Just as you can identify behaviors that make some people glide effortlessly onward and upward at work, so you can in life. Observing life in general, people very broadly seem to fall into two main camps: those who seem to have mastered the knack of successful living, and those who still find it all a bit of a struggle.
1. Keep It under Your Hat
There may well be times when you do want to talk to other people about what you’re doing because, quite naturally, you want to share it with somebody. Well, you can’t and you don’t. Let people find out for themselves with no clues from you.
You may think this unfair, but it is actually fairer than you believe. If you tell them, they’ll shy away. And quite rightly so-we all hate being preached at.
2. You’ll get Older but Not Necessarily Wiser
There is an assumption that as we get older we will get wiser; not true, we’re afraid. But we can carry on being just as foolish, still making plenty of mistakes. It’s just that we make new ones, different ones. We do learn from experience and may not make the same mistakes again, but there is a whole new pickle jar of fresh ones just lying in wait for us to trip up and fall into.
3. Accept Yourself
If you accept that what’s done is done, you are left with yourself exactly as you are. You can’t go back and change anything, so you’ve got to work with what you’ve got. We’re not suggesting anything New Age here such as love yourself-that’s far too ambitious. No, let’s begin with simply accepting. Accepting is easy because it is exactly what it says-accepting. You don’t have to improve or change or strive for perfection. Quite the opposite – Just accept.
That means accepting all warts and emotional lumps and bumps, the bad parts, the weaknesses, and the rest of it.
4. Know What Count and What Doesn’t
Being here counts! Being kind and considerate counts. Getting through each day without seriously offending anyone or hurting anyone counts! Having the latest technology doesn’t.
Sorry, we don’t hate technology. In fact, we probably have pretty much all the latest gizmos. We just (a) don’t overly rely too upon much on any of it and (b) see them all as useful tools rather than having any intrinsic meaning in themselves, in a status symbol or one-up kind of way.
5. Commit your life to something worthy of it
To know what counts and what doesn’t, you have to know what you are dedicating your life to. There is, of course, no right or wrong answers to this one because it’s a very personal choice-but it’s really useful to have an answer, rather than not really knowing.
6. Don’t get stereotyped in your thinking
Once your thinking gets crystallized, rigid, and formed, you’ve lost the battle. Once you think you have all the answers, you might as well hang up your boots. Once you get set in your ways, you’re already part of history.
To get the most out of life, you have to keep all your options open, keep your thinking and life flexible. You have to be ready to roll as the storm breaks-and, by trying, it always breaks when you least expect it.
7. Leave the confinement of your environment
You may be wondering why this is here and not in with the ones in the section about the world. Well, this one is about you. Taking an interest in the outside world is about developing you, rather than for the world’s benefit. We’re not suggesting you have to watch the news constantly, but by reading , listening, and talking, we keep abreast of what is happening.
Successful Rules Players don’t get bogged down by the minutiae of their own lives; they don’t live in a tiny bubble.
8. Choice your Angel and not their beast
Every single day of our lives we are faced with an immense number of choices, be it in form of choosing study options, choosing university/colleges, choosing business idea, or anything else. And each and every one of them usually boils down to a simple choice between being on the side of the angels or the beasts. Which are you going to pick? Or did you not even realize what was going on? Let us explain. Every action we take has an effect on our family, people around us, society, and the world in general.
9. Never Stay Dead, ‘Cos Only Dead Fish Swim With the Stream
Life is difficult. And the Rule is to thank God* it is so. If it was all fluffy and easy, we wouldn’t be tested, tried, forged in the fire of life. We wouldn’t grow or le