How To: Set Rules

I feel like self restraint is often one of the most difficult things in life to achieve. The trick with self restraint is that, most often, you're only accountable to yourself and only you know if you've been dishonest, cheated, or bent the rules a little too far in your own favor. If you're setting rules, guidelines, edge markers, whatever for yourself you are the only one who really knows when those stipulations have been broken. It's easy to give yourself a pass. It's simple to say "Just this once." It seems common to make an excuse and dress it up as a well though justification of circumstances. Rules, despite what the world might tell you, were not  meant to be broken. They're established by ourselves and our peers to keep order, to maintain control, and to keep us safe from ourselves.

But how do we set rules?


The answer: Set the bar high but not too high. Find the line, your limit, the point of no return, and then set the standard a little above it. If you're on a diet and can resist sweets at breakfast and dinner but not lunch, then stretch above what you know you can do and set the rule a little higher. Don't have them at any of the three meals. If you know you're prone to falling into toxic relationships and know you can resist dating then limit yourself to who you're talking to romantically and be upfront with the person. If you know that you shouldn't watch more than two hours of tv a night limit yourself to just one. You'll find that when you set your rules a little higher than what you can do your actions shift and your higher standard slowly but surely changes from a could do into a can do and finally into a did do.

The end game here is this: set your goals, your rules, your standards a little higher than what  you know you are already capable of achieving and soon enough your abilities will stretch and you will be made better. Set a rule, don't make excuses, hold yourself accountable, and you will succeed in life.