Here are 12 tricks I learned from the book ‘12 rules for life an antidote to chaos’, written by psychologist Jodan B Peterson. These life rules really help me a lot:
1: Stand Up Straight With Your Shoulders Back
If you present yourself as defeated, then people will react to you as if you are losing. If you start to straighten up, then people will look at and treat you differently.
So, attend carefully to your posture. Quit drooping and hunching around. Speak your mind. Put your desires forward, as if you had a right to them — at least the same right as others. Walk tall and gaze forthrightly ahead. Dare to be dangerous. Encourage the serotonin to flow plentifully through the neural pathways desperate for its calming influence.
2: Treat Yourself Like Someone You Are Responsible for Helping
We deserve some respect. You deserve some respect. You are important to other people, as much as to yourself. You have some vital role to play in the unfolding destiny of the world. You are, therefore, morally obliged to take care of yourself. You should take care of, help and be good to yourself the same way you would take care of, help and be good to someone you loved and valued.
3: Make Friends with People Who Want the Best For You
This is similar to the idea that you become the average of the five people you spend the most time with.
Don’t think that it is easier to surround yourself with good healthy people than with bad unhealthy people. It’s not. A good, healthy person is an ideal. It requires strength and daring to stand up near such a person. Have some humility. Have some courage. Use your judgment, and protect yourself from too-uncritical compassion and pity.
4: Compare Yourself to Who You Were Yesterday, Not Who Someone Else is Today
We only see what we aim at. The rest of the world (and that’s most of it) is hidden. If we start aiming at something different — something like I want my life to be better” — our minds will start presenting us with new information, derived from the previously hidden world, to aid us in that pursuit.
Then we can put that information to use and move, and act, and observe, and improve. And, after doing so, after improving, we might pursue something different, or higher — something like, I want whatever might be better than just my life being better.” And then we enter a more elevated and more complete reality.
“What could I do, that I would do, to make Life a little better?”
5. Do not let your children do anything that makes you dislike them.
It’s your job to ensure your child is properly socialised, and knows how to speak to people. Do not parent from a place of fear; be proactive. If you child behaves inappropriately, pull them up on it immediately.
6. Set yourself in perfect order before you criticise the world.
Don’t complain about the world, or lament all its failings, without considering first how you could improve your own life. Make your bed. Clean up your life. Have some humility. Be invested in your own self improvement.
7. Pursue what is meaningful (not what is expedient).
Things that are expedient might make you happy, for a moment. But do not pursue the things that give you short term satisfaction. Invest instead in what is meaningful, because it will make you a better person long term.
8. Tell the truth, or at least don’t lie.
We all lie far more than we think we do. Commit yourself to the truth, and if you can’t communicate that, don’t say anything at all.
9. Assume the person you are listening to might know something you don’t.
This is again an exercise in humility. It is also a tool in conflict management, and requires you to approach every exchange with curiosity and openness. The person you’re speaking to is no more of an idiot than you are.
10. Be precise in your speech.
Be direct. Don’t avoid the conversations that make you uncomfortable. Don’t shirk responsibility.
11. Do not bother children when they are skate-boarding.
Let children play. Allow children to confront danger and learn from it, instead of shielding them from the world.
12. Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street.
Appreciate the small things and practice a version of mindfulness. Approach the world with wonder.
Peterson’s book, of course, allows for far more complexity and research than can be presented here.
His work has become, particularly among young men, almost a religious text, with the ‘rules’ serving as the 10 Commandments of modern life.
Are these the guiding principles by which we now structure our existence?
It certainly is for some, and that’s worth thinking about.
Elizabeth Collins is a book lover and life coach. She aspires to motivate, to inspire, and to awaken your best self.
Dealing with lifelong limiting beliefs, fears and obstacles to success. She helps people increase sales, confidence, and success without spending a fortune helping clients internationally improve performance, communicate powerfully, achieve more and get the results they strive for.
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