Are you writing the story of your life, or are you letting other people and circumstances write it for you? You might not consider yourself a follower, but here are a few signs you aren’t in control:
You don’t like your job – Maybe you picked something because it was easier or safer than your ideal career. Worse, maybe you’re just doing what your family pressured you to do.
You’re living paycheck to paycheck – The problem usually isn’t money, but your priorities. It isn’t hard for the stuff you own to turn around and own you.
You feel obligated to do things you don’t want to do. Your first duty is to yourself. You can’t save the world while you’re miserable.
Leading your life isn’t easy. It means freeing yourself from many different assumptions. That freedom can be initially terrifying and painful, which is why so few people do it. It is far easier to just follow the assumptions of society, even if it leaves you unfulfilled.
Here are 7 rules that can help you start building a life worth living:
Rule One: Never let another person dictate the terms for living your life.
Not your parents. Not your spouse. Not your kids. Leading your life means you can accept the input of other people, but the final decision is yours. This means that career choice, relationships, beliefs and way of life are to be judged by you, not anyone else.
This rule holds especially when you have doubts. Don’t let your moment of doubt become a weakness to be exploited by others. Not sure what you want to do with your life? Don’t sit passively and let other people decide for you.
Rule Two: Don’t allow yourself to be chained by consumerism.
The world is filled with stuff. Don’t let stuff get in the way of what is important. When you become chained to your stuff, you are no longer leading your life. Ask yourself: if you had to give up 90% of your net worth tomorrow to pursue your dream, could you do it effortlessly? If you hesitated, perhaps your ability to lead your own life has been weakened by your attachment to stuff.
Rule Three: Rule money. Don’t let money rule you.
Money is a resource that can be applied when leading your life. You can use it to reduce discomforts, focus on meaningful work and apply it to help you learn and improve. But if you’re living paycheck to paycheck, the money is in control.
Here are some goals to put yourself in a position to rule the money in your life:
- Maintain one year of emergency funds in the bank.
- Your lifestyle should expand at a slower rate than your income grows.
- Be able to drastically reduce your expenditures if needed.
Financial freedom doesn’t mean the ability to buy everything you could desire or live in luxury. It means that money becomes a tool and not a distraction in leading your life.
Rule Four: You come first in relationships.
Do you know people that can’t stand being single? They get out of one bad relationship only to jump into the next.
Why? Because they put too much of their needs dependent on that other person. Without emotional and possibly financial support, they can’t survive.
In any relationship you need to be the person that comes first. That means that while you might enjoy the relationship, it doesn’t become the major purpose in your life.
Your purpose and leading your life must come before any relationship you enter. The surprising fact is that when you do this, you are able to have healthier personal and intimate relationships because there is no need for jealousy or possession.
Rule Five: Never outsource your thinking.
“You can split up food between men, but each man must digest it individually.” – Howard Roark in The Fountainhead.
Leading your own life means leading your own beliefs. It means never accepting anything unless you can filter it through your reasoning and find it to be true. Think critically about everything in life. Chances are there are a lot of indigested thoughts floating around trying to bypass your mind and go straight to your gut.
Rule Six: Anything you lack can be trained.
Never accept a fatalistic view of life. So you’ve been told you lack the intelligence, willpower, strength or charisma to do something? Ignore them. So you’ve told yourself that you lack the talent? Ignore yourself.
Begin with the assumption that anything can be trained and you’ll find few exceptions. I used to be a shy, introverted kid. Recently some friends described me as an extreme extrovert, being unafraid to meet new people and having honed my abilities to speak in front of crowds. Begin with the belief that you have no idea where your talents are until you train them.
Rule Seven: Purpose comes from your creative faculties.
Want to know what your purpose in life is? Simple. Hold your hands in front of you. Now look at them. There is your purpose and means to do it.
Purpose is your ability to take the creative energies you have and communicating them with the world. You and I might pick different mediums, but the act of purpose is exactly the same. You could be a manager crafting the art of dealing with people, a programmer crafting the knowledge of algorithms or an entrepreneur crafting the art of a business.
Don’t worry if you haven’t found the right medium. Once you feel that great purpose for your life and it comes from within, that is your greatest asset. With that belief you are the leader of your own life.
Hi Scott,
Great article, but the general order of numbers is five, six, seven. Your rules go, five, six, five!
I recognise a lot of these points. So many years of being lead and putting my needs below those of others.
I am now completing my training in a healing technique called shiatsu. Although this may be another way of giving to others it is really a way of helping and understanding myself. Only through that self-knowledge can we help others to transform.
The next few months will for me be a transformation as I get out of that hated office job with some cash in the bank to start living my own life. To see where my own efforts and thinking can take me.
It was only when I started being responsible for my own skills and training that I discovered what I could do and think for myself.
Thanks for this excellent post.
Haha, you have a point, Matthew. I should proof-read moire closely. The numbers are fixed now.
What a GREAT post! The only addition I would make is that if these points seem overwhelming to the person reading them, don’t fret! Take baby steps to get it right and start living!!!
Phenomenal post, I’m starring it in Google Reader!
(PS: I believe there’s a slight typo… you say “nine” rules at the beginning and there’s seven.)
Great post! Great points.
I especially liked “Your lifestyle should expand at a slower rate than your income grows.” How true, and how many people do we all know whose lifestyle does just the opposite?
