Today’s MondayMotivator: Want to stick to your rules? Make it personal

Posted by Spike MondayMotivator

IMG 0497 1024x768 - Today's MondayMotivator: Want to stick to your rules? Make it personal

Good morning to you!

The individual that is, that you see yourself as. The ‘you’ that must be allowed to be free and do whatever you please.

The ‘you’ that means you have split from your family and struck out on your own. Forging your individual path.

The individual ‘you’ that keeps to themself and pulls away from family and the community and creates your own rules.

Go you!

So, how’s that working for you?

The entire you. The you that encompasses more than just material needs. The you that includes your spiritual and human needs.

How’s that working?

Based on the feedback from the world around me, not that great.

Those human needs don’t seem to be met by the individualism and capitalism western society has thrust upon us. Yep, I went there. This is not a new problem.

St. Benedict recognised that individualism in western society wasn’t working 1,500 odd years ago and realised that rules were the answer. Nothing complicated but a simple set of rules that allow us to be part of something bigger than ourselves and work towards bigger and important goals.

He’s the guy who invented monasteries. Not boring ones either. He saw great value in architecture and art. Great art that is. Get ready for an opinion, not the crap we see paraded as art since Duchamp submitted a signed urinal for an art exhibition in 1917. But I digress.

The point of today’s Mondaymotivator is that rules work. Rules that will guide us to do more than we thought possible and be more than we think we can be by ourselves.

I submit to you that if you find or come up with some rules and give them the authority that means you will follow them, you will be better. It might be rules of conduct or rules for fitness or health. Make them simple so you can stick to them. And give them authority by attaching emotion to the goals so that they become ‘must do’s’ for you.

I’ll give you an example of a must-do goal. One that emotionally drives you. Recently, we told my son off for swearing. He had taken some words he had heard from both myself and at school, remixed them and yelled them at his sister when he was frustrated with her. It wasn’t something we wanted him to continue to say so he was told to stop.

Later he came up to me, gave me a cuddle and asked me to stop swearing. I was taken aback, curious and asked him why. He said, “I don’t want to be told off for swearing.

Right! That struck me to my core. Here’s my 7 year old son asking me to be a better example for him.

Whoa!

So, I’d been working on not swearing but this request from him really struck a chord and gave a lot more authority to my rule of not swearing. I’m wanting to be the better example he wants me to be so he won’t swear. It’s working a lot faster than my initial goals.

Attaching emotion to your goals makes them a lot more powerful. You might not have a 7-year-old speaking truth to you but there will be a deeper meaning you can dig into and you will find it easier to stick to the rules that will guide you to a better life.

Make some rules today or find some others you can use that have worked for other people until you can create your own.

Have a great week.

Glenn from Spike.