit some friends later in the day.
Being around people we enjoy being with is also very important to living a full life.
What does all of this mean?
My time is more limited today than it is on other days.
I started writing this article around 30 minutes ago as I type this sentence.
Here's the thing...
If my rule had been that I required myself to write 1,000 words or more...
It would have taken me a "lot" longer to come up with an idea of what to write about...
The pressure would have increased tremendously...
Not to mention how the pressure would have been exponentially worse due to a limited schedule for the day...
And I would have had to come up with an idea of what to write in that limited amount of time with that pressure...
Which would have been completely counterproductive.
That type of pressure...
Is a recipe to fail.
Even if you tell yourself that you "will not break" the rule...
By making it without taking into account the real aspects of how life can be difficult...
You will end up breaking the rule.
There are many days when 1,000 words, for me to live a full life, is just not possible.
That is the reality of it.
That would not be an "Unbreakable Rule"...
It would be a rule that, eventually, would crush me, and I would fail to achieve.
A truly Unbreakable Rule...
Needs to account for the real-life struggles, challenges, and needs that you have in life...
Where no matter what actually happens...
No matter the problems that arise...
No matter the other commitments that you have...
No matter what else you want to do in your life...
You will still be able to live up to the rule...
Period.
So for me...
My writing rule is 250 words daily minimum.
I can always write "more" than that...
But the minimum is something that I could accomplish even in the last 15 minutes of a day.
My running rule is a 1-mile daily minimum.
I can always run "more" than that...
But the minimum is something that I could accomplish even in the last 8 to 12 minutes of a day, depending on my overall energy remaining and muscle soreness.
The point...
Is that no matter what...
I can fit these into any schedule.
I can wake up early...
I can stay up a little later...
But I always have it within my capacity to do these.
These are truly unbreakable.
I do not just make a promise that I could accidentally break...
They are truly something I can always accomplish, so long as I am conscious and not in a life-threatening condition (i.e., there's nothing one could do if they are in a coma).
This is what I mean when I say that a rule is unbreakable.
You have to sit down and really consider this when you design a rule.
No matter what...
God willing...
You can still accomplish the rule.
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