Ten Rules gleaned from Self-Help Books
In the interest of helping you save money by not buying self- help books, here are ten rules of life that are common
themes in them. (You are welcome, by the way.)
1. Take one small step.
When people want to make a change in their life, they often go for the big, dramatic, over-the-top types of changes. For instance, if someone wants to get into shape, they will join a gym, start pumping iron and jog for an hour and a half. This works for a week perhaps, and then it becomes too much and the person just gives up. Start small. Do a little thing consistently. It is small changes that make the most difference in the long run.
2. Change your mental maps.
There are always multiple ways to look at events in your life. How you interpret these events and how you envision them will make all the difference in the world. Problems become challenges. Roadblocks transform into opportunities. Failures are seen as learning moments. It’s not all in your mind, but it is mainly in your mind.
3. Struggle is good. Scary is good.
This was my mantra to my students when I was teaching high school. Don’t be afraid of the difficult things. Japanese students do better in math than American students, not because they are innately suited to math because of their DNA, but because they are allowed to struggle more with math. Believe it or not, sometimes a Japanese teacher will purposely give their students the wrong answer so that they will struggle more. The key to life is getting out of your comfort zone and stretching.
4. Instant Judgment is bad.
First impressions are important, but they are also deceptive, at times extremely deceptive. How many things in my life did I initially reject and then come to appreciate and love? To how many people in my life did I do the same thing? This is where the word RESPECT comes in. It literally means “to look at again.” Be careful of instant judgments, you may be missing something really important and vital. Look again.
Look deeper.
5. Remember the end of your life.
I was once told that we need to think about our legacy virtues instead of immediate gratification. We need to think about what will we leave behind of lasting value when we are gone. I’ve learned the hard way that sometimes your last interaction with someone may be the final interaction with them. You need to think about the long game.
6. Be playful
Playfulness is more than just silly, frivolous stuff. When we play, our mind works on a different level and is often freed to think in wildly different ways. I worry that so many of our young people are herded into select sports programs
exclusively and are not allowed to play freely. When children play freely, the rules are made up as you go along and the altercations you get into must be worked out without the benefit of a referee or umpire or adult. Besides all that, we human beings genuinely like playful people. Play!
7. Be useful to others.
Recently, I did a funeral for a man who was, for lack of a better term, a handyman. He could fix almost everything. These people are golden and we ought to appreciate them in our lives. And if you are one such person, I want to be your friend.
8. Perfectionism = Procrastination.
I’ve had several students who were perfectionists. School and life were horrible for them. Nothing they handed in was good enough, and thus they didn’t hand in anything. They were paralyzed by the suffocating attitude that if something was not exactly right, it was not worthy. So they often put
things off and drove themselves, their parents and me crazy. Let it go.
9. Sleep, exercise, eat, chill out. Repeat.
I have spoken many times about the need for sleep, proper exercise and nutrition. (I have difficulty with the nutrition part.) It is also important to chill. Far from being a waste of time, it can often be the break that puts things together in your mind and heart. When I work on a homily, I often write it out and
then forget about it for a day or so. When I return to it, I can often find new insights. Life is really rather simple: sleep, exercise, eat and chill.
10. Write it all down.
When I get really angry about something, I find it helpful to write a blistering letter. All of my gripes, all of my energy, all of my venom, flow onto the page. The act of writing is cathartic and healing. Many times just reading what I wrote gives me enough perspective to figure it all out. If I am still upset, I often send my vitriol to a close friend for a third party perspective. At times, they have told me to get over myself. At times, they told me to send the letter. Beyond that, when I hear a good story I often write it down quickly and put it into a file on my computer marked IDEAS and save it for a rainy day. The idea for this article was in that file.
11. You can’t get it all from reading.
Hey Rev. Kev, you cheated. That is #11 and you said there would only be ten! It is supposed to be ironic. You have to live your life, you just can’t read about it in a self-help book.