50+ Timeless Rules For Living An Amazing Life

I turned 50 last year, and to celebrate the occasion, my incredible wife took me on a surprise get-away to Quebec City. While we were on the train to get there, the urge to write out some of the life lessons I’d learned over the years struck me. I guess I felt that 50 years was a long enough time that I should have been able to accumulate some wisdom along the way.

My 51st birthday was last week, and that reminded me of this list -and that I’d not looked at it since publishing last year. So I figured it was time to revisit these “rules” and see if they still resonated with me. Did they still feel true? Were there new rules to add?

I thought I’d share my updated list.

Time is fleeting and scarce. But it is okay to savour and enjoy it. There is a bit of a tension here, where we look at time as the most important asset we have. We do so for good reason; there is no way to get more of it. Time is finite. But that doesn’t mean we need to be productive all the time. It is okay to just enjoy the moment. In fact, enjoying the moment is the whole point of life.
Change is hard. Change is tough to go through, even if it is a change that you long to make. Just because it is something you want doesn’t mean it will be easy to go through. Some people are more adept at navigating change than others, but everyone will struggle to deal with it to some extent. We need to be patient with ourselves and others navigating any type of change.
You get more of what you focus on. Where you direct your attention impacts what you see, so choosing where you direct your attention is critical. Changing where you direct your attention literally changes your world. Choosing where you will direct your attention is one of the most important choices you make in life.
Small, repeated actions over a consistent time yields much better results than occasional massive effort. The way to get big things done is a bit at a time, consistently. We think we’ll accomplish hard things by making massive efforts, but that is not how it works. Major works are delivered a little piece at a time, consistently over a long time period.
You are responsible for everything in your life. If you aren’t happy with something in your life, it is up to you to fix it. No one else will. Stop waiting for the government to fix it, for your boss to help you, or for your spouse to change. You are the only one with the true power to change your life. If there’s something wrong in your life, it’s because of you. Stop playing the role of the victim and go fix whatever the issue is.
The most important relationship you have is with yourself. Yet most of us speak to ourselves in ways we would never speak to anyone else. Stop doing that and treat yourself as if you are your own best friend, because you should be. If you can’t love yourself, you can’t properly love others.
Conformity is a mistake. Society teaches us to be uniform, to think like others, to fit neatly into pre-defined boxes. When we are young, we do everything we can to find our crowd and fit in. But what allows us to bring the most to the table is to fully be ourselves. True beauty emerges when we fully embrace our uniqueness. Be boldly you; there’s no one that will be better at it than you.
Others aren’t thinking about you as much as you think. We worry a lot about what other people think of us, when the truth is they don’t think about us much at all. People are busy living their own life, trying their best to figure out their own shit. They don’t have the time or energy to put much attention to what you are doing. Stop worrying about what others think of you, because they aren’t.
Fear and excitement are often the same thing. We think that fear and excitement are different, but they are closely linked. We often mistake the feeling of excitement for fear, as they feel the same to us. Think about it; when you are excited about doing something, your heart races and you get those butterflies in your stomach. You also get those same sensations when you are terrified of something. Consider that maybe what you are interpreting as fear is actually excitement. Use your fear as a signal of something that you need to do, a pointer towards a hero’s quest for you to undertake. Living fully requires you to face your dragon head-on.
Goals will take longer to accomplish than you think. This is called the planning fallacy, where we plan things as if everything will go perfectly. Anyone with much life experience knows that things rarely go perfectly. Being optimistic is typically helpful, but not when developing plans. Allow time and space for things to go wrong, because they inevitably will.
The best way to be an interesting person is to live an interesting life. People often wonder how to engage other people in conversation, feeling they don’t know what to say. It boils down to having meaningful experiences in life. No one wants to hear from you if all you did was work all day; how boring! Instead, do interesting things, even if they are small.
Having energy is much more valuable than having time. If you have time on your hands but low energy levels, you can’t fully capitalize on the time. If you are full of energy, you can do a lot in a short time. Prioritize things that give you energy; managing energy levels is more important than managing time.
The point of a goal isn’t to achieve it. The real reason behind setting goals is to guide you to how you should invest your time, energy, and attention. By setting a goal, you learn what skills you need to learn, what habits to form, and what systems and processes to establish. Having goals is a way of prioritizing what activities are most important at this point in your life.
