8 Rules for a Better Life (They're More Like Guidelines)
8 rules for a better life
(They’re more like guidelines)
This article, blog post, or whatever you want to call it, was born from our love of new year's resolutions, setting goals and hoping against hope that a change in Gregorian calendar years will somehow bring about significant change in our lives.
You see, I too hope against hope.
But I've also learned that hope, while important, quickly becomes hopeless without considered action.
This post is about considered action; in a roundabout way.
It is inspired by those who have come before me in this industry. John Romaniello had his "Roman’s Rules for Success, Happiness, and an Awesome Life" while Jay Ferruggia had his "39 Ways to Not be Like Everyone Else".
Both of these men spent time in the trenches training clients for years, learning what to do, or not to do, to motivate and inspire others. I was even a client of Roman's for a while. I got the leanest I've ever been...good times.
So it seems fitting that I should want to put together a similar list, albeit much smaller, less funny, and (mostly) less about training.
It has also been inspired by a shift in mentality recently. An analysis of the ego (as in an analysis of myself) and thoughts on minimalism, capitalism, marketing, depression, death and the meaning of it all.
Yes I know, quite varied and heavy subject matter. In other words, I think too much.
But as a coach, my thoughts always go towards how I can help clients, and what it is they need help with. Their physical appearance is the obvious answer. But why do they want to look like that? What motivates them? What is the real reasoning behind their desire to move towards, what they believe to be, a state in which they will feel happier? Maybe this is for them. A way to navigate life without me being in front of them discussing squat technique or how burpees are the lazy PT's go to exercise to make a session seem hard.
So instead of the idea of a goal for this year, I thought maybe some guidelines for how to live your life day to day, especially as you get older. I think these are pretty solid guidelines (of course I would...I wrote the article) for life generally, but after the age of 30 or 35, your values become more solidified. Whereas from 18 to 30 or so, I'm all for people partying and getting a little crazy. Get it out of your system so afterwards you can focus on the things that matter most in life.
Enough of long winded introductions, let me guide you using the Force...
Exercise often, eat to stay lean and healthy long term
Exercise is a great way to look awesome naked, which is a good thing. Looking good naked won't necessarily make your life better. Instead, I'm looking at the need for exercise more from the idea of mental health and overall well being.
Yes exercise makes you physically healthy, which of course means you'll have a better mindset. But it doesn't mean you won't be diagnosed with cancer for example. However, exercise is the simplest way to make you more positive, to help you think more clearly and make each day more enjoyable.
There are two reasons I believe exercising is important (again, aside from the physical benefit of looking sexy).
It makes you feel really good: Yes it sucks at the time and makes you question why you're doing it (again), but get to the end, and you always feel good. Repeat this for enough days of the year, and your general outlook can shift to always feeling good (aka from negative or neutral to positive)
It sucks at the time: drugs, alcohol, sex, buying useless things...they all feel good at the time. They provide pleasure straight away without the need to work hard. Exercise however, only provides it's feel good benefit after the difficulty, making it even more enjoyable. That in itself is a life lesson.
I personally choose weight training as my go to exercise. In fact, I really do believe everyone should be doing at least 2 weight training sessions per week. (Oh need help with what to do in regards to training? Well it just so happens I've got you covered with that. Click here to find out more). But aside from those two days, I recommend you do the thing you enjoy the most, which includes, but is not limited to: walking, running, swimming, yoga, pilates, any team sport, rowing, hiking, mountain biking, gymnastics, tai chi, gardeining etc.
The second part to this guideline is eating to stay lean. In this case lean doesn't mean a six pack, but at the same time, lean obviously doesn't mean a "beer gut" or carrying too much more weight than you need to. When it comes to exercise, we often go to extreme examples of muscle bound guys and girls, but the steps required to achieve those physiques can put a massive strain on the body. Even high performance athletes in sports like Crossfit, mixed martial arts, and Olympics sports, to name a few, are subject to huge amounts of strain through both exercise and eating.
Eating to stay lean is really about not eating too much compared to your energy usage. As an example, if you were at a healthy weight range in your early twenties, there is no reason why your clothing sizes should go up as you get older. The exception of course being pregnant women.
This also means:
The greatest portion of your diet is vegetables with some fruits.
Limiting processed foods.
You don't drink alcohol often or in big amounts.
You eat slowly and mindfully.
