12 Growth Habits from the 12 Rules for Life

Yeah I just turned the rules into growth habits.

One book I read last year that I enjoyed reading was 12 Rules for Life by Jordan Peterson (not an affiliate link, I really love the book and the link is for you if you want to get it as well!). I definitely recommend that you give it a read if you get to! They contain 12 rules… for life (obviously)

This blog post is about the 12 rules turned into growth habits. The 12 rules that were mentioned are all about principles to live by daily to become the best version of yourself.

Habits are supposed to be automatic in your life, meaning that you do them without even thinking about it.

You don’t have to think of these things as “rules” because you make them a part of your life, you don’t even have to think about it anymore.

And the 12 Rules mentioned in the book make really good growth habits that are definitely worth making automatic in your life.

Let’s get into it:

1. Posture is Key

To be honest, I feel a bit hypocritical to write this, because I struggled with poor posture for years.

It took me some time to finally realise that I should go to a chiropractor. My posture improved… my goodness I felt so much better. Not just physically, but an increase in my confidence.

The chapter in the 12 Rules for Life, the first rule was Stand up Straight with Your Shoulders Back. And it relates a lot about posture.

Because when my posture improved, I obviously had my shoulders back more, I was standing straight… I was looking up more. I felt more confident!

Whereas when my posture wasn’t like that, I felt insecure, it affected the way that I looked at myself.

This chapter of the 12 Rules for Life was right! Your posture signals to yourself how you see others and how you view yourself. If you slouch, you see yourself as being defeated by others, and have lower confidence. If you stand up straight with your shoulders back, you feel better, and you show that confidence.

If posture is something you struggle with, definitely go to a chiropractor or another expert (I’m not an expert on what expert you should go to), to help you fix it. I went to a chiropractor for 6 months and my posture improved greatly. I felt so much better because first, I was hardly experiencing any neck and back pain. But also, I was feeling a lot more confident with myself and the people around me.

2. Treat yourself like someone you’re responsible for helping

This one is one of my favourite chapters to read because it really opened my eyes to how I was actually treating myself.

Believe it or not, many of us are better at taking care of other people and keeping the promises we make to other people, than to ourselves. As a result, we may be neglecting ourselves daily by not taking care of our physical and mental health, and not following through on what we say that we are going to do.

And honestly the reason for that is probably because you lack your self-worth. I did question if I should keep that last sentence I wrote, but I am going to keep it because it was 100% true for me. I am more than willing to go above and beyond to help someone else, and keep my promises to them, because I never want to disappoint them.

However, when it came to me, I “walked over” myself. I would make promises but then when convenient, decide not to keep them. Looking back it wrecked my self-image as a whole. Looking back, I lacked self-worth because I didn’t believe that I was worth helping.

That’s something that has to change if you’re also experiencing that same thing. You have to believe that you are worth taking care of, and that you’re the first person that you need to take care of. If you wouldn’t dare to disappoint someone else, why would you disappoint yourself? You wouldn’t dare to neglect your responsibility for someone else, why would you do that to yourself?

If we think about it, it’s clear that we need to be taking care of ourselves first anyway. There’s a reason why during the safety demonstration on airplanes, during an emergency when we need to put on our oxygen mask, we need to put our own one first, before we help another person. Same thing with an every day example, where we need to take care of ourselves first before we can take care of another person.

3. Make friends with people who want the best for you

I’ll admit, I tried to put off the rule “you are the average of the five people you surround yourself with” for a long time. I didn’t believe it for a long time. I refused to believe it, because I didn’t think it was true.

In reality, deep down, I knew it was true but I didn’t want to believe it was true, because the five people I was surrounding myself with, wasn’t the people that I would want to become eventually. I underestimated the power of who I associated with and hung around for a long time, and it’s about time I learned that lesson.

Here’s why it’s in fact very accurate – how many stories have you heard where someone gave into the peer pressure of doing something they didn’t want to do?

It was who they surrounded themselves with.

How likely is someone who is around people who have bad habits and vices going to do the same exact thing?

Highly likely.

Okay maybe I’m a bit dramatic here, but how would someone’s self-image be if they surrounded themselves with people who drag them down, and don’t take responsibility for their actions? How would this person be if they surrounded themselves with people who don’t want to be helped?

It’s highly likely, because they surrounded themselves with those types of people… they are soon going to mirror those actions.

BUT what if they were surrounded by people who had good habits and goals in their life? How likely is that someone going to be peer pressured into instilling those good habits and having goals?