People want the same basic things. We like to think of ourselves as very different from everyone else. To some extent, we are. But we are all after the same things; it is just our approaches that differ. We all want the same basic things; to feel secure, to give and receive love, to have an overall sense of contentment with life, to feel that we matter. The more you help others have these basic things, the more you will feel you have them yourself.
Hard work alone will not guarantee success. Instead, it increases your odds of success. You aren’t likely to be really successful without hard work, but just working hard is not enough. You also need to have some luck thrown in.
Life is nuanced and complex. There are very few things in the world that are black or white; there are levels of nuance to everything. Life is a complicated mess with more variables than we imagine. Most things are not this OR that, but this AND that; they are different shades of grey instead of black or white. So stop being so sure of yourself and how right you are.
Designing your life > living your life. Many people bounce through life, just living it. This is a mistake. You shouldn’t expect to get the life you want just by chance; the odds are terrible. You need to be intentional about it, and craft a life that you love to live. Be intentional about what you want and then design your life accordingly. Don’t leave it to chance.
Most things matter WAY less than you think. Stop taking yourself so seriously. Life is to be enjoyed. Ask yourself if the reason you are so upset right now will matter at all in 5 years. Or 50 years. Or 500 years. If you’re honest, you’ll admit it makes no difference at all.
Asking questions is one of the best ways to be smart. People are afraid of asking questions, as they don’t want to look stupid. So they keep quiet. Without asking questions, you can’t learn. Chance are that there are others confused as well. Don’t be shy to ask questions; people love to explain! It is the best way to learn, and rather than judge you for asking, others will feel relieved you asked.
Sometimes rules need to be broken. But sometimes they need to be followed. It takes wisdom to discern the difference. Rules develop over time, and sometimes they stop making sense. Before deciding to break a rule, consider what the spirit of the rule is. What was the intent? If you are respecting the intent of the rule, it may make sense to break it. The key to breaking any rule is to be ready to face the full consequences of doing so.
Focus on your strengths rather than trying to correct your weaknesses. Too many people try to work on their weaknesses. You should only work on weaknesses if they are “fatal flaws” (things that will have a huge detrimental impact on your life). Instead of trying to develop areas of weakness that you have little aptitude or interest in, surround yourself with people to support you in those areas. Or develop systems and processes to help compensate. And then double-down on your strengths.
Work is not something to be escaped from. Many feel the need to escape the working world, longing to be wealthy enough to not need to work. But in order to live fully, we need something meaningful to pursue. A life of nothing but leisure will quickly lead to trouble. The goal shouldn’t be to be done with working, but to have the freedom to do the work you want, with the people you want to do it with. If you aren’t actively contributing to making things better, you’re in the process of dying.
You have enough time. Stop saying (and believing) you don’t. That is nothing more than an excuse. What you mean when you say you don’t have time is that you don’t know how to prioritize. Or that you are scared that you’ll fail and people will judge you. Or maybe you lack clarity about what to do. But you have time.
Responding > reacting. Many people spend a lot of energy and cycles worrying about things they cannot possibly control. Instead, focus on how you respond to things in your life. This is one of the few areas that you actually have control over. Responding is much preferable to reacting.
You can’t wait for motivation to strike before you start. That is backwards. Just get started, and the motivation to continue will arrive. This is Newton’s first law of motion; an object at rest will stay at rest unless a force acts against it. Stop waiting for inspiration; that’s for amateurs.
You don’t discover who you are. Instead, you create your identity through your actions. People resist this idea, as it puts a tremendous responsibility on their shoulders. It is much easier to blame others for where you are at in life, rather than accepting that you create your identity. But knowing that you create your identity gives you the power to shape it as you wish.
Being an asshole is expensive. While it is free to be nice to people, treating them poorly is expensive. Not only does it make them feel bad if you treat someone poorly, but you are setting your world up with negativity. Nothing good arises from negativity. You are hurting yourself by treating others poorly, so don’t be a jerk. Treat people right.
Achieving a goal is not that important, but becoming someone that achieves goals matters a lot. The genuine power of achieving a goal is in crafting your identity as someone that can accomplish things. When you set a goal and then achieve it, you prove to yourself (and others) that you are someone that can get stuff done. Having a belief in your ability to accomplish things is a super-power.