There are exceptions to this of course. For example, at a party, there's no need to be a food snob, but equally, there's no need to eat (or drink) until the top button of your pants needs to be undone.
Also, many people will have specific goals to add more muscle, or very specific sporting goals, and that process often involves consuming more foods and calories than you would consume otherwise. Unless you have a specific goal and are training for lower levels of fat/higher levels of muscle and strength, simply eat to stay lean.
Catch up with friends often
In her book The Top 5 Regrets of the Dying, Bonnie Ware, once a palliative care nurse, talks about how people realise too late that they should have stayed in touch with old friends. It's easy to understand why this would be a regret. Think back to some of the most joyful times in your life, and I would bet most of them would involve a partner, a friend or friends. Humans are social creatures after all, and time spent with others fulfills us. In fact, in his book Lost Connections, Johann Hari lists a disconnection from others as one of the main reasons we become depressed.
I personally understand this. I have often considered an upcoming work week and said no to catching up with friends. Especially now in work that brings such fulfillment, I am often drawn more to my work and a self created to-do list or project deadline than to catching up with friends. But what happens if something is late in my work? What really, is the negative of the situation? This too happens to many of us.
But as we know, life can be taken away from us quickly, and missing a conversation with a friends (or time with loved ones) because of work or something we convince ourselves to be important just doesn't make sense.
Each week, contact at least one friend you haven't seen or spoken to for a while, and discuss life or any other random things you feel are interesting. Better still, see them face to face and make a genuine connection. If you feel you have no friends to connect with (this is genuinely an issue for many people, as discussed in Lost Connections), find them through a common interest. Not only will this make you more fulfilled, but it may hold off depression and actually help you live longer. Make memories with your friends!
Get sun, see more nature
When Spring and Summer rolls around, you're just in the mood to get outside and do more things. This urge is natural and recommended. You see, more and more we're surrounded by concrete and technology. We go from our homes to our offices in big steel cans with wheels, where we spend 8 hours under artificial light looking at a screen, only to repeat the travel process back home, where we spend more time looking at screens under artificial light. If we're lucky, we get outside and into nature on the weekend.
Everything we do as a society almost takes us away from nature.
Why spend time in nature?
Perspective: nature is grand, yet simple. In nature, we are just part of the scenery, not creating anything, not changing anything, just part of the world. This is a good reminder to us. We have fooled ourselves into believing we can control it all, and when we can't, we are thrown into disarray. Nature reminds us to control what we can and let go of the rest.
Calm: in a world full of instant access to everything, it's easy to get caught up in the "faster" and "now" mindset. This often results in us never being able to switch off, thinking the grind and hustle is the way to get ahead. Of course, we become more stressed and inclined to look for short term quick fixes to solve our ever growing problems. It becomes a never ending cycle. In nature we can let all of that go and connect to something simpler and much less egotistical.
Circuit Breaker: when we spend close to 8 hours in front of a computer or day after day in the same environments, we can get into a pattern with our thinking which can lead to errors or blind spots. A walk in nature can be the exact thing needed to bring clarity to your thinking.
Buy less
I sometimes wonder if I could possibly buy or want to buy any more stuff. Surely I think, I'll run out of things to buy. But no, every year there is some new technology or fashion trend to buy. It's at the point now where I just couldn't be bothered keeping up with the new thing. It seems like a never ending process.
Unfortunately, many people are more than happy to buy the latest thing. I have no problem with this (it's your money after all) as long as it adds no stress to your life, and genuine long term pleasure. This is where is the problem lies. We add stress trying to own the latest things. We are constantly spending our money, and then at the end of the month we think "why can I never seem to get ahead?"
This happens so often; it's called upgrading your lifestyle. I did the same. We get a pay rise and upgrade our lifestyle to match that pay grade, still not saving is any genuine way.
We do it to impress others maybe. We do it because we've been told that is what we should do. We do it because marketers are great at what they do. We do it for the pleasure, which unfortunately, wears off, and then we go through the process again. Here's a thought: you don't go out and get the latest washing machine with the latest features every one or two years, so why always go out and get the latest phone, tv, car or clothing? You don't need it. You know you don't need it.
There is a valid argument to this: "I work hard and deserve to spend my money how I want". You do. You also deserve to be financially free so you don't have to work non-stop for 40 years trying to get by. The aim is to be financially free, not to look like you're financially free. Stop keeping up with everyone, live a simpler life full of less things.