Highly likely, because of who they surround themselves with.

Surrounding yourself with people who not only have high value for themselves with their habits and goals, but also people who support you and encourage you to succeed is the ultimate peer pressure we need. The people that we want to surround ourselves with are the people who push us to become the best version of ourselves, and will stop us from doing any negative self-talk to ourselves and putting ourselves down…. how beneficial is that peer pressure?

Truthfully, everyone is “peer pressured”, but the more important question is if it’s a positive peer pressure, or negative peer pressure.

4. Compare yourself to who you were yesterday, not to who someone else is today

This is my all time favourite quote from 12 Rules for Life that I have screenshot many times, no matter how many times I’ve already seen it.

Let’s face it, with easy access to social media (really, any sort of media), it’s easy to compare yourself to other people. I mean, you Instagram newfeed is the lives of other people. Your Facebook newsfeed is the lives of other people. There’s so much room to compare yourself to other people. We’ll put the clear truth out here.

Social media is very, very…. I mean very unrealistic in many ways.

You probably know the obvious reason, which is that “everything is not what is seems on social media”. That’s true, but there’s another reason.

Everyone has different goals.

Different plans.

Different paths.

And they are all different people.

When you view it like this, comparing yourself to other people is practically pointless.

We all have our own goals, plans, paths, and we are different in any way… honestly, what is the point of comparing ourselves to other people.

I made that realisation too, I compared myself to other people. I compared my timeline to other people. I compared my own blog experience to someone who had 15 years + of blog experience.

Because all of that is pointless, the best thing we could do for ourselves is to:

Have our OWN goals.

Have our OWN plans.

Have our OWN path.

And just be our OWN self.

Live our daily lives, just deal with what we can control, and the only thing we compare ourselves to, are the the people we were the day before.

When you just reflect on how you can be better than yesterday, and you can be a better self today, you’ll be surprised about how other people aren’t really a matter anymore because you’re too busy focusing on yourself.

5. Don’t Let Yourself Do Anything, that if someone else did it, you would dislike them.

Okay, the original chapter was don’t let your children do anything that makes you dislike them. But because I don’t have children, I switched this one up to become more of a growth habit.

But the concepts from that chapter remain the same.

Unlike children, we already know the boundaries of behavior, and what is acceptable and unacceptable. We already know, by common sense, what are correct and incorrect boundaries of behaviour. We know that if we saw someone else do what is unacceptable and have incorrect boundaries of their behaviour, they are not someone that we will like.

It’s the same concept as “treat other people how you want to be treated” and “if you don’t want someone to do that to you, don’t do that to someone else”.

If another person who talks bad about someone else makes you dislike that person, then don’t do the same.

If someone with bad manners makes you dislike them, then don’t do the same.

If someone who is rude to waiters and only respects people with “higher positions” makes you dislike them, then… why would you do the same?

I know that everyone has different beliefs and morals about many things. What one person may believe, a person doesn’t believe. What one person may believe is right based on their belief, a person doesn’t believe it at all. BUT regardless of what anyone’s beliefs are, we can strongly assume that everyone wants respect, people to be polite, to be valued, to have good communication… I could go on and on with the list of qualities, but those are qualities that people want from other people regardless of the differing beliefs and morals.

Like, regardless of your beliefs, you don’t want to be gossiped about, you don’t want to interact with people who have bad manners and are rude to waiters.

If you don’t want to be disrespected, left uncertain because of lack of communication, or talked about, then don’t do those very things to other people. Don’t do something yourself that if someone else did it, you would dislike them.

6. Put Your House in Order

Okay, put your house in order is a bit of a metaphor. It can be applied in three ways.

First, Put your house in order is about working on your internal self before you begin to point fingers towards the outside world.

Say for example someone didn’t pass their exam, putting their house in order would mean reflecting on if there was anything that they could’ve done better to pass the exam, and if there is anything that they should do to improve. They do this before they start pointing fingers at the teacher, the marker, and the creator of the exam.

Applying this to everything else, before you point fingers at everything external, have you reflected on what’s internal? Are you actually reflecting on what you could’ve done before you point fingers at what someone else could’ve done?

Another way that put your house in order could be applied to is working on your internal self in general. Working on whether you’re living through your values, and whether your schedule is filled with what you claim are your priorities.

Is there something that you’re doing that you know is wrong? Stop it now. Is there something you’ve been putting on your schedule has nothing to do with your priorities? Consider switching it around.

