Following rules is like following directions.  It’s like knowing which way to turn when you encounter a certain street or a given landmark.  You don’t even have to think about it, you know what to do.  Knowing what to do makes it easier to do it.  If you’ve ever questioned whether you should or should not do something, (remember that plate of chunky chocolate chip cookies) chances are you will make an exception if you are not following a rule.    When you follow rules there is no room for exceptions.   You are either following the rule or you are not.

Having a rule gives you a road map to what to do next.  Is it a left on 22nd or a right? Follow your rule and you know what to do.

What if you don’t follow your rule.  We’ll if you don’t use your rule you discard it.  I have a rule for no yelling.  Does that mean I never yell anymore.  Unfortunately, no.  But by having a rule I have an expected behaviour that the everyone knows about.  If Dad is yelling the kids are the first to say “no yelling”.  This not only empowers me but also empowers them.  They know the rules and they know what is expected.

You make rules so that you can get to your destination.

Rules are goals of a certain action.  You follow a rule with the intention of having a certain outcome from that rule.  If you follow Rule 1 – Don’t panic, your goal is to be calm and efficient when you feel like panicking.  If you want to be relaxed and calm in your when handling any situation, this is a rule you will want to follow.

When you turn your goals into rules they become easier to follow and more relevant in making those goals come to pass.   A goal can be a big nebulous thing – you want more money,  a bigger house, a better relationship.  These can be expressed in general terms without any plan of action.

How do you create a plan of action?  By turning your goals into rules.   Rules are action items.  They describe how you will act or react.   It’s the consistency of action that makes  rule powerful.   A goal inherently has no action, a goal is something you desire.  While you can lay out a plan to achieve your goal you do not have to have a plan to have a goal.  A rule, however, is a plan.  It’s a plan to act or react in a certain way.  By creating rules that move you towards your goal you are creating a powerful plan.

Rules give structure to a plan and add more weight to the follow through.  If you have problems following through on a goal making rules will help  you.  Let’s give an example.  If your goal is to loose weight, then you will want to eat less and exercise more.  Hmmm maybe I can copyright that as the ultimate diet plan.  Anyway, most people will start out on a diet that they will follow for a bit and then abandon.   A rule is more permanent, you do not make a rule with the intention of following it just for a short time.  A rule is meant to be continuously followed.  However a rule that is not used is to be discarded.   As long as you use the rule you keep it.   This is not to say that rules are abandoned just that if they don’t apply any longer they are no longer needed.

Now you want to make a rule that you will continue to follow and use and will help you keep a healthy weight.  A rule needs to be consistently followed so you would not make a rule to eat only a 1000 calories a day.  Ok there are people who practice CR a calorie restricted diet in order to live longer.  They do follow daily rules of consuming a limited number of calories.  But for you and I, living on a subsistance diet is not what we want, we only want to loose a few pounds.  So we can make a rule to eat a healthy breakfast.  It’s something we should do and easy to follow everyday.  We can also make a rule that we will exercise in some way.  Now the rule cannot be stringent something we cannot follow or do not want to follow.  We can make a rule to walk whenever we can.  Now this rule at first seems not concrete, but if we remember that we only have a limited number of rules this gives it more weight.

The average person can easily follow and keep 7 rules.  Some will have no problem keeping 9 or even more.  But like the phone number our rules need to be ever present.   We have to know them in order to follow them and that means limiting the number of rules that we follow at any given time.  Seven seems to be the magic number and was first described by Millers famous study in 1956 “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information”.   Here Millar delineates that the memory span of a young is approximately 7 items.  While subsequent studies have shown that this number varies among individuals there is a limit to our working memory.

Some conditions make it more difficult to choose the rules you follow.  If you have a learning disabilities it can be more difficult to follow directions and as a result more difficult to follow rules.   But if you have a learning disability you can choose your rules it just sometimes can be more difficult to do so.  If you have a neurological disorder such as Alzheimer’s or a mental disorder such as schizophrenia then, depending on the severity of the case, you will not be able to follow rules that you choose.   As long as you have the ability to recognize that you are following rules and that those rules are created by you then  you can actively choose which rules you want to and will follow.   This is the case for the vast majority of people and most likely the case for you.  I know of  no scientific studies about the qualifications on being able to rules.  But it follows that if you cannot realize that you are following rules then it will not be able to make changes to those rules that you follow.

First it is important that you know what rules you are following.  It would take you way to much effort if you were to think about what rule you were using as you were using it.  That is why you process your rules subconsciously, so you don’t have to think about it, so that it is a natural reaction for you.  That is also why you think it is  build in component or your nature, not rules you choose.  Your subconscious mind is a powerful tool that not only allows you to breath but allows you to process information quickly and helps create your persona.