Do creative and difficult things
I can imagine the response from most people if I told them they should do creative things: "I'm not creative. I'm not good at things like that".
Hey I'm not that good at writing blog posts either, but here we both are...awkward.
But the truth is, creativity can be learned. You can learn to draw, or paint, or sing or any other task that might be classed as creative. In fact, the point is that we pursue something that we suck at, and requires us to create something from nothing, because the process of learning is the point. As is the process of doing difficult things.
Doing difficult things, especially if we choose to do them, makes us grow as people. They push us outside our comfort zones, they teach us to manage our emotions, be patient and focus on the long term. Basically they teach us all the values we should develop to be good humans.
Plus, once we've completed them, we can be proud of ourselves for pursuing something we knew would be hard, and did it anyway. And even if we do fail at it, we can still be proud, as most people would be too worried or fearful of failure of what others might think.
Do meaningful things
This is without doubt the hardest thing to do on this list.
Firstly, what is meaningful to you? And secondly, when are you going to find the time to do meaningful things?
We are somewhat in a trap. We need money to survive and the amount required seems to increase year on year. The simplest way to do is get a stable job, that pays enough to cover those expenses and a bit more. That means we often do things we don't want to. Security, quite rightly, is pretty high up on most people's needs. So we're left with an issue. We should, and honestly want to do, meaningful things, and yet we're tied into doing work that while it pays well, probably leaves us unsatisfied in so many ways.
It should be noted that meaningful things aren't necessarily difficult things, but simply things that you are passionate about, bring meaning to your days and life in general, and make the world a better place.
Start small, try new things, find what you enjoy and brings your energy to those around you. Ultimately this meaningful activity should make other people's lives better.
Give less fucks about opinions
One of the best (and worst) things about social media is your ability to give your opinion on so many topics, even though you're never asked for it. And what's even better about social media, is when people get angry that someone shared an opinion that isn't the same as theirs. It's like people are still surprised we're in some way different and have different thoughts.
Why do we get so angry when others don't agree? (Hint: you're the problem, not them).
Just as someone is entitled to their opinion, you're just as entitled to not give a fuck about it.
This is especially true of when we attempt to do something that brings us joy and satisfaction, or something that is meaningful, creative or difficult (refer above). We get worried about what others think, and so don't attempt the thing that would bring us the true joy we seek.
How many times have you thought "I wonder what person X will think about this? I better not do it".
Or "I don't want to show my work in case someone criticises it".
Sometimes, criticism is valid. But still, if you wanted to, you would not need to give a fuck.
This has limits of course. Don't do anything that would harm another person. Don't break the law for the sake of it or as a statement that you don't give a fuck.
But otherwise, care less about what others think, and do things that bring you joy or are hard and that you might fail at.
Keep in mind you're going to die
In an odd set of circumstances at the start of the year, my partner Jenny and I were listening to a song on a random Spotify playlist. The song, Duke Dumont's "I Got U", takes a sample from Whitney Houston's "My Love Is Your Love", and as we listened, we heard the familiar line "ask me what I did with my life, I spent it with you". Both at once we were struck at the simplicity and thought behind the line.
It was at that moment I thought to myself, what if, indeed, my greatest achievement was my love for Jenny?
My ego, for a moment, fell away.
It was a timely reminder that despite our desires to have the biggest house, the nicest (or most electric) car, and the latest iPhone, we all have the same fate. Sorry to ruin the ending of the movie, but you're going to die.
This quite obvious, but still disappointing news, is something people try to forget. It can lead to fear. But why fear something we have no control over? Instead, the thought, mindfulness or meditation, is a reminder on what we should do NOW and what things we really should care about. As the Roman Emperor and Stoic Philosopher Marcus Aurelius said: “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.”
For me, it's a reminder to live the good life, and those small things which cause us anxiety mean little to nothing.
And so, keeping this thought in mind, I believe, directs you in many other areas of life.
Exercise often, eat to stay lean and healthy long term, so you can make the very most of this one chance, because you're going to die.
Catch up with friends often, because you're going to die.
Get sun, see more nature, because you're going to die (and won't be seeing it again).
Buy less, because all those things are pretty useless. Why? Because you're going to die.
Do creative and difficult things, so you can maximise your time here, because you're going to die.
Do meaningful things, because you're going to die.
And finally, give less fucks about opinions, because they're going to die (and as mentioned earlier, you and I will too).
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