Great post, Scott. I think the most important thing is to follow your passion no matter what. I recently came across a quote in “Success Built to Last” by Jerry Porras, Stewart Emery, and Mark Thompson that captures it quite nicely:
“It is dangerous not to love what you do. It is dangerous not to be fully engaged. You must choose a path that you love, for better or worse. If you don’t love what you’re doing, you can be sure someone else will.”
Keep it up!
” Maintain one year of emergency funds in the bank.”
BWA-HA HA HA!
Yeah, right Good one, Scott.
How many middle class Americans’s salaries have been keeping up with or surpassing the cost of living for the last ten years?
Get a clue, lad.
You might as well have told people to grow wings and fly above their troubles.
You have a point that 1 years worth of expenses might be a bit ambitious, but I think the idea is solid, and I don’t think that having an emergency fund equal to a couple months living expenses is out of the question.
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Rule 4: you come first in relationships
My wife is very sick and requires a lot of treatment, for who knows how long.
You’re telling me that I shouldn’t care and just og on have fun on my own.
Sorry, no. That’s not a “life worth living”.
I think you are misinterpreting the meaning of Rule #4. It does not mean that everyone should ditch their loved ones when the going gets tough. It means that you should stay in a relationship because you want to be there, not because you feel you owe it to someone else.
I understand your point and think it may often be valuable advice.
However, I also believe that we sometimes DO owe something to someone else.
Yes, I completely agree with you on that.
[...] at Pick the Brain, I began reading the post “7 Rules For a Life Worth Living” with great [...]
[...] One of my favorite posts on the site is a recent one, but I feel it’s a good summary of some of the underlying ideals of the site. Check it out: 7 Rules for a Life Worth Living. [...]
[...] Posted on Noviembre 11th, 2007. November 7th, 2007 by Scott Young Print This Post [...]
My 19 year old son was hit and killed by a car 15 months
ago. 19 years I loved him. He was plenty talented and
intelligent. I was always the mother, giving of myself
and now, because I listened to myself and nobody else
about being a stay-at-home mom, I am lost. I am glad for
the time I had with him. But I feel I have to start over with not many skills and empty space on a job ap-
plication. I have to push through the grief and find
my way into something new, because if I do not, I just
might lose my mind. Authority to a 49-year-old woman
will not come easy. Unlike you, I think I am going to
have to find a way to embrace authority.
Respect, Jill.
From a Dad
[...] thoughts here – 7 Rules for a Life Worth Living from Pick the [...]
I swear by Rule Six (Anything you lack can be trained). Indeed you can learn to do everything – it’s whether you want to or not. Getting rich is something you can learn too.
Nice article; where is the image from? Wallpaper res version would be nice.
great article!
How to deal with those who want to break our Rule One?
[...] You could find this full article at Pickthebrain.com [...]
100+++ Great
I like your “commets”
Demarco
very nice blog really very help full to me
)))
Thanks allot
[...] Here are 7 rules that can help you start building a life worth living: The 7 Rules [...]
[...] Here are 7 rules that can help you start building a life worth living: The 7 Rules [...]
Even when I applaud the many postings and blogs that testify to the principals of perseverance, self determination and taking the initiative to chart ones own course in life. It leaves me with a question. When does self determination become a mask for unbridled narcissism and selfishness? There never seems to be a concern for personal sacrifice when it comes to raising children or caring for and elderly and helpless parent. There will always be commitments that are beyond our control that make us feel desperate and like a grown up human. We are not always first in relationships.
Hmm your ideas make sense but flaws like any one’s ideas.
You need some one some people don’t some people do in game you need team there no i in work or in team. In love or anything in this world. I will agree one part do live thru others opinion but even your saying that these are good guide lines then your telling people in way how to lead there lifes and if they follow them your rules are meaning less too. People live life to live life other for others but life is growing. Even my advice can be flawed but this just my saying and im not saying what your saying wrong but it is if people follow to letter.
true/ truths are flawed and in some way flaws are some kind of truth/ it also takes discourse to reveal complex side bars to any concept/ ultimately reaching a synthesis of ideas/ hopefully, for me, finding flexibility and avoiding ideological rigidity…move on now… be well
Thanks very much,i could have prevented my problem long time ago if i had read ua article.Anyway, i have da solution now!
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Now it’s not about the life you live now but the one after you die that counts.
Sometimes money does rule you, when you don’t make enough money to pay for the rent and afford food. This set of rules is not relevant in many ways.
[...] Thanks to: Scott [...]
YOU HAVE NO IDEA OF SADNESS OR WHAt suicide is about- it is is a private personal thing- you are on imposter taking advantage of those in need. you deserve your end time and i would like to be informed of when it happens- you people are a waste of space.
I mean, life now is important but where we are going is too. Kim don’t wish death upon people, it’s not a good thing to do. Peace.
just did not see anything that can help me It is hopeless thanks, good by
to pwh, i wish it was that easy. its harder climbing outta a hole then it is falling in, but its worth it in the end. im in the hole right now too, but someday it’ll b better, no matter how worse it gets!
thank u and god bless…..positive thinking is underrated and overlooked these days. thanx for the reminder, it made a difference.
This is such a great article and I loved it. I felt life in it self has no meaning and its up to you to create it. Express your self, don’t care what other will think about you, just do what your heart says, you will never regret it.