As a kid, I really didn’t like rules.
Especially when those rules were things like:
- We can’t have dessert until we eat our vegetables
- Our bedtime is 9PM on school nights
- We have to brush our teeth before bed
- No soda before bed
- No, you can’t put LEGO up your nose
I remember thinking, “When I grow up, I’ll finally get to live life how I want! Rules are dumb!”
And then I actually grew up.
I realized most of those rules were because my parents were trying to keep me alive and functioning and not feral. Okay, some of them existed to keep my parents sane too.
But the fact remained: rules felt like a prison to us as kids…but that didn’t tell the whole story.
Rules can also set us free. They can protect us from our most glaring weaknesses, which not only can keep us alive, but can also give us the best chance to live a healthy, happy existence.
I was recently reading my friend Shane Parrish’s new book, Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results.
Shane is the creator of Farnam Street Blog, where he helps high performers get better at decision-making and optimization.
His chapter on “replacing decisions with rules” spoke directly to my soul, because I always use rules to protect me from…me.
Shane writes:
“When we make decisions, we often think of the goals we want to achieve and work backward to identify the means of achieving them.
We use our willpower to accomplish these goals. Once they’re accomplished, we often go back to the default behavior we had before. Eventually we realize we’re back to where we don’t want to be, so we begin the process again.
This approach is flawed. It requires constant decision-making and effort. Making all these choices requires a lot of sustained effort.
Why not bypass individual choices altogether and create an automatic behavior – a rule – that requires no decision-making in the moment and that gets no pushback from others?”
When we build rules, they allow us to make ONE decision that negates or simplifies all future decisions.
Rules can also help us navigate social situations where peer pressure from friends or colleagues might cause us to compromise on our goals.
If you’ve ever heard “come on, have some cake,” or “just one more drink!” you know what I mean. Shane says:
“In a quirk of psychology, people typically don’t argue with your personal rules. They just accept them as personal features of who you are. People question decisions, but they respect rules.”
Here are a few specific examples of replacing decisions with rules:
SODA: When we say “I shouldn’t have a soda…” we have to waste energy deciding whether or not we should, every time somebody offers us a soda, or we walk past a vending machine. Eventually, we cave.
However, if we say “I only drink a soda with dinner on Friday,” it’s black and white, there’s no decision to make. There’s a rule! We must follow it!
EXERCISE: On an episode of Shane’s The Knowledge Project podcast, Todd Simkin has a rule about exercising every day:
I find it easy to exercise seven days a week. I found it really hard to exercise five days a week. The reason was because every morning the alarm goes off at 5:00AM, it’s really easy to not have your feet hit the ground and get going. It’s really easy to say, “Well, I need to take two days off anyway. This can be one of the days that I take off.”
BOUNDARIES: When I started Nerd Fitness, I made a rule “I don’t accept free products or services.” This ONE rule has saved me from thousands of companies offering to send me free stuff or services, and then expecting a review in exchange.
I put this rule in place because I’m a conflict-avoidant people-pleaser! I made rules to protect myself from my personal weaknesses. (Note: I am also working on these things with my therapist!)
This also guarantees all the stuff you read at Nerd Fitness, or any product endorsement, is specifically because I paid for it, and I use it and I like it.
I made one rule 15 years ago, and it saved me from agonizing over a thousand decisions.
MY WORKOUT RULE: I never miss two workouts in a row. I don’t mind missing a scheduled workout day if a friend invites me to play golf or some life event happens. No big deal. I simply do the workout the next day, because I never miss two workouts in a row.
AVOIDING DECISION FATIGUE: Here’s my favorite rule which I shared on @SteveKamb on Instagram. Not all rules need to be boring! I like to have some fun with it:
What Are Your Rules?
The rules above are just examples that happen to work for me in certain situations.
Keep this in mind when you see somebody telling you what foods you HAVE to eat or HAVE to avoid if you’re trying to lose weight. Or you have to work out a certain way.
In every instance, you’re looking at a list of somebody else’s rules that worked for them. They might not work for you. Especially if those rules involve “I don’t eat carbs,” because carbs make life worth living.
I’d love to hear what rules you’ve put in place that help you spend less mental energy making decisions each day.
Would you hit reply and share an example from your life?
-Steve
