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: 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 Five: 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. Begin
with the belief that you have no idea where your talents are until you
train them.
Rule Six: Purpose comes from your creative faculties:
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.
Source: 7 Rules for a worthy life