You can get away with ignoring more things than you realize. We all get caught up in things that don’t really matter, and waste energy and cycles caught up in them. By not engaging with these things, they evaporate like a fog in the morning sun.
Health is by far the most important thing. If you don’t have your health, nothing else seems to matter. Yet when we feel stress or pressure, one of the first things we drop is taking care of ourselves. Be very cautious about doing this; you can’t rely on it as a long-term strategy. If you have a lot of money, an incredible job, or an amazing relationship but poor health, you are in trouble. None of those matter compared to your health, so invest in protecting it.
We don’t appreciate the power of compounding. We know that investing earlier leads to more money because of compound interest. But we forget the power of compounding relating to our daily actions; how much we exercise, how we eat, how we treat people. These actions also compound over time and have a massive impact on our quality of life. Remember that this cuts both ways; a bad habit done repeatedly also has a compounding effect.
Always follow your curiosity. If you are interested in something, learn about it. We put more attention on things we feel we can monetize or on things where we see an immediate concrete benefit. Curiosity is one of the best indications of something you should invest in exploring.
Persistence is not always a virtue. It can also be a tremendous problem. When trying to do something meaningful, it will be hard at first. It may require you to persist, to keep trying. But sometimes we need to realize that we are pushing against a door that is locked, and it doesn’t matter how hard we push — it will not open for us. It may mean that this is not your path, or at least it’s not right for you right now. It takes wisdom and honest introspection to know if you are giving up because you feel frustrated or scared, or if you realize that it just isn’t right for you.
Only compare yourself to who you were before. There will always be someone who is better looking, has more money, has a cooler job title, or has a nicer house than you. But there is no one better at being you. As long as you feel good about your growth and the trajectory you’re on, that is enough. Being proud of how you’ve grown and who you’ve become is what matters.
The concept “I will be happy when…” is complete bullshit. Setting goals and working hard to achieve them is a great idea. But not if you will not enjoy the process. Accomplishing challenging things feels great, but the feeling is fleeting. Happiness is a temporary state. You’ll quickly adapt to your new situation and the happiness you’ll feel for achieving your goal will wear off. You will always strive towards the next level. Enjoying the process matters much more than achieving the result.
Smiles are contagious, but so is negativity. If you want to have more happiness, positivity, and optimism in your world, smile more and complain less. Such a simple hack to live that can exponentially increase your sense of satisfaction in life.
You can’t run away from your problems. What you see as problems in your environment are reflections of your interior world, and that interior world goes with you wherever you go. The only way through is to change your interior world, to tell yourself and others a different story about who you are. Instead of running away from something, you need to run towards something better – by updating how your internal world.
Having clarity about what you want from your life is one of the most important things you can do. Yet few people have this clarity, nor even set time aside to allow themselves to imagine what they might want. Calm yourself down and think about what you really want. If you don’t have a clear vision for the life you want for yourself, you’re flying blind – so you’re going to crash.
Writing is a tool for thinking. I often thought of writing as a tool for communications, which it is.But it is also a tool for thinking, forcing you to clarify your thoughts. To improve one’s ability to write is to improve one’s ability to think. Being able to think more clearly is highly valuable. So write more.
You will change more than you think. When imagining the future, and making long-term plans for yourself, keep in mind that everything will change more than you think it will. That the world will undergo a lot of change is intuitive to most people. But most people underestimate how much they will change as well. What matters most to you and the things you believe today are likely to change. Understand and accept that you’ll be a completely different person in the future.
Being busy is lazy. It is very easy to spend all your time flailing around doing stuff that doesn’t really matter. Any chump can do that. But it is not helpful. The world needs you to do the hard things you are here to do.
Be careful about what you compromise on. We can’t do everything, so life is about continuously making compromises with other people (and with yourself). The ability to negotiate with others and make trade-offs is a critical skill for getting stuff done. But you need to be very careful about what compromises you make. Understand what is non-negotiable for you and have the backbone to stick to it. Regret and resentment are tough to deal with, and you will feel them deeply if you compromise on the wrong things.