How do I know which rules I follow?  Ask your friends.  Your friends might not know them as rules you follow but as personality traits.  If you ask your friends what they know about you, inverably they will have an accurate list of they can count on you to do and your quirks.    Your quirks, believe it or not, are actually rules you follow.   We like consistancy of behavior, we like to be able to count that our friends will act a certain way.  Our friends act this way because of rules they follow and we do to.

What you think of as your personality types are just rules that you follow.  Whether you are a type A or laid back you are that way because of the rules you create.  This can be difficult to understand particularly since you were raised to believe that you are a certain way because of your nature.   This is correct from a certain point of view.  Your nature as well as your nurture, how you were raised, determine who you are and what you do.  But they do this by influencing the rules you follow.  You are more likely to follow a rule that your parents followed too.  Or just as likely you will follow a rule that is the complete opposite of the rule that your parents followed.

Another way to find out the rules that you follow is to answer the question:  I always ….  If you are doing something consistently then you are following a rule.  “I always get up early” makes you a morning person but also has you following on of Benjamin Franklins rules “Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy wealthy and wise”.  Somewhere along the way you enjoyed getting up early, maybe it was to enjoy the quiet or to get a jump start to your day.  It made you feel good and then you, that’s right you, decided that getting up early was good.  And now getting up early is good is a rule that you follow.  That is what makes you a morning person, following the rule that getting up early is good and not only that when you get up early you feel good.  Of course if you are not a morning person, getting up early certainly does not feel good.  Sleeping in makes you feel good and following this rule, sleeping in is good, makes you happiest.  If you create a rule and you do not follow it it makes you unhappy and sometimes miserable.  You want things to be different.   You essentially have two choices, 1) follow the rule you made or 2) create a new rule to follow.  Nothing will make you miserable faster than not following a rule that you’ve made.

What I’m talking about is your own set of personal rules.  These are you that you made up, yup you made them up out of thin air.  You follow this set of personal rules daily and deviating from them gives you the heeby-jeebies.   I know some people that can’t comprehend why anyone would not follow their rules.  How could you buy something without looking at the price?  They stand in disbelief, believing that some insanity must reside inside the person who would shop without comparison pricing.

This is a rule that that person follows – don’t buy until you find the lowest price – and it works for them.   They are not even aware that this is a rule they follow, it is just something they do.  You have rules that you follow that you are not aware of.  If you stop and think about why you do what you do, you will find a rule behind it.  And us being who we are we think the rules that we follow are the ones everyone else should follow.

But you don;t have to live that way, blindly following rules that while you made, you don’t control.   You can control you your rules or at the very least be aware of them so that they do not control you.  I’m not saying the rules you follow are bad, they work for you, but you can create and follow rules that will help you become the best that you can.

Are you satisfied with where you are in life today?

Do you not struggle during the day?

Do things come easy for you?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are following rules that are not allowing you have all the things you want.  Wouldn’t you like to go through the day without struggling?  What would it mean to you if things came easy to you?  They can you just have to be aware of the rules you follow and start following the rules that will create the life you want.

How do you do that?  Start by writing down what you think other people think about you.  Huh? We all have ideas of what others think about us.  You have a reputation that you live up to.  You live up to this reputation because you are following rules that you believe are right.  You follow rules that you think you have to follow even though they are rules that you created.  Now your thinking, I like my rules, that is why I created them in the first place.  If I didn’t like them I would not follow them.  That’s true, not only do you like your rules but you think they are right and true.  Why wouldn’t you follow true and right rules.   Short answer, you do, but you also want to follow rules that help you live the life you want to live

How rules can change your life.

Looking at it from a childs point of view.

How rules can change your life.   Did you know that are disciplined not only live longer but lead happier lives.  This book is about putting meaning back into your family life and focusing on what is most important for you and your family.  In these economic challenging times refocusing back on that which is our purpose grounds us.   Understanding our values and problems shines a light on who we are and who we want to be.

How can family rules change this for us?  They create a foundation on which we can build our values and change the way we react to the world around us.  How do we know what is good?  In reality we can’t.  Determining if something is good or bad is all about our perspective and where we are sitting to view what is happening to us.  Often when people talk about turning bad things that happen into a positive, they are just shifting their viewpoint to look at it in a different way.  In reality nothing has changed but how they look at that “bad” thing that happened to them.  We have the opportunity to do that every day.

Family rules is about seeking out each day in wonderment.  What will happen this day that will surprise and amaze me?  It’s like that new car you are looking at.  When you decide on a make of a vehicle all of a sudden you start to see them everywhere.  I remember when we were looking to buy a minivan.  No I did not mistype porsche.  When we were looking at minivans we saw them everywhere and when we decided on a make, it seemed everytime we went out there one was.  It’s the same with looking at things to be amazed at, the more you look the more you will find.  Not only that, just like the make and color, the more focused your looking the more focused your finding.