Then the last thing that it could be applied to is whether the things you physically say to yourself and to other people, align with your values. Whether the things you say make you feel proud, rather than feeling ashamed. Are you speaking highly of people or putting down people? Are you saying good things about yourself, or putting yourself down? Speak of yourself and of others the way that you would respect someone of higher figure.

7. Pursue What is Meaningful

This is all about pursuing something, with the mindset that it is to help other people, more than it will help you.

By pursuing something that will contribute to the world, it gives your life a purpose and a meaning.

While we should definitely pursue something that we genuinely love doing and want to do, we have to remember that at the end of the day, the true fulfillment comes from using that passion to help other people.

You begin to go and achieve your long term goals, rather than fall into the instant gratification trap of wanting things now. Because life isn’t about giving into our short-term temptations. If we want our life to have meaning, there must be something that we aiming to achieve that is going to influence people for the better.

If you’re stuck on what you should pursue, that is okay. Think about how you can contribute to the world and make it better today, even if it’s just a small act of kindness. Think about what the world needs right now. Think about what people need right now. More compassion? More care? More respect? Even if it’s just as small as smiling at people you walk past today, that counts as a contribution.

Before you know it, whether you are pursuing a big passion of yours, or just doing daily small acts of kindness… or even both, you discover more of who you are, you get a bigger picture of who you are to become. You see that when you pursue things that are meaningful daily, you will put off what is meaningless.

8. Tell the Truth

Okay, I know this is a bit of an obvious one.

But there is more deeper meaning in the 12 Rules for Life.

There are many ways that someone could lie…

Lie to others to get what they want.

Lie to themselves.

Lies about how much they enjoy their job even though they really don’t.

Lies about whether they are capable of something.

Lies about a bad habit not really being bad for you.

As you can see, we’re not just talking about the full-blown obvious big lies. We’re also talking about the little lies that may not seem big in the moment, but tell them to ourselves enough time, we would make it a bigger thing than it should be.

Telling lies isn’t just about hiding a big secret. It’s also about saying one thing, and knowing deep down that it’s inconsistent with our morals, values, and beliefs.

Telling lies isn’t just about people hiding their crimes or their mistakes, it’s also about saying one thing to make yourself feel better about the truth.

And when it comes to telling the truth, it’s more than just NOT telling a lie.

Telling the truth is also living your life by your true self… your personal truth.

Telling the truth is living your life consistent with your beliefs, values, and morals.

Telling the truth is listening to your inner voice on what’s right and not right.

Telling the truth is also taking responsibility, accepting the reality, and then being proactive to resolve it.

So don’t live your life “through a lie”, live your life through the truth… through what makes you, you.

9. Assume that the person you are listening to might know something you don’t.

I honestly dare you to walk into a restaurant and listen into two people having a conversation… notice if they are actually listening to each other.

To be honest, this was what someone else said when they were talking about the importance of effective listening.

He began telling this story about how we walked into a restaurant, listened to two people’s conversations (not because he was eavesdropping, but because of how the conversation was), and he saw how those two people just simply took turns talking.

And what did he mean by that they just took turns talking? Well, when one person was talking, the other person was thinking about what he was going to say. How did this person know this? Well, when it was the other person’s turn to talk, it had nothing to do with what the first person was talking about.

How many of us are guilty of thinking about what we’re going to say next while the other person is talking?

Maybe we’re just afraid of the silence on what we’re going to say next.

Maybe we’re going to be afraid that we will forget what we want to say.

But guess what? That’s fine!

Effective listening is more than just listening to what another person is saying.

Effective listening is actually another way that you can help the other person who is speaking. Sometimes all that person needs is to keep talking. Sometimes all you need to do is say nothing and simply listen. You know how many times I love it when the person I’m talking to just lets me talk? I like that person even more because of how they are such a good listener… that’s why I make sure to do the same to others.

And here’s the most effective listening technique that I love it when other people do this… summarise what I just talked about. That really shows me that they were really listening! I appreciate them and the conversation even more.

Of course, the things people do that make me like them and enjoy having a conversation with them, I make sure that I do the same with other people. Because honestly, you’ve got to assume that what they’re going to say, you know nothing about.

If you take the time to just listen to someone without interrupting them, you may be able to hear interesting experiences, or different things that they have learned in their life.. You may hear about something funny or something valuable. You may hear about the challenges they went through and what they overcome. You’ve got to assume that they know something that you have no clue about.