Being healthy is about more than eating well and exercising. There are three components to health; physical health, mental health, and spiritual health. Being truly healthy requires having health in all three domains. Build practices and habits to protect and promote all of them.
Everyone is flawed, including your heroes. Stop beating yourself up because you aren’t perfect. No one is perfect, not even your heroes. Even the greatest people of all time were flawed, many of them considerably so.
Execution matters more than information. Information is no longer power. It used to be the case that information was scarce and not distributed. Being “in the know” was a key to success. This is no longer true; information is everywhere. Being able to curate the information and to act on it is much more important today. No one is going to “steal your idea”; ideas are everywhere. Turning good ideas into something useful – execution – is what matters.
Value doing > planning. Planning is useful and important. But many people spend too much time planning and not enough time executing. When you execute, you will encounter the things you never expected and hadn’t planned for. As Mike Tyson said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.” Being able to adapt plans to reality based on experience is the key.
Comfort is the enemy of success. One of the biggest enemies of a glorious life is a comfortable life. While success is wonderful, it is a double-edged sword. Success can lull you into a false sense of security. You shift from going after what you want to protecting what you’ve got. You stop growing, thinking that you’ve got things figured out. Too much comfort leads to stagnation. If you’re comfortable and coasting, prepare yourself for the fall; it’s coming.
Thinking is productive. The most productive time is when I do nothing but sit and think. It feels like I’m not doing anything useful, but it is one of the best investments one can make with their time. Sometimes you need to stop cutting long enough to sharpen the saw. Spend more time thinking.
Events are neither positive nor negative. Your reaction and interpretation are. You can be positive or negative about any situation. It is not the situation that is bad or good. Instead, it is a choice you make about how to interpret things.
Your limits are self-imposed and temporary. Just because you can’t do something now does not mean that you can’t learn how to do it. Your current identity can — and will — change. Your limits are determined by three things; how willing you are to look like a fool, your level of confidence in your ability to learn and grow, and your willingness to invest in yourself.
Take nothing for granted. If you take something for granted for too long, it will disappear. Pay attention and take care of the things and the people that are important to you. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of not fully appreciating the amazing things you have in your life. If you don’t take proper care of them, they may not be there when you need them.
There will always be drama. But you can always choose to ignore it.
You can change the past. How you remember and interpret past events can — and does — change with time. If your perception of your experiences isn’t changing, you are not growing. Each time you recall the past, you can look at it through a different lens. By looking at it differently, you assign different meaning to it. You get to choose the interpretation of past events that suits your needs.
Slow is faster. Fast is slower. When you rush, or try to take shortcuts, getting a quality result almost always takes more time and effort. Slow down. By slowing yourself down and working methodically, you make fewer errors. You see more clearly what you need to do. And the efforts that you put forth count for more.
You can choose the quality of the problems you face. You cannot live a life that is problem-free; that doesn’t exist. However, you can impact the type of problems that you get to face. By increasing your ability to respond effectively to more interesting problems, you’ll get to face more of that type, and less of the more mundane problems.

I refined this list a bit this year, realizing that there was a bit of overlap between some of these observations. I also tweaked some of the wording to be more clear, and added one more principle. But overall, I found that these all still resonated with me.

As a student of life, I am always seeking to learn and further develop myself. I don’t think any of the principles I’ve articulated here are anything new, but they are things I’ve learnt the hard way. Writing them out and sharing them is the simple part; fully integrating them into my daily life is the challenge, and one that I continue to work towards.

I hope you found them useful. And please let me know if you have any other guiding principles you feel I’ve missed!

Quotation that I’ve been pondering

This is a simply beautiful passage from the playwright George Bernard Shaw.

“I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatsoever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no ‘brief candle’ to me; it is a sort of splendid torch which I’ve got a hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”

If this doesn’t inspire you, I don’t know what will.

Journal prompt

How much of your day is spent doing things out of obligation rather than out of interest? And if you’re not happy with the answer, what small changes might you introduce to allow you more of the latter?