I love the definition of wonder found at Merriam Webster: “rapt attention or astonishment at something awesomely mysterious or new to one’s experience”.   If we start to look for something awesome and new to our experience we undoubtedly will find it.  If I told you that this day something wonderful would happen, but I did not tell you when, you would constantly be looking for it and at the end of the day you could tell me what happened that was wonderful.  However if I do not tell you before hand and simply ask you at the end of the day what happened that was wonderful, most likely you would say nothing happened.

What was the difference in your day.  Most likely nothing, just the expectation and paying attention.  If you expect something and look for it you have a much greater chance of finding it.  Like the classic vase/portrait picture.  If I tell you here is a picture of a vase you will certainly see that.  Look at the picture below can you see the vase.  Now if I tell you it is a picture of two people facing each other you will certainly see that.   Your expectation of what is there colors what you actually see.  That is why when you are thinking about a type of car, that type of car starts to appear all over the place.  Are there actually more cars, did you attract them with your thoughts, nope you just started to notice them and the noticing changed your experience.

Facing the new day with a sense of wonderment, looking for something that will awe or amaze us, changes our how day unfolds.  Danial Pink in his book, Looking from the Right Side of the Brain, describes having a design notebook, where you note down the things you encounter of good design.  What happens, you start to make a distinction of what you consider to be good design and you notice good design everywhere.

Seven Rules to Rule your Life

Seven Rules for Success & Happiness

Creating Family Rules

Family Rules for Business

How to create rules for your family

Great family care through rules

Rules to love and live by

Create family harmony by creating rules together

How to include your family by making rules together

The family that rules together stays together

Loving your family through rules

Family guide for conduct and action

Prescribed guide for family living

Creating fundamental principles

Putting values into practice

Framework for family harmony

Direction for family management

Rules for family mastery

Blueprint for family cohesiveness

Recipe for family rules

Formula for family success

Guidelines for creating rules

Principles to create and follow

code, constitution, decalogue; act, law, ordinance, statute; command, decree, dictate, directive, edict, fiat, order; axiom, fundamental, maxim, precept; moral, principle, value; prohibition, restriction; convention, custom, habit, manners, mores, practice (also practise), tradition, way; blueprint, canon, formula, guide, guideline, recipe, standard

A magician lived at the dodgy end of town.  He was known for his parlor tricks but some say he had real magic.  The boy had heard of this and went to see the magician for help.  The magician had no time for the boy, he was busy, and considered the boys presence a nuisance.   But the boy was persistent and kept talking about his longings and the articles he wanted.

The magician grew weary and took the boy outside.  As they were heading out the boy said, “I wish I had …”, upon which the magician interrupted.   If it’s only wished you desire that’s easy, “you only need a wishing star”.  He looked up at the night sky and found the biggest star rising out of the East.  He told the boy, “You can make a wish upon this rising star, but you must make the same wish every night until the wish comes true, only when your wish comes true may you have another wish”.  The boy thought this was easy and went away excited for all he could wish for, knowing it would soon be his.

The next evening the boy went out and wished for a dog on the rising star.  He did this again the next night and the night after that.  He soon started to see dogs everywhere.  There were big dogs and small dogs it seems on every street.  He started to notice that there were more dogs at the west side of town and he went there more, often bringing left over scraps with him.  He continued to make the same wish every night.  On the seventh night, he noticed a dog was following him.  When he got to his house, the dog was right behind him.  He let the dog in, fed him and they have been together ever since.

Now the boy moved on to another wish, he wanted a bicycle.  He went out in the evening with his new wish and wished upon a star.  After several nights the boy started to see bicycles everywhere.  There were bicycles of many colors and sizes.  He noticed, it seems, every bicycle on every street.   After the seventh night he noticed a red bicycle in a shop window just like the one he wanted.  It was on sale for half price and the boy had enough money to buy the bike, which he did on the spot and rode the bicycle excitedly home.

Now he could wish for something else.  But he got thinking if there were only a certain number of wishes he could make what did he want most.  He made a list of those things most important to him.  He then went back to the magician.  He eagerly told the magician all that had happened and relayed his trepidation that he would run out of wishes that would be granted.   The magician laughed.  “How many wishes do you think you will get”, he asked.  The boy replied, “In the story about the magic lamp there was only three wishes, that would mean I only have one left.”

The magician looked at the boy carefully saying, “The magic is not in the star, the magic is in you.  By focusing on one wish until you got it, you made that wish come true.  You kept looking for opportunities for making the wish come true.  All you need to do is focus and look for opportunity and any wish you want will come true.”

This is the start to Family Rules, previously known as Creating Family Rules, which is a book about our family rules and how we went about creating them.  It will also detail others’ experience putting these rules into practice.  The book has 200 pages which is divided into 20 chapters.  Our family rules are:

1. Don’t Panic

2. Keep going/don’t give up

3. Try something different

4. Stick together

5. Take care of your family

6. Control yourself

7. No yelling, speak politely