10. Be Precise with Your Speech

I read this part as another metaphor, meaning be precise and clear with everything.

First, if we’re taking that metaphor literally, being precise with your speech means being clear with what you’re saying.. it’s quite obvious.

But when we’re looking at it from a metaphor perspective, we want to be precise and clear with everything.

12 Rules for Life mentioned this very eye opening rhetorical question that sums this point up clearly:

If you had cancer in your body, wouldn’t you want to know where it is so you know exactly how to treat it?

Why don’t you do the same with every other problem in your life?

I’ll admit, there may be times where we face challenge where the first thing we want to do is avoid them. But who says that avoiding your problems is a good solution?

When we really look into our problem, we look at what exactly is happening, and maybe why it’s happening, instead of letting us fall into a trap where we dread them, we learn from it and see how we can resolve it.

But the most important part here is that we need to be clear. We need clarity, because we can’t solve something we know nothing about.

Then another way that this metaphor can be used is being precise in what you want. Especially if they are big goals and dreams of yours. Your goals need to be specific and clear. You need to know what you want because you want to make sure you’re doing the right thing to get it. Read my blog post on setting goals (not just New Years!) to get a full break down on knowing exactly what you want.

11. Leave people alone… mind your own business

The original point for leave children alone while they are skateboarding, but we changed this into just mind your own business.

(I mean if you have children, the chapter is worth reading and quite eye opening so I definitely reccomend you check it out!)

It’s funny how many people get themselves involved into other people’s lives even though 99% of the time it’s none of their business.

One obvious example is when news articles or magazines publications just seem to get whatever they can on a particular celebrity based on a picture or some gossip. Sometimes they take celebrities’ posts out of context and turn it into a story that is so bizzare it’s obvious that it’s not true.

Yes I know that it’s their job to find things about celebrities to write articles on, but for other people who don’t work in the publications industry….they do the exact same thing.

Except it’s not on celebrities (or maybe it is). It’s on the lives of other people, whether they know them fully or not. Society has gotten some people to want to know every juicy detail and gossip of other people’s lives and be quick to judge them.

There are many reasons why people share and gossip, but at the end of the day is other people’s business really our business?

Maybe the person we’re talking about is in the wrong, but is that any of our business?

Maybe that person we’re talking about is about to make a clear stupid choice, but is that any of our business?

Maybe it is to our extent but at the of the day, it’s that other person’s choice not ours.

So yeah, just leave people alone and let them handle their business. If they know how to toughen up and deal with whatever may come their way then there’s nothing to worry about. If they have no intention to grow and become better people then that’s fine… it’s not our business.

12. Pet a cat when you encounter one on the street

AKA life isn’t always fair.

Let’s break down what this actually means.

This a pill that took me a while to swallow – life isn’t fair.

Life is tougher for people who don’t deserve it.

Good people get good things, but they also get hurt. They may accomplish great things, but they can also suffer. Bad people may get hurt and suffer too, but they also can have good things going for them.

Now, we can go and blame anyone and everything for this. We can question all we want, but at the end of the day, it’s not going to do anything.

We have to accept that losing, failing, and setbacks are part of our lives and all we can do is just learn from it and know what to do better next time.

And honestly, how many motivational stories have you heard where everything was all perfect? In fact, if you heard a person share their story on how everything was all perfect and they didn’t go through anything, you’d switch it off right away.

The best thing to do with this is to live a life of gratitude no matter what. Live in the moment. Allow ourselves to feel our emotions whether happy or sad. Work on improving ourselves and our ability to walk through life challenges… that’s what we can control. We can’t control what happens to other people and we can’t control what happens next for us, but we can control our responses.

Ultimate “Rule for Life” – it’s your journey at the end of the day

Here’s one that I’ll include with… no matter what happens to the lives of other people, you’re the one that is stuck with your journey.

That’s why since it’s your journey, you’re the one that needs to make it worthwhile. You’re going to need to be the one to discover your passion that will help the world. You’re going to be the one who will build up good habits that will benefit them in the long term. It’s your journey after all.

You’re sticking with you for the rest of your life, no matter how involved you are with someone else’s, and how involved they are with your life. You only have you. Stay kind to yourself.

Take things one step at a time if you need to. Move forward to your growth even if it’s just small steps. Get better every day even if it’s just 1%. The more times you do it, you’ll see the difference.

-Lauren 